June 19

Last night we were tied up to the top of the lock wall at #39. 

It was very pretty, a closed off area with traffic limited to bikers and hikers.  Since there was no power, I cooked out on the picnic table again, and we had a perfect breeze keeping things cool. 

There were some fun surprises in wait last night. 

As I got off the boat with my cooking gear, I realized there was a large patch of wild strawberries right in front of the boat, with strawberries just ripening. 

I picked a few to show Foster and left the rest.

Around the picnic table where I was cooking were lots of tiny wild flowers.  I think we used to call them Indian Paintbrush, not sure what the correct name is. 

After our dinner, I was starting to clean up, and I noticed some small brown animals loping toward us along the lock wall.  As they got closer, we realized it was a mink mama, with a baby in her mouth, and 2 more babies following her. 

They didn’t seem at all phased by our presence, but I think the wind was blowing away from us, because they got very close, and then the mama started galloping away with the one baby in her mouth.  She went so fast that she left her other 2 babies behind, and they hunkered down in the grass very close to us. 

I was concerned that the mama might not come back because we were here, but Foster advised some patience, and before too long, the mama came back and grabbed another baby in her mouth and took off along the canal.  The last baby tried to follow, and fell right off the canal wall!  Of course I thought that was it for the little guy, but mama came back, disappeared down the bank, and then came right back up again with baby number three in her mouth. 

Pretty amazing sight, and more amazing that I was actually able to get a few photos that were sharp – here are a few:

Later that evening we fished a little.  I caught a couple of small fish, a bluegill and something else unnamed, and threw them back.

We had very few bug problems, and slept very well in the cool breeze, and then continued on our way today.  We were slowly passing through a very narrow canal just before noon, and I saw another mink!  This one had launched off the riverbank and was swimming right towards us until he realized his error and swam quickly away.  I managed to get a couple of blurry shots of him.