Christmas Thought?

   Christmas has come and gone and has taken a part of my heart.  My eldest son, wife and grandkids have gone back to their home in Florida and daughter and son-in-law have made their escape over a couple of towns from here.  Elizabeth and Robbie will be back tomorrow to share New Year's dinner with us but, for now, the place seems to be empty.  I am still not ready to tackle the task of "de-Christmasing" so the decorations shall stay for another week...maybe more unless I get the energy.  

  Christmas decorating at the Little Bayou House is never the same.  Sure, most of the ornaments are used year after year but the manner of decorating can be entirely different.  This year, the living room was outfitted with as much "Victorian" clutter that it could hold while the dining room was nothing less than country/bayou.  Both seemed fitting...both were enjoyed by all who visited so I count it as a success.

  After unleashing the frenzy of gift-opening, a thought occurred to me.  Why do this?  Every year, we stress over what to give, panic over undelivered or late packages and overspend.  Why?  All gifts were received with grace and appreciation but the most oohs and ahhs were expressed over the handmade gifts. My three adult kids handmade a gift for their siblings.  I was fully impressed with their creativity and the excitement, giggles and love proved that those simple gifts were the best!  No, I did not get photos.  I wish I had.  Hopefully, I will do better next year.  Now, I am in "gift-making" mode.  I do believe I shall try to handmake each and every gift for this next Christmas.  

  Perhaps, if I stress this idea enough, each member of the family could jump on the bandwagon and give homemade gifts.  Nothing needs to be overly elaborate nor expensive...just something given from the heart.  Isn't that what Christmas is all about anyway?  Love?  Even though the official "day" has passed...the love and giving should continue.  So....Merry Christmas, folks!  

Creative Talents

   Son often comes to my rescue when I am in a quandary about how to achieve something.  His method of observing, contemplating then attempting is to be admired, to say the least.  He never dives into things headlong like his old mom.  I have a tendency to start midway into a project then become confused when the end result is not to my liking.  Not him....think it through BEFORE beginning, gather necessary supplies and tools, then and only then, delve into the solution!  His method has proven logical and was, once again, put into use with my home/Christmas decorating.

  I have often stated that I was born in the wrong era.  I feel a certain awkwardness with the current trends and prefer things from centuries past.  This year, I gave into that mood and decided that the living room (with all of its antique furniture) needed to be somewhat Victorian.  Yeah...the Little Bayou House is an oddity but it makes me happy.  One of the needed changes was from the simple, canvas curtains to rich, velvety draperies complete with embroidered sheers.  Not a problem.  This change was easy with fabric and curtains from other rooms but I also wanted tiebacks.  I tried the lovely satiny rope and tassel things but did not have enough on hand.  Son came to my rescue!  He created my tiebacks and I could not be happier.

  For those who do not know me, I am somewhat of a "clutterer" as I save things that may have a possible use.  While Son was scrounging about the place to find components of "Victorian tiebacks", he came across my stash of some things salvaged from discarded items.  He suddenly changed from scrounging to creating!  Using a wood backing, he quickly attached a ceiling fan blade bracket.  This was attached to the window frame with the wood hidden behind the curtain!  Yippee!  There was a tieback!  Three more were made and his old mom was one happy camper!

  I am fully thinking that we should all follow his example and think a bit before jumping into action.  (Me, especially!)  That observing and thinking sort of go out the window when I face problems.  Son's method serves him well and I have my "quasi-Victorian" Christmas room!  I feel perfectly at home!

Grapefruit Trees and Rebar...The Odd Pair!

  The oddities found on the Bayou never fail to intrigue me.  By oddities, I am referring to things found where they do not belong.  Sure, I find the occasional trowel on a tree stump or perhaps part of my lawnmower in the bushes (different story but still interesting) but those are nothing compared to say a filet knife found on the rooftop!  I have yet to figure out how that got there and whether I have some unknown enemy out there threatening my wellbeing with a filet knife! Still, these things are interesting, to say the least.

  Today's find?  Well...a piece of rebar.  While that, in itself, is not the most unusual find, the whereabouts of said rebar is.  What in the world was a piece of rebar doing up in the top of the grapefruit tree???  That...my friends...is the question of the day!

  Mark finally took the notion to cut out the dead parts of the citrus trees.  Termites had taken up residence in the roots of the trees and pretty much killed the grapefruit trees.  (Who says that citrus oil helps prevents an infestation??  Yeah, I read that somewhere.  Definitely not true.)  Anyway, as he cut the thirty foot tall trees down, a piece of rebar came tumbling to the ground.  Thankfully, it did not hit anyone or anything as it plummeted to the ground.  

