The Cedar Journal

It has come to this…

The Cedar Journal August 4, 2020

With all that is going on in the world it seems some things and companies are dependable. At a cost, of course.

I never would have guessed that it would ever cost me personally $74.00 to vote in a US election. That is only the primary, I will have to do the same for the general election this fall.

I don’t usually mix my blog and my political views but many who follow my blog know how deeply I feel about the trends in my mother country.

Shock…when I saw attacks by leadership towards the US Postal Service earlier this year. I joined the thousands of other Americans who purchased postage to show our support for a system so many rural Americans depend. Support for the US Postal Service that hires thousands of military veterans.

Shock…once again as the leadership placed someone in charge at the US Postal Service to make it more profitable. Instantly, I experienced change in the US Postal Service and how it approached customers services. Prices to send packages jumped, letter mail and packages to get to me here in The Netherlands now takes weeks and months to receive. Can we blame the delay in service on the current pandemic?

Last week that US Postal employees announced that their hours have been cut and undelivered mail is now piling up at facilities. How is that possible in these times where everyone is depending on package delivery to avoid shopping in stores?

The final straw for me was hearing that our US election would not be valid due to mail in votes this year. A shout to delay the US election went out.

I couldn’t believe it!!!

For the first time as a voting adult I chose this election cycle to pay to place my vote. I don’t care what it costs me. I know I can still exercise my freedom to choose who I want in office.

Hopefully, we (American citizens) will experience some change of leadership with the next round of elected officials.

Are you frustrated? Have you voted? We would love to hear how you are dealing with trying to vote this year. Please send us a personal message via our contact page or leave your comments below.

Birders?

The Cedar Journal August 3, 2020

We love nature and we love exploring it in our human powered floating vessel. We have joked over our years of blogging that we might upend the birding world with some of our sightings. Please don’t fear bird bloggers we will not become the new birding community influencers with our most recent outdoor adventure.

We started our morning riding our bikes from our camping to the bird observation tower that is located on the far Eastern edge of the Weerribben National Park. We rode fast to try to beat the rain clouds. we suffered a short delay as I experienced an unexpected acrobatic bike fall that resulted in road rash and a very bruised ego. At 54 I don’t recover nearly as quickly from such events.

On our bike route, and within view of the observation tower, the Hubby spotted his first photo note worthy bird of the day, a spoonbill wading in the water.

Once we reached the tower we were greeted by another birder. The enthusiastic older man was instantly impressed with the Hubby’s Nikon camera. Well… at least in the camera brand. He was also a Nikon owner but had a huge birder zoom lens attached. I have learned that talking about lens size in the birding world is a great conversation ice breaker. Soon the Hubby and this older birder were discussing all the birds that the man had spotted from this tower on past visits.

As the guys were discussing the finer points of the birding world I took this photo of a small reed bird.

Soon the other bird observer announced it was time for coffee and left us alone on the tower. The wind blew but the rain storm didn’t appear as we watched a pair of storks fly overhead.

A stork flying past the observation tower.

Once we had enough of looking at birds from the tower we biked to another location with a bird observation point. Before we arrived we had our best close up sighting of the day, a stork.

This stork was hanging around in a backyard of someone’s house.

The other observation deck. Not nearly as clean or as nice as the tower we had just visited.

The end of our birding tour brought us into Kalenberg and this site. A stork nest and the stork. No babies were seen.

cedar strip canoe

Wordless Wednesday

The Cedar Journal July 29, 2020

Weekend Escape

The Cedar Journal July 28, 2020

It finally happened, a weekend away. It didn’t happen without a risk assessment and long discussion about the risks. This trip almost didn’t happen at the last minute as warnings about increased cases in our local area on Wednesday had us thinking once again about the risks. Then, I started sneezing like crazy (I have crazy allergies…but in this day and age of rampant virus I questioned myself). We held our breath, I popped some Claritin and we packed the Caddy.

First canoe camping weekend with all our gear this year.

On Thursday (with no news of the threatened local lockdown) we hit the road, heading towards one of our favorite places to canoe paddle the Weerribben National Park.

First a cup of coffee before setting up camp!

Once we had arrived and set up our campsite, we headed out for a short evening paddle. Our paddle muscles cried out as we inched along. Months of sitting dormant and this sudden burst of use was a surprise for muscles that normally mid summer are well accustomed to paddling use.

What better way to give the muscles a real boost than to prepare chocolate pastries on the grill.

First time we have used our pizza stone for our grill to make pastries. A real muscle moral booster.

As with any camping trip we had the threat of rainy weather. We kept a close eye on the weather radar app on our phones the entire weekend. Scheduling our outings between rain storms. We accomplished that with success this weekend as we managed a 12km canoe paddle on Friday and a 20km bike ride on Saturday. Just as we finished up our bike ride the sky opened up and poured rain on us the entire night into Sunday morning. We stayed nice and dry inside the Caddy although we did have to battle a few mosquitos.

Friday canoe paddle with water lilies blooming.

Oh no! We forgot our tools to eat!!! No knife! What can we do?

A butterfly that thought the blue dry sack was a nice place to hang out.

Cedar at our lunch stop point. The canals were very busy with vacation people either paddling or with the slow electric motor boats constantly going past.

Wordless Wednesday

The Cedar Journal July 15, 2020