White Rock Creek - paddling and sightseeing

 White Rock Creek originates from Frisco, just north of 121. It runs through suburban Dallas, south by southeast, and widens into white rock lake. It eventually pours into trinity river - white rock creek is a major tributary of trinity river.

the red line in the figure is the white rock creek and white rock lake

The northern section of the creek has clear white rock river bank - the origin of its name. It passes through Hedgecox/Preston at Plano, by the Children's Hospital 

Sunday, October 18th, was a windy day, we went to white rock lake downtown Dallas to kayak in the afternoon hoping the wind effect would be not as strong as it is on Lavon lake. We were wrong, and instead of paddling on white rock lake, and visiting pelican point by water, we paddled north into the white rock creek. It turned out to be excellent decision!

water was choppy on open water

The water in the creek was calm, and the scenery was beautiful. We saw changing colors here and there, but mostly still very GREEN. We paddled gently, waving to fishing people, picnicking people on the shore, and listening to music from my cellphone. 

We finally saw some bright color at a big branch of the creek, and paddled into it. 

paddling trail - we paddled about 3 miles total

There were many wild lives: turtles sunbathing on logs, tiny birds chirping and flying from one side of creek bank to the other (it was easier to hear them than to see them though), the easiest to spot is still the big white grand egret. On the return, we braved into open water again, just to get a closer look of double crested cormorants - black water fowls. 

many sightings of turtles along the creek

eastern phoebe, its primary food is insects

An egret and an American coot (center left in the front)

foliage 

double crested cormorants (one on tree branch, one in the water, to the left)

the egret was still perched at its favorite place

two ducks flew away

grand egret and American coots were still there

Pelican Point

 White Rock Lake is the most beautiful city park at Dallas. The most attractive place at White Rock Lake is the Pelican Point. We have been to the lake quite a few times in recent years - mostly to Dallas Arboretum at its south tip, we also went to its notothen tip a couple times - kayaking a few summers ago and running "too cold to hold" 10K race in February 2019. But  the last time we visited Pelican point was over 10 years ago.

Last Sunday we went to white rock lake to kayak. After Kayaking, instead of going home straight, we detoured to Pelican point. How things have changed in the past 10 years, trees along the lake shore at pelican point growing so much, they form a wall to block the view of Pelican points; the view of a small deck extended into the water is blocked as well. 

What is not changed is the presence of big white pelicans, and other water fowls. With all those water fowls and early foliage, the pelican point is as enchanting as ever.

Foliage

Big white pelicans

many waters fowls cohabit at pelican point

Double crested cormorants

American Coots

Geese and ducks

Aves Palmipedas

Fall colors

Early Autumn at North Texas Lakes and Parks

Air is becoming crisp, morning and night is cool, leaves are changing colors. Autumn is coming!

The peak foliage in N Texas is still weeks away. 

Not sure where to go to observe the splendid colors of Fall, we went back to Lavon Lake at Brockdale Park, Saturday last week, October 10th. Lily rated Brockdale as the best place for kayaking so far for us  - among different locations at Lavon Lake, Lake Texoma and Lake Worth.

The leaves on the mangroves facing the large body of water fell already

We saw many pairs of ducks in the mangroves, and this group was startled by our bright yellow Emma, and took off in a hurry as we approached them. See live action below

There were not as many egrets as we saw during our September visit here. There were a handful of egrets scatter along the shoreline of the cove of Lavon Lake

Did you see an egret on the leafless tree?

A white puff in the splendid golden leaves. 

Look! A heron at the end of the water?

Finally there some red in the various shades of yellow

As we left the golden cove, we saw a huge heron standing on a dead tree in the middle of the lake. We paddle toward it to get a better look and when we were a bit too close for its comfort, it took off with a scream. 

Was this the same heron we scared away?

Fall is everywhere. Last Thursday, we walked around the community park and saw "brown" bird standing on a log, a specie I had never seen before.

This water fowl turned out to be a green heron

Most trees were still green except this type of trees. There was a big heron standing by it

With the fresh memory of a enjoyable visit to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge on October3rd, we went back there hoping to see new migrating birds, and to hike on Haller's Haven Trail.

What a change two week made, the big flocks of white pelicans were, no more swarm of birds in the sky, the lake water level dropped a few feet - due to a rainless October. We did see a flock dark color birds flying over, thought they were turkey vultures. Maybe not.

 Cool weather, autumn colors here and there, few hikers are the trail. The hike was great.

A corner of Lake Texoma

Goode Day use area at Hagerman 

Haller's Haven Trail Head

A pond by the trail

A solo white pelican

Single Hung Window Repair

Two windows in the house malfunctioned - they could not move up and down freely, and later a metal bar fell from the channels the window sashes slid on. We procrastinated until we had to fix them.

We knew nothing about how the window works. We needed to educate ourselves to talk about the window problems. 

Single hung windows

The followings are what we learnt from online search.

The window has two sashes or panels  the top sash is fixed in place and does not move, but the bottom sash is operable, can move up and then down.

One can remove the movable sash, as outlined here in a YouTube video. 

Tools needed: flathead screw drive, (for safety) gloves and safety glasses.