  The rebar is bent into a lovely hook-shape making me ponder if someone had tried to use it to shake down fruit at some point.  It is approximately twenty-one inches long so is quite large.  I asked Son, since he has always picked the fruit from these huge trees for us, but he says that he always just climbed the trees.  Yep, that is something that I can vouch for as I am the one to "catch" those hefty fruits as he tosses them from the treetops.  Mark said he did not attempt such a dangerous game of tossing a rebar thirty feet into the air and I know I could never heave that thing up there.  This leaves me one conclusion...perhaps the rebar was hung on a low limb when the tree was small and then hoisted as the tree grew?  Who knows???  Surely, it was not the same culprit that left the knife on the rooftop....you think?  

  All is well that ends well, however.  The grapefruit trees are thinned of dead wood and the danger of the rebar hook has now passed.  Still...lingering questions....always lingering questions!

Watching the Gardener

   As I was on my hands and knees transplanting cauliflower into the garden rows, a sudden feeling overcame me.  Eerily it felt as if someone (or something) was watching me.  Hmmm?  Where is that goofy cat?  Bat, the Bayou Prince Cat, has a sneaky way of creeping up on you and silently watching your every move.  He just sits and stares, then, suddenly darts out of his hiding spot to nearly knock you off your feet.  I am sure he is just being playful but, I have to admit, he has caught me off guard on several occasions.  A 16lb cat can really pack a wallop when it wants.  Anyway, no cat could be seen lurking nearby nor was any snoopy person in the area so I went back to my planting.

  Then...the feeling returned.  Something had to be watching me!  I usually get gut-feelings and tend to follow them.  This gut-feeling was not leaving so I needed to find the "watcher".  My search took me outside the garden gate and down the hill where I could get a better view of the garden perimeter.  Still...nothing.  I was just about to shrug off the feeling as a fluke when a loud "Kee-aah" followed by four more of the same came from the top of the dead oak tree.  Ahh, there is my watcher!  A beautiful, red shouldered hawk was perched on the tiptop of the tree and had the perfect view of this old lady in her garden.

  The sighting of the hawk pleased me as I know that my plants will be protected from varmints.  These hawks are agile hunters that can drop silently from a treetop to the garden without a rodent ever being aware of their presence.  Red shouldered hawks will eat most any small mammal, bird or reptile that they can catch but I am in hopes that this one will merely catch whatever munches my cauliflower plants!  I welcomed the hawk to the garden and I went back to work with my transplanting.  My garden is late as I was sidelined by a brief bout of sickness.  It is past time to get those plants to growing!

Red "Texas Star" Morning?

   I am one of those odd people who finds beauty in most everything around the Bayou.  For a while, it seemed as if the whole world had gone to pot and it was extremely hard to "look on the bright side".  Then, it came to me that dire outlook had to change and it was entirely up to me to change it.  So...I started finding beauty in the most mundane things just to prove to myself that whatever happens outside of my realm of the Bayou, it is not my concern.  Only what is here should be of importance since I cannot change the world but I can change myself.  Now, I make a point of seeking out what others deem as "everyday" blah and I search for happiness.  It is there.

  For instance, the other morning, there was an amazing sunrise.  While most folks will admit to the wonders of the sunlit horizon (if they are awake at that early time), not many seek how the red sky has an effect on other things.  In the garden there is a shepherd's hook that holds windchimes.  Mark brought this home from a tractor place several years ago and it has been quite useful.  I am not sure why he chose to bring a star (which looks mightily like the "Texas Star" emblem to me) but it fits right in with the mishmash of other oddities around the place.  I had just come up from the pier and plopped down on the front steps to retie my shoe when I noticed the star.  Wow!  The red sky was an amazing backdrop for the blackness of the still night shaded garden and the star!  That is lovely, I thought and had to photograph it!

  Ok, so now you get the idea of how I have rerouted my thoughts to find a bit of joy wherever it is dropped.  A purple wildflower, a dew bedecked spiderweb, a bright green treefrog or even a star lit by a rosy sunrise, there is always something worth my focus.  Folks, life is good regardless of what the outside world is doing.  People are people and will never come to terms with "how life is treating them" so I say..."Change the way you feel and find your own happiness wherever it is.  Life will only "treat" you as you treat it."  Be happy.

Friends That Matter

   I am constantly the brunt of many jokes about my preference of being alone.  I stay on the Bayou day in and day out.  I stay for weeks...or months...on end with no desire to go into the outside world.  Most people cannot understand why I have chosen this life but it is perfectly simple.  The "outside world" is full of nosy, inconsiderate people just like those who question my life.  They insist that I "need" friends,  that I "should" go places and that life "is" better as they live it...not as I do.  Still, it is my preference so here I stay.  I go only as necessary and not to fill a void in my life.  That void is not there.  My life is full.

