Wednesday -- January 2, 2019
Water Level at Little Falls: 6.6     Water Temperature: 45

The ferry is closed. It seems like soon I will be posting only on the rare occasion that the ferry is open. Ha Ha. Sadly it doesn't look like the ferry will be opening anytime soon.

The good thing is, why would anyone want to come to this flood-swept, dreary island anyway? The island has a strange, tidy look of having just been swept. Except for a few places where the driftwood has been lodged behind a picnic table or tree, the Island is swept clean. No weeds, no fallen leaves and no fallen branches littered everywhere. Now, when I look out I see nothing but brown mud, everywhere.

I bought the club three new door mats for Christmas. They look great with the new screen doors. Hopefully you will all be able to see them someday.

I had a nice treat this morning. A solitary female, common golden-eye duck swam by. It must be January.

Thursday -- January 3, 2019
Water Level at Little Falls: 6.4     Water Temperature: 45

Another huge sycamore tree has fallen. Another victim of this constantly high water. This tree was the one that was the closest to the Maryland shore upstream from the ferry, about half way to the top of the Island. It was sort of apart from the main Island and when the water is high, this tree would become it's own island surrounded by water. When it fell, it fell towards the Maryland shore reaching halfway across the channel. It fell on Sunday just before dark, and amazingly I was up at the top of the Island when it fell and I was able to watch it crash into the river. It was so strange, I heard some strange pounding noise so I looked across to the towpath to see several people walking and biking. No one seemed to be doing any pounding, but then I notice the giant tree start to slowly move downward. Then the pounding, or rather the sound of roots breaking, got really loud and I watched helplessly as the tree succumbed to gravity and splashed into the river. I wasn't the only one stunned by the event and I waved to several joggers and bikers that had also witnessed the sad spectacle. Now I worry about what is going to happen if this monster decides to start floating downstream and toward our ferry and all of our ropes and cables. It's tempting to paddle out there and begin trimming off all of it's extended branches.

Speaking of trees, we lost a couple more small trees to the beaver family. I don't mind when the beaver chew up the trees that are already fallen. I like it, in fact, that they are helping us to cut up the hackberry tree that fell a few months ago. But when they go and take down the young box elders that I was hoping would someday be shade trees down at fish camp, it just makes my blood boil. The troubling part is that even though the trees were protected by chicken wire the beaver still got 'em. When the river is high the chicken wire is submerged and the darn beaver can simply swim up for a easy tree-snack with no wires in sight.

It's remarkable to realize just how powerful these beaver are. I was out there this morning to discover the tracks from last night's work. It was evident by all of the wood chips on the ground that the beaver had chewed through a branch that was six inches in diameter and about eight feet long. Like I mentioned before, the ground has been cleared by the flooding so it was easy to see in the fresh sand which direction that the beaver headed. The beaver tried to drag it toward the Maryland shore but after about thirty feet of dragging, the beaver gave up and I could see exactly where he/she gave up and just chewed the bark off of it where it was. It's hard to imagine a beaver dragging a branch that must have been close to it's own weight. I might have to get up super early tomorrow to see if I can catch these overzealous workaholics in action.

Friday -- January 11, 2019
Water Level at Little Falls: 5.1     Water Temperature: 39

The ferry is closed today but we will be open tomorrow. First time in almost a month! Since the ferry will be open, we will have a chance to do a post-flood clean-up. The river was over 11 feet on December 16 so there is definitely some clean-up and organizing to do.

TOMORROW MORNING 10AM UNTIL 1 PM ISLAND CLEAN-UP!!

And if you are a reader of this log and not a member, I invite you to come down tomorrow too, only if you want to work that is.

