{"id":41900,"date":"2026-06-22T21:03:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T01:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=41900"},"modified":"2026-06-22T21:03:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T01:03:54","slug":"yeah-a-little-late-but-hey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2026\/06\/yeah-a-little-late-but-hey\/","title":{"rendered":"Yeah, a little late, but hey…"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 19th<\/sup> was the second anniversary of when we first saw Walkabout Estates Plus, and I’d had a project aimed to be completed by that date, but missed it due to needing modifications – this was one of the reasons photography and posts have been reduced. The project was largely completed today though, so that’s not too bad.<\/p>\n

That project was, putting in a kayak dock on the pond.<\/p>\n

\"The
Nothing elaborate, just something to make it easier to get in and out with, especially since the slope of the pond edge prevented one-person handling of this – we’d need a rope to pull ourselves up far enough to get out. My initial design was a floating dock, but it proved too unstable – while being anchored on the grounded end, the anchors pulled free from the too-damp soil and allowed it to pitch sideways too much, so I added legs instead to rest it on the bottom, and these had to be adequately water-treated.<\/p>\n

\"kayak
Since it now uses feet, it doesn’t sit quite level because the bottom is wildly uneven, but I may eventually be able to correct that. The uprights were for a horizontal ‘pull-up’ bar to extend over the kayak bow, facilitating ingress and egress, but this was also not working in its initial design. We will need to add a tie-down method to keep the kayaks tight against the end of the dock, but otherwise, it’s low enough to let us slip in and clamber out.<\/p>\n

\"The
I can hear all the boaty people squawking about the amount of stuff on the dock, ready to trip anyone, but this was during the tests, so hush. We were both able to get in unassisted, and it’s stable in its current configuration.<\/p>\n

This is where I made a small mistake, though. I knew it would be arduous getting this thing placed, and only intended to do the tests to know how well it worked and what needed modifying, so I wasn’t planning on going<\/em> anywhere. The Girlfriend, however, wasn’t inclined to waste the time actually in the kayaks on the pond, and wanted to do an excursion down through The Bayou, so off we went.<\/p>\n

We checked out the beaver dam, well-mortared with mud and with an approximate draft of 1.5 meters – this makes sense, since the water level in the pond has been rising slowly but steadily. On the way back, we separated, and I was some ways ahead waiting in the shade when I heard the call of a juvenile barred owl<\/a> (Strix varia<\/em>) again.<\/p>\n

Now, I’d heard it a few times since that night, and actually got The Girlfriend out one evening to see and hear it up in a nearby tree, but now this was right at midday, and not very far away. I tracked it down a bit closer, but didn’t want to spook it until The Girlfriend had a chance to see, so I was biding my time. During this wait, mama owl fly right over my head, making a beeline in the direction I’d heard the juvie calls, presumably on a feeding run. After about 30 seconds, she reappeared and perched in a tree not four meters off the water, about 15 meters away from me. She remained for a minute or so, then flew off low across the pond. Still no The Girlfriend.<\/p>\n

Eventually she showed, and I motioned her to silence and beckoned her closer, explaining in a soft voice once close enough what we were after, then we started deeper under the trees in the direction I was hearing the calls – I knew we were damn close. After a bit of searching, I spotted the owlet rather boldly out on a branch, only it looked pretty much like a full adult now in the light of day. The Girlfriend was hanging back a little and I motioned her closer, while she held up two fingers:<\/strong> two<\/em> owls. I couldn’t see the other, and kept looking, finally to hear the juvie call again – it had been silent as we got close. Only, the call was well off the line of sight to the one I’d spotted, and we quickly determined that I’d been seeing an adult keeping watch, while two<\/em> juveniles were perched together on a branch in another tree not far off. Again, this is midday, and we’re in plain sight (in bright orange and blue kayaks,) but the owls were staying put. One of the juvies was doing that head-circling routine while watching us, presumably ready to pounce if we did something rodentlike.<\/p>\n

Since I hadn’t intended to go exploring, the waterproof camera was still in my desk cupboard and not on my armband as it usually is when I’m kayaking, so no photographic proof of this, naturally. I\/we may make the attempt again tomorrow, but for now, it was a nice find while testing and celebrating the new dock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 19th was the second anniversary of when we first saw Walkabout Estates Plus, and I’d had a project aimed to be completed by that date, but missed it due to needing modifications – this was one of the reasons photography and posts have been reduced. The project was largely completed today though, so that’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3791,5592,8745,3792,8222],"class_list":["post-41900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random","tag-barred-owl","tag-juveniles","tag-kayak-dock","tag-strix-varia","tag-the-bayou"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41900"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41909,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41900\/revisions\/41909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}