Sacramento Delta

We are staying for a month in an area I thought you might like to know about. It’s one of my kind of places, full of smells and lots of water. Right in the middle of that big place humans call California is the Sacramento Delta. It’s a place that most of the water from the mountains comes together before it collects in San Francisco bay and then finds it’s way to the big pond Dad calls the Pacific Ocean.

Dad and I on the river at sunrise.

Humans are animals that don’t like to waste the land they find and this place is a good example of what extremes they go to make sure every inch is used for something. They have built large mounds of dirt along all of the rivers to keep them where they want them, drained the water out and then used all the dried up land in-between for growing food. Dad says humans call the dirt mounds levees. Usually humans make road on top of the levees and you can walk along them.

This is the road we walk on around the levee.

The food plants (Dad says they are called farms) are sometimes 50 to 70 paw lengths below the rivers, so the levees are real important if you don’t want to get really wet. Dad and I have walked around here and even down into the farmland. They grow really tall green stuff Dad calls Corn and he says it’s grown for dogs! Yes, my food has lots of corn in it and a lot comes from here. They grow it, then let it dry to make dry kernels of corn which get hard and are then ground up for non-human animals. They also grow hay for cows, and lots of other stuff for humans. The entire Sacramento Delta looks like a big maze from the air (well, Google Earth). Levee and rivers all over.

Little white boxes with loud smelly engines move up the river.

Humans also use the rivers for making lots of noise. They put big noise-making engines on little white boxes.. When they turn on these engines, the little white boxes vibrate and then move real fast over the water as they make the noises. Dad says these are called pleasure crafts or boats. (They aren’t very pleasurable to me!) He says it costs a lot of money and the larger the noise they make, the more the engine costs. When they stop the engines, they look around to see where the boat brought them and then some of them hold little poles with string on them over the water and just stand for hours with this string dangling in the water. Dad says they tie hooks on the end of the string and sometimes a fish comes along and accidentally swallows it. Poor fish. It must be some weird human ritual. Maybe a tribute to the engines they make.

All along the levees there are lots of places where the humans store their noise making engines and white boxes. Dad says they are called Marinas. Boat after boat waits for their owners to come once a month or so and make noise. Dad says they pay lots of money to keep their boxes in the Marina. Again, some weird human ritual I’m sure.

Houses sit on large legs next to the levee to see above the river.

The houses that border the levees look weird too. They resemble big monsters with long legs. The houses are built below the levees but peek out over the river because of their long legs. Dad says they do that so they can see if the water is going to leak through the levees and be above it when it does. (Humans don’t like getting wet like us dogs do.)

We wait for the sun to rise on the river.

Dad and I walk up to the river every morning and, of course, Dad brings his camera. We wait for the sun to rise up from sleeping and he takes lots of photos of the sun rising over the river. Dad has this thing about photographing when the sun rises and sets. Again, I suspect its another human ritual. They are probably thankful (like I am) that the warm sun comes up again each morning. Taking so many photos is way of showing respect to the sun, maybe??

The sun makes pretty reflections on the river.

There are lots and lots of bridges here that allow our motorhome to cross the rivers. Some are really funny looking. Dad says they call some of them Draw Bridges. They rise up to the skies every so often when one of the really big noise makers come by in the river. They look like giant hands reaching out to the heavens. Again probably some human ritual to honor the big noise makers. (Humans are pretty proud of their engines I’ve noticed. They have so many of them. I still don’t understand the point of them. They are smelly, they are loud and they make things shake so hard they move all around. )

There are lots of bridges over the river around here that draw!

With all this water around us there are lots and lots of birds. Small ones, large ones, noisy ones and quiet ones. Dad says he has seen cormorants, herons, ibis, Canada geese, black birds (thousands of them), and all sorts of ducks. We see large flocks of geese flying in funny formation in the sky. Dad says the geese fly home each night after a day of hunting for food.

The geese fly in formation in large numbers around here. Don't look up!

In the early morning, when we walk we hear big booms all around us that Dad says are gun shots. He says human called hunters are killing the birds. I suspect they are the big dangerous birds that attack humans. Why else would they want to kill the beautiful flying creatures other than to defend themselves?

Sometimes its foggy when we go out. But Dad still takes a photo.

In the evening, when the sun goes to sleep I’m outside (while Mom and Dad are watching TV), and I lie down and listen to the sounds around here. The birds start to quiet down or leave and every so often I hear coyotes yipping. That gets me excited and I bark, but only until Dad gets up and reminds me that it is impolite to bark in the RV Park, so I stop.

Dad likes to photograph the rising sun over the river here on the Sacramento Delta.

So, if you get a chance to visit here look for me. I’m usually at the Delta Shores RV park in Isleton, Calfornia in October. I’m the golden dog with the lap top under his paws under the big tree.

Arf,

Reggie