Off limits

  The pier is off limits.  For several reasons, I have more or less closed the pier.  Visitors are not allowed but not too many will be complaining about the fact.  Things are just not conducive to having anyone there at the moment.  First and foremost, we are watching the Gulf with the expectation of a storm to be whipping into our area sometime in the next couple of days.  While this should not be a bad storm, I am just more comfortable not having "sightseers" dawdling about on the pier during any inclement weather.  Makes more sense to not be there unless direly needed.  Also, I guess emotions got the best of me when I was out today lugging up all the fishing gear, crab traps and heavy wooden benches. Where are all the "wonderful" folks that use the pier when it comes time to protect the pier.  Not here, that is for sure.  Not one....not a single one....came to offer a helping hand.  I did it all.  While Mark and Son frantically tried to replace the windows in the living room and build walls around them, I carried all of the stuff up the hill.  This was done with a injured right arm.  Now the arm is throbbing something fierce. But, you do what you have to do to prepare for any storm and this one is no exception.  So....the pier is closed. 

  The other reason that I have called the pier a no-fly zone is...well...that it has flies and it smells bad....really bad.  Three times in the past two weeks, we have found something deceased had floated up and become lodged beneath the pier.  Three times, we have had the disgusting job of removing said corpse and disposing of it.  Not fun.  The first was a leg of some animal.  It was rather large and furry.  I have still not determined just what animal lost its leg and how that leg found its way to our pier. It was rank.  Then a rather large catfish was found in just about the same spot that had previously been occupied by the weird critter leg.  The catfish was half eaten and rather putrid. Then, yesterday, a six foot long gar was wedged beneath pier in exactly the same spot!  What are the odds of that???  The gar was so deteriorated that it literally fell apart when we tried to remove it.  The stench was unbearable but worse than the smell was the number of flies that had been drawn to the huge fish. The flies did fly things and maggots were literally crawling everywhere.  Yep...nasty. Way nasty!  

  So, for the time being, the pier is closed.  Sad to say, the dead critters have given me a reason to close the pier until my emotions calm a bit.  It is better that the stench drives folks away than me getting angry.  Life is too short to carry anger around in a hand basket so, I will let it be.  However, the pier is off limits for a while.