I've been enjoying having the birds at the feeders and the woodpeckers are very active at the suet feeder. They really seem to need that extra fatty food in the winter when there are very few insects to eat. In the old days when I first started to feed the birds, I had to go to the butcher to ask for a slab of fat to feed the woodpeckers, but now they have pre-packaged suet blocks that you can buy at the bird store. The store-bought suet also has added seeds and nuts for a gourmet bird snack. The problem is that the squirrels and raccoons know about these treats and will stop at nothing to get them. Thankfully the geniuses at the bird store came up with a weapon to deter these mammalian thieves. They added hot cayenne pepper to the mix which doesn't bother the birds but it's too spicy for the mammal's taste buds. Or so we thought. The other morning I found the suet feeder broken open and the suet cake was gone. I repaired the feeder, made it more animal proof with wires and rehung it outside my window. Then, to my surprise, this morning there was not feeder at all! Wow, I guess the raccoons are from Thailand and like spicy food, or they are just so hungry that they don't care how much it burns. I know that it had to be the raccoons and not the squirrels since all this activity happened at night and the squirrels are strictly diurnal. I looked all over to find the empty suet feeder but so far no luck. Maybe the raccoon tried to wash it off and the feeder is at the bottom of the river.

Saturday -- January 12, 2019
Water Level at Little Falls: 4.9     Water Temperature: 38

Ferry is open.

Friday -- January 18, 2019
Water Level at Little Falls: 4.5     Water Temperature: 38

Here we go again. Verizon is planning to be here later today to deliver our fiber-optic cable. I'm not very optimistic that it will happen. I went back to see when it was that they first decided to attempt this installation. Coincidentally, the first appointment that I had with them was almost a year ago to the day! This saga began on January 20 2018.

Thanks to everyone that came out for our flood clean-up day that we had here last Saturday. I didn't send my volunteer email to the entire membership but most of those that got the email were here, awesome. It made me so happy to get the canoes and other things put away and secured before the snowfall came.

The snow was a nice change, it was nice to have the snow covering up all of that ugly brown mud. Plus, we got to ski on the towpath!

More crappy weather headed this way over the weekend but so far no flooding is predicted, so I guess the ferry will be open.

I know that many of you must have seen the beautiful painting that was on the front page of the Islander, painted by our own Penny Doolittle. I was so glad that the painting made it into the Islander and I was so impressed by Penny's work. It was so good that I could easily identify the Club members in the painting. I was lucky enough to run into Penny the other day. She has been missing her trips to the Island, like the rest of you she is frustrated by this record flooding. On a sad note, her husband, Dick, hasn't been doing well and is now living at a nursing home. Hang in there Dick!

The weather has been challenging but the cold has brought us more winter waterfowl, including a pair of hooded mergansers, sweet.

Monday -- January 28, 2019
Water Level at Little Falls: 6.2     Water Temperature: 38

The mourning doves have gotten into the habit of spending the night in the protected area underneath my living room addition. No problem, except when I walk out in the morning and there is a startling burst of commotion as a dozen birds frantically head for safety. Today was different. Curiously, when I walked out this morning, there was no bird explosion and no birds at the feed either. Weird.

I took the van to get the oil changed and when I came back, I realized why there were no birds around this morning. There, next to the board walk, just ten feet from the bird feeder, I saw a pile of feathers. They were mostly small downy feathers spread out in a rough circle of about twelve inches, but there were enough tail feathers and primary feathers for me to tell that it was a dove that fell prey to an avian predator. Most likely the red-shoulder hawk that lives near here, or possibly a sharp-shinned hawk. I guess that the other birds are a little skittish after witnessing something like that at the feeder.

I'm so mad at Verizon. After waiting all this time for them to come up with a solution to get the fiber-optic cables, I've come to the realization that they will never be able, or willing to do what it takes to get the job done. It comes as a sort of relief. We won't get Fios but at least I don't have to baby-sit these lame contractors.

The technician left and I thought that the whole ordeal was over with. But no. Verizon, in their infinite wisdom, decided to switch me off of my DSL connection and onto the Fios network, even though I still have copper wires. I guess that they just assumed that the installation would go smoothly and I would be Fios ready, but sadly, no. Now, it has been 13 days without internet on the Island and no real hope of getting back on line anytime soon. Seems that they have to send an order in to cancel my DSL,?, since the system still thinks I have service,?. Then they will be able to reorder my DSL. It's what the system wants and you can argue with that machine.

Sadly, the Islander will suffer without my internet since all my pictures are on my PC and I can't email them anywhere. Also, I cannot upload this log that I'm writing now until I get my internet back.