  As for friends, I have plenty!  I have the type that matter.  The ones that stand by me, check on me and do not question my actions.  Of course, they are mostly of the critter sort but they matter!  First, there is Bat, the Bayou Prince Cat, that has proven he would lay his life on the line to defend me.  Once he even attacked cottonmouth just so I would not get bitten.  The snake was within inches of my barefoot when Bat darted across the yard to attack.  He is a protector and confidant!  I would definitely say Bat is the type friend that everyone needs...plus, he gives good snuggles!

 There is the barred owl that waits in the branches of the black gum tree to make sure the gardening is going well.  This beauty stands guard at night to keep the vegetable plots vermin free. Most every morning, I call "Good day!" to it before it glides down into the swamp to snooze away the daylight hours.  In the late afternoon, it silently flies in to take its post among the branches to keep watch.  I bid it "Goodnight" knowing my garden is in good hands.

  The dayshift of garden protection is carried out by friend, bald eagle.  Just about daylight as the owl is readying to retreat to the coolness of the swamp, the eagle comes to relieve it of its duty.  The eagle cocks its head in the oddest way as I call to it.  "Good morning, Friend Eagle!  You are welcome here but leave the cat alone!"  (So far, the eagle has only made one attempt at catching Bat.  The cat, thankfully, was wise enough to dart under the pier.) 

  Other friends include the watersnake in the pond, the black racer under the back steps and the ribbonsnake pair under the herb shelf.  All of these are helpful friends as they keep the smaller varmints at bay.  These are good friends, indeed, and all are welcome to stay.

  So...along with the myriad of other critters around, I have friends...lots of them.  They are unassuming, trustworthy and surely NOT busybodies.  They mind their own business and I do mine.  Let others feel the need to poke and pry...to gossip and fret...to go into rages at the drop of a hat...and be everything that I do not want to be.  I shall stay (as my sister-in-law says) the Hermitess of the Bayou.  I shall continue to do things the "old way", keep being the "Keeper of Weird and Wonderful Things" and always be just who I am whether others agree with it or not. 

 

Are You Lost???

   I have lived near or on the Bayou my entire life.  During that time, I learned a good bit about the fish and other inhabitants of the waters and marshes.  I felt relatively sure that given a chance, I could just about identify any fish caught from the pier...until lately.  For some odd reason, the Bay is filled with unusual (for here) critters.  Some...I have even had to go to one of my "fish experts" to identify.  The young man, Taylor, is a friend of Son's from way back when they were youngsters in elementary school.  Taylor loves all things fishing even though he has moved from the Coast.  I rest assured that if I send him a photograph with the query "What is this?"  He will have an answer.  I did just that a couple of days ago. After putting a name to my unusual fish, he mused "I think you have the most diverse group of fish around your pier than anywhere on the Coast."  Well, he may be right.  

  The salinity of the water is sitting right at 23% which is odd for the Bayou.  We are known as having "brackish" water not high salt water.  Salty in the deeper portions but not in the shallows of the Bayou.  So, imagine my surprise when I caught, not one, but three different Ribbonfish...also known as Atlantic Cutlassfish.  I had no idea what those crazy things were!  So...I photographed and sent the pictures off to Taylor!  After getting a name, I also sent the picture to my oldest son, Mark, since he has seen just about every fish imaginable while living on the island for several years.  His response was "What is that doing at the pier?"  I replied that I had no idea but perhaps it was lost!  He agreed and made a similar remark to Taylor's about there being a lot of odd fish in my old fishing spot.  I will say this about the Ribbonfish...STAY CLEAR OF THOSE TEETH!!  That is one snappy fish that can whip and snag a finger right quick!  Thankfully, I was a mite faster because it has a mouth full of wicked fangs!

  That said, the shrimp are still plentiful so I have taken to filling everybody's freezers.  I throw the net catching a five gallon bucketful in a short while then give the shrimp to those who cannot catch their own.  With our three chest type freezers filled to capacity, nearly 800lbs of shrimp have found their way to our extended family members and elderly friends. Fresh, free food is always a good thing.  This comes on the heels of an investigation of some shady dealings by some of the shrimpers along the Coast.  It makes me happy to supply these folks with free Bay shrimp vs the foreign shrimp that were being passed off as Gulf shrimp.  Dirty dealings irk me so this is my small way of saying "No" to the underhanded ways of some people. 

  So...bring on the unusual fish, plentiful shrimp and knowledgeable young men that keep me up on what I am catching!  The Bayou is a happy, healthy place right now.