Trying To Make Sense Of It All

   When you sit on the pier at the crack of dawn, it gives you plenty of uninterrupted time to ponder things.  Once again, the eastern sky did not disappoint.  Even though the cloud coverage was scanty (before the storms set in for the day), the beauty was there...so was the peace.  That serenity is the main reason for my early rising.  Today, however, the thoughts were scattered about in turmoil.  Overnight, the alarms on my phone kept erupting like a volcano.  Two murders had occurred and the killer was on the run.  A young lady and the policeman coming to her rescue were both senselessly gunned down.  My brain cannot wrap itself around such violence...such stupidity....such hatred.  What has become of the world?  Where has commonsense gone?  Where has decency gone?  

  As I sat there exhausted from the constant blaring alarms and the heartache of what had occurred, I felt highly grateful for my upbringing.   We were taught right.  We were raised to respect life in all forms.  We were taught to be kind, generous and loving.  We were taught to be hardworking.  If we wanted something, we worked to get it.  Nowadays, it appears that these values are nowhere to be found.  The whole world has gone to pot and the powers that be are doing nil to correct it.  In fact, they seem to be encouraging it.  Sad...very, very sad.  Think I will sit and stare at the sunrise a bit longer.  Too bad I cannot share the tranquility with  the world...but it is probably in too much of a rage to even see it.

Murder on the Back Steps!

  Early this morning, Ms. Nycto begged to be let out the back door.  The cat, otherwise known as the Bayou Princess, demanded in loud meows to have her whims met.  Not wanting to wake up the entire neighborhood at 5am, I heeded her calls and unlocked the door.  No sooner had she slipped out the screen door, than she begged to be let back inside.  Something was amiss out on the back porch and she was having no part of it!  I opened the screen door and let the finicky feline back inside.  The Princess then scampered up the stairs and retired to the large queen-sized bed that she has claimed as her own.  Well, now!!! I pondered if some coyote was prowling in the darkness.  I headed back into the kitchen to get a mug of hot coffee then settled in by the old wood burning stove.

  Along about daybreak, I ventured out that back door just to see if there was any evidence of what scared the cat.  Yup.  Plenty of evidence!  It appeared that a brutal murder had taken place on my doorstep overnight!  The entire steps was covered in blood-red goo!  Not to mention there were incriminating "hand prints" in the "blood"!  My goodness!  No wonder the poor Bayou Princess was scared out of her wits!  

  Now came the time for me to clean up this mess as it was mostly by my own oversight that it occurred.  The night before, I found a nice bowl of cherry sauce in the fridge,  This stuff had somehow gotten shoved far behind the half bottles of pickles, the extra cartons of cream cheese and the chilling pie dough for today's dessert.  The cherry sauce was beyond my use but instead of tossing it in the garbage, it was stuck on the back porch to be toted to the compost in this morning.  I was not about to traipse out in the cold to empty that dish!  Well, by the looks of it, a raccoon decided that the cherry sauce was far too tasty to be wasted. The raccoon helped itself to the dish.  By the looks of things, the cherry sauce may have been even a bit fermented and the coon may have gotten a bit tipsy.  The bowl, itself, was flung under the nearby pear tree and cherry sauce was smeared on every step!  Silly, drunk raccoon!  He murdered that stuff!

 

Heartbroken

  The songbirds here on the Bayou have been having a most terrible time this spring.  What with a Screech Owl and two Rat Snakes raiding the nests of the little ones, Crows and squirrels snatching eggs as soon as they are laid and now the Cooper's Hawk murdering the adult birds, things are not looking good.  This evening just before dark, I heard a familiar sort of "clucking" noise.  Hmmm?  Where had I heard that before?  Then it dawned on me.  The Cooper's Hawk was in the yard again.  Oh, geez!  I have taken down the bird feeders for this very reason. This hawk is great at staking out a place near the feeders and then attacking when the songbirds come to feed.  But the feeders are down...and have been for some time now.  Why is the hawk still here?  I figure that it has a nest nearby and needs food for its little ones and one of my fat Mourning Doves fit the bill readily.

  I headed outside to see if I could prevent at least one murder of the slow-moving doves.  Perhaps my presence would make the hawk move to other parts.  It did not happen as planned.  Just as I stepped out the gate, I heard the soft twittering of a dove's wings as it rose from the far end of the rose garden.  Before I could even take two steps, a flash of wings and the dove was in the clutches of the hawk.  I wish I had not seen that.

  Even though I was too late, I still meandered over to where the cruel deed had been done.  A single feather floated softly down from above. My poor dove.  It seems as if the predators are winning this year and there is nothing that I can do to change that fact.  I guess I should be happy that the little ones of the predators are well fed.........I guess.  I do like the hawks.  I just do not like them eating my songbirds!

The Beetle did it on the Bayou with a Fungus!

  Yep!  The beetle did it in the swamp with a fungus!  This sounds a lot like a line from one of the games my kids played years ago only it was more like "Mrs. Peacock did it in the library with the candlestick!"   The whole game of "Clue" was centered around an unsolved murder and a number of possible suspects.  Here on the Bayou, my murder victims are the Swamp Bay Trees and the possible suspects are evil doers who are rarely seen.

  I was out meandering about the hillside in search for the freshly hatching Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers.  It is April which means these pests are hatching from egg sacs that have laid dormant under the sand since last fall.  The warm sunshine is incubating the eggs just enough to let the nasty critters hatch and crawl out in masses.  Left to mature to adulthood, these critters will devour anything edible in the yard.  They strip the garden, shrubs and even new growth on trees to fill their voracious appetites.  Since the newly hatched grasshoppers are relatively slow moving, it is far easier to smash the mounds at this stage rather than try to kill several million adults that can be pretty fast movers.  But...the grasshoppers were not my only disturbing find during my hike.  My Swamp Bay Trees are dying.  This makes me sad!  Not only will I not have a ready supply of fresh bay leaves for the kitchen pantry, the marsh line will seem quite bare without the pretty trees.

  After finding the second of dead trees, I knew something was amiss. Then a third and fourth meant big trouble.  After doing a bit of research, I have found that a small, inconspicuous beetle is to blame.  Not that the beetle is doing anything more than being a nuisance of a bug but it uses a weapon to carry out its foul deed. The thing carries a fungus that can and does infect the Bay Trees.  The Redbay Ambrosia Beetle is the murderer and the fungus, Laurel Wilt Fungus, is the weapon.  The beetle bores into the tree and transports the fungus to the inner portion under the bark.  Here, the fungus thrives and quickly kills the tree making it a hospitable dwelling for the beetle to reproduce.  The beetle knows what it is doing, does it well and gains by its nefarious act.  Bay trees of all sorts are under attack by this beetle and now my trees have fallen victim to the murderers.  My only hope is to search for a tiny sapling and see if I can raise it in the greenhouse where I can protect it from the beetles' attacks.  The story gets worse as this same beetle and its deadly fungus also attack Sassafras Trees. Acck!  No bay leaves nor any gumbo file`? This is no longer fun and games.  This serious business.

  The Bayou is seemingly a safe haven where I can live in peace but, here lately, I am finding numerous intruders that have crossed over into the area.  With these invaders, nothing is safe.  My Bayou is about to change and not in a good way.  Sad.....so very sad.