September at Canton Lake

After backing into our campsite, I was startled by the abundance of holes in the ground.  I first thought of our experience with the wolf spiders during our last visit, but then heard all the  cicadas  singing.  I looked at the holes again and realized they were larger, and we were having a cicada breeding cycle.

We went home last night to take care of Jean’s animal farm.  The evening air was alive with bugs.  I made the comment that the area really needed more people to build bat houses to draw enough bats to handle the bug population.  It was like the sound of the car being hit by large rain drops.  It’s a good thing I have two bottles of Turtle Wax bug and tar remover.  If you haven’t tried it, it really works.  Spray it on, give it a minute or two to penetrate, and wipe the bugs off.  It love this stuff.

 

We had all the windows open at night, and it was cold enough during the night that we had to get up and throw a quilt on the bed.  The two cats agreed with us on the temperature, and were soon under the quilt with us.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning.  Since the afternoon was supposed to be about 90, the sun soon had the morning air warming up.  Jean took off to care for the animal farm, and I got Ibi ready for a paddle.

 

There was almost no wind at all, which is a freaky rarity in “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ cross the plain.”  I pulled the Falcon Sail up and set it close hauled for the northeast zephyr.  I sat there looking at the twist in the sail wondering if it wouldn’t benefit from a couple light battens.  I’ll think on that some more, and maybe get some input from Patrick Forester, the sail’s builder.  I paddled on in the expectation of a broad reach coming back once I reached the north end of the lake.  

I saw a lot of birds today from egrets, herons, and a bunch of osprey whistling from trees along the west shore.  The breeze really was a zephyr, and barely strong enough to move smoke.  When I reached the end of the lake, it was flat dead and giving the indication of reversing.  Shortly, it did just that.  I lowered the sailing rig and continued paddling east across the end of the lake.  There were at least a hundred or so swallows hard at work harvesting bugs, but they had a long task ahead of them if they expected to make a dent.  It was interesting, however, just watching their aerobatics as they swooped and cut, then made hairpin turns to grab a morsel they had either missed or only spotted on passing it. 

I was only a couple hundred yards from my take-out when a breeze filled in from the east.  One of the advantages of this sail rig is how it just pops up when needed, so I was not about to waste a good breeze.  I hauled the sail back up and got a steady 1.5 mph for the short distance to the ramp. 

After a great dinner of chicken with pepper jack cheese, I grabbed the Turtle Wax and cleaned off the hardened bug remains from the front of the car.