1. In the channel on both sides of the window, there is one metal clip on either  side. Use the flat head screw driver to prop them open

2. Move the lower sash up until it passes the clips and the "channel balance" - see picture below for an example, will catch the clip

The top and bottom plastic parts are called shoes

3. Push the sash horizontally to one side of the window, the other side will come out of the channel, you can remove the sash (i.e. panel)

4. Check the channel balance for damage, replace it as needed

5. With proper channel balances in place, align the sash with the channel balance on one side, push it into the channel, the other side should be able to move into position. 

The repair

It looks simple to remove the sash and replace the balances. It was not so easy for me.

Challenge 1 - remove sash

The channel balances broke, both had broken strings. So when we moved window up the channel balance fell off. So the sash was not balanced and could not be removed.

To remove the sash, one person has to push the channel balance with the sash, so when the good balance caught the clip, the sash is balanced, and we could push the sash to one side. The sash could then be easily removed.

Challenge 2 - find the replacement part

Our house is old, and the window was the original window from the builder. A friend used a store which sold the builder's replacement parts long time ago, but could not remember the store name. I went to Home Depot window section to ask for information, the sale person knew nothing about places selling the builder's replacement part.

We could not find replacement part. 

We spent a few hours on this already, and decided to ask window company to repair them for us.

Before we were about to make the call, I did one more round of online search, and looking for discontinued window parts. One company's advertisement stood out - SWISCO - the replacement authority. 

We found and bought our replacement part on swisco.com. 

Challenge 3  - repair

The replacement part arrived yesterday afternoon. 

The main challenge was that I didn't have enough strength to do carry the sash by myself for long time, Lily helped me to remove the sash as well as put it back in.

I did not have enough single hand power to install the new channel balance, so I used screw driver to hold the top shoe (the end) and used both hands to push against the spring force from the channel balance to install the new part.

Despite the above and other obstacles along the way, we repaired two windows this morning in one hour, including cleaning the window frames.

It is handyman's work - how hard can it be!

Notes

Just like any problems we solve, we need to know what the problem is,  the principle/mechanism that governs the problem, and see what other has done/how did they solve the problem. With due diligence, most problems are not hard to solve.

For us, solving the household maintenance problems is like others playing games on computer, or doing brain teasers. Solving the problems is our way of getting away from work, and almost always husband/wife working together time. 

 I am very satisfied, every time, when we solved a problem trained handyman/technician can solve with ease. 😀 

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge - bird watching and kayaking

 The first time we visited Hagerman wildlife refuge was in the heat of Summer of 2011. We decided then that we would go back soon to full appreciate this place, but we did  not go back until last Saturday, October 3rd, 2020!

The plan was to watch migratory birds and kayak in the refuge

We got to the refuge around 9:30am, the sky was clearing up and we went on to have a auto tour first to see migrating birds.

Wildlife Auto Tour

The tour start in front of the visitor center. The tour sign was easy to follow and it was a feast of sight.

The auto tour map was bit deceiving due to low water level in the mudflats and pond 

The large water area on the left hand side was a mere puddle, there were two birds stood in it, one snowy egret and one baby heron. The mush land was all green, there was no sign of autumn.

As we drove on we saw flock after flock of birds flying from west to east and then south and turned around. They were too far to be seen clearly, we were very excited nevertheless.

Then we saw two large groups of white birds in the shallow water. They turned out to white pelicans. If you look carefully there were 4 Canadian geese, super minority in the sea of pelicans. 

Turning onto a pad, aka, the nodding donkey pad for oil production, we witnessed that the movement of the pelican flocks. They would stay in pond for some time, then they would take off flying around a bit and then landed in another pond. Hundreds of birds taking off one group after another, the view was magnificent. How could I imagine that I could see this sight in North Texas. We have a wildlife paradise right in our "backyard".

This video recorded the continuous landing of white pelicans

There are water fowls at the refuge, though in much smaller number, they include egrets and herons 

Looking carefully you will be able to see that there were nodding donkeys at the other side of the shore

It was a beautiful day that Saturday. We thoroughly enjoyed the views and scenes

Kayaking at the Refuge

After the visual feast we went to L pad road to launch our kayak Emma.

inflating Emma

The launch spot is next to a working nodding donkey and pretty far away from the pelicans

We did occasionally see them flying over our head

Our original plan was to paddle further north following the red line, but the water was too shallow beyond the end of red line to paddle. We had to turn around following the yellow line to paddle upstream of big mineral creek. The water was pretty deep, many places we checked it was more 5 feet deep. But there were debris, fallen trees in the creek. Some actually below the water surface.

In a side branch of the river along the red line, we witnessed blue heron catching its prey

          

shortly after the blue heron's catch, a grand egret landed by the heron's side

The cyan and yellow overlap section of our route is the upstream of big mineral creek, the water there is very deep, and trees lined along the banks

The paddling was ok, in fact a little difficult from time to time, due strong wind, and the fact 

we did not install fin for fear of stuck in shallow spots. 

The creek was very quiet. We saw a water snake on the shore, and heard birds chirping occasionally but not much anything else. We paddled gently and played music from a cell phone on the way back to the launching spot following the cyan route.