We decided to head up to Kokadjo to visit with Dad, pick Raspberries (The best fruit ever) and to possibly kayak. This weekend was the start of August and it's near two week straight of warm weather- nearly the first all Summer. The weather was 78 with mostly clear blue skies and sporadic southern breeze.
We arrived to the camp at around 2PM, talked for a few minutes and then Dad brought us into an area that had a lot of Raspberries; and area that I wanted to show Robin as she has never visited Big Lyford Pond. We started picking in an area that look like it had been cleared (trees cut down) a few years ago and the trees, plant life, etc. Within an hour we had about a quart of berries between the both of us, we moved on to a similar area down the road and continued picking until Robin came across fresh Bear poop and moved further down the road where we found a good sized berry patch as well as blue berries. Altogether we picked about 3 quarts of Raspberries and a 1/2 cup of Blueberries after about 2 hours- normally in that time frame we'd pick about 6 quarts or so.
Second half of the entry:
Robin packed a large picnic for us; enough to fill our medium sized Igloo Playmate cooler so instead of eating in our car or somewhere in the woods I told her we would drive further down the road and eat in our kayaks on Big Lyford Pond. When we arrived at the parking area cleared out bushel/clearing we unloaded our kayaks, put our gear (cameras, food, camera covers, etc) in the hull the kayaks and carried them further down the bridge and over what used to be a bridge now a narrow walkway and into the woods which was roughly 1/4 mile of roots, ledge and mud.
Upon arriving we met a few people just leaving and a Cow Moose in the pond about half way out. I loaded my kayak with my gear and Robin helped me in (she usually helps me in because of the amount of gear I have) and then Robin loaded her kayak with the food and her gear. We set off towards to Cow at a slow pace; she would look up at us, listening while chewing roots and grass she would pull up from underwater. I sat and watched the Cow while Robin explored another area as she was afraid to get too close to her. A friendly Loon (may have been the male luring me away from its young) kept swimming around the Cow and between Robin and I. On our way up through Greenville I saw a sign depicting a Moose and Loon side-by-side- a nice sign however I thought to myself, "I bet something like that never happens in real-life." The next thing that Loon did was swim behind the Moose and flap its wings and then swam right in front of the Cow with her looking at the Loon. I know God was saying, "Really? Here you go." A few minutes later while happening to snap off a few more photos Robin was to the right of me near the shoreline attempting to take a photo of a family of Mergansers when she had scared them off the happened to fly by behind the Cow as a took a shot, I thought that was neat. I made a Bull grunt noise to get the Cow to look at me, she apparently did not like that- she looked up, turned around and started to head for the shore, she grunted loudly which motivated me to move away quickly. I happened to turn around and see her shake water off of her.
Robin and I headed to one corner of the pond where small boulders lay at bed of the shoreline, docked our kayaks next to them and sat side-by-side in our kayaks to eat our lunch. The view was beautiful, a small pond surrounded by mountains in the middle of nowhere. We relaxed as we ate and took in the sun and sound of wildlife. The last time I was out on this body of water was when I was around 8 years old, with my father, fly fishing. On our way back to the truck we came across a Cow and her calf- the Cow chased my father and I through the woods- ever since then I had been reluctant to go back.
Later on in the evening my Aunt and Uncle came out on the water to fish and as the pond started to get more fishermen we decided to head back to camp a few miles away. We sat around the fireplace for awhile before making our way back home.