Mr. Sparkles

   I always say that you never know what you will find in the Little Bayou House.  It is filled with oddities that have come to call the place home by pure happenstance most of the time.  Then, there are the living things that somehow find their way in for a visit.  Critters that live around the Bayou are not overly picky about their living quarters so any nook or cranny will suffice.  This does not usually cause too much concern as I simply put the critters back outside where they belong with a stern warning not to return.  We have had birds, raccoons, possums, squirrels, snakes, frogs, lizards and every possible (or so I thought) insect creepy-crawling or slithering about the house at some point.  Hmmm...we even had a baby otter visit but that was not by his choice.  Back when the kids were growing up, they found critters, brought them home and called them pets.  These wild "pets" were allowed a short stay before they were returned to where they were found.  I assumed this was a learning experience since my siblings and I did the same.  I guess a house is a home to a lot more than just the human family that resides there.

  This morning, I was sweeping the dust bunnies out of the living room when I noticed a "sparkly" on the floor.  Assuming this was some random bead left over from my granddaughter's stay a few weeks ago, I reached down and picked up said sparkly.  Hmmm...beads do not wiggle.  Yep, it was a bug.  Another critter had found its way inside the house.  "Sparkles" (its name now) was unlike any critter that I had seen before.  It literally seemed like it was covered with glitter. Most of the time, it gleamed bright green but occasionally certain spots seemed gold.  Time for a few photographs before "Sparkles" headed back outside. 

  After a little research, I have about decided this is none other than a Metallic Woodboring Beetle.  There are numerous types but, thankfully, this is not a "bad" beetle.  Yes, it does gnaw on wood but only on dead or dying trees (which there are many here due to termites.  Yep, termites have infested the live trees.)  Anyway, what I found most interesting about Sparkles is that it is really not all those colors.  Its exoskeleton has divots on the surface and those only reflect certain colors.  Mr. Sparkles obviously loves green!...and maybe gold!  Actually, the whole critter is iridescent but the little divots reflect the most light...sort of like an inverse disco ball!  

  The beetle was so pretty that I had to carry it all the way down to the canebrake where Son was pulling out the dead canes.  While showing him our glittery friend, he suggested that it may have come in with an armload of firewood.  Ahh, probably right!  My first thought was to return Mr. Sparkles to the outdoor wood rack but then I had the horrible thought that he may not make it through the next cold spell.  It was pure luck that he crawled out of the firewood in time with his first adventure indoors.  He may not be so lucky next time!  So...I made the decision to let the critter loose on the old oak stump.  There, he could find lots of old wood to munch and some pretty snug places to overwinter if the weather turns cold.  Now...I can mark Metallic Woodboring Beetle off the list of Little Bayou House guests!  Like I said, you never know just what you might find here.

 

"I wanna go home!"

  First off...do you ever talk to inanimate objects?  I do.  If you do, would you mind telling me if you get any replies?  Again, I do.  Maybe not so much in words or sounds but in feelings, I guess.  To me, if you really get to know an object...especially one that has been through some trauma...an odd sort of aura emanates from it and that aura speaks volumes.  At least, it "speaks" to me.  Yeah, there are those who claim that I am weird or eccentric and those are the kinder folks.  Ask others and you will get some more "elaborate" descriptions.  But, back to "talking" objects...

  About a year and a half ago, my dear friend had a most devastating event happen to her.  While she and a friend sat talking, lightning struck her house causing a huge fire.  They both managed to escape unharmed but her house was a total loss.  Only a few items were salvageable with one being a clock.  The poor clock did not go unscathed as the finish crackled and the clockworks itself was full of soot.  So...what better place to bring a clock for the duration than to the home of that weird friend who kinda/sorta fixes antique clocks.  I immediately cleaned and oiled the clock.  The outer case could not be remedied much without devaluing the worth so I simply used denatured alcohol to even some of the finish.  Now...the test...I gently swung the pendulum and the gorgeous clock started ticking!  It worked!  After all it had been through, the clock still ran smoothly! The clock has been here since.

  Several times, I moved the gorgeous clock to a different spot in my living room from my work table.  I figured it deserved a better spot.  Perhaps the buffet!  There it would be showcased as the beauty it is.  Nope, the clock immediately stopped working.  Well, perhaps on the coffee table!  That lasted just about ten minutes and no more.  Well, maybe the bookshelf!  The clock was not having it.  Nary a tick could be heard.  Out of desperation, I set it back on the center of the work table.  Tick, tick, tick...the clock did not miss a beat. So...I asked it why?  Why will you not work anywhere but this work table?  You deserve better, my friend.  Then, in soft silence other than the steady ticks came the answer.  "I wanna go home."  My heart broke.  The clock had let me know that the work table felt the closest to going back home where it belongs.  It needed to go back to the loving care of my beautiful friend.  All of the other locations, though comfortable, were not home.  The clock felt like those moves were permanent.  It needs to go home.

  So...the clock will go home...back to where it belongs.  Slowly I glided my hand across the sloping back of clock as I whispered..."Soon...soon, you will be back where you belong.  I promise...I promise."  Sometimes, objects murmur, but this time the clock spoke loud and clear.  

The Great Cricket Search!

   In many cultures, crickets are thought to be harbingers of good luck, future prosperity and protection.  It seems that much lore has been attached to the chirpy critters since the beginning of time.  It was considered to be a happy day when a cricket was found in the home but...it would bring much misfortune if the cricket was killed.  This thought led to many folks protecting their crickets against any danger even to the point of having cricket cages in their homes.  Well, living on the Bayou sees many critters wanting to invade the house...crickets included.  I am not squeamish about the critters that call the Bayou their home and can happily live side-by-side with the lot of them.  Then came the invasion.

  Early on Christmas morn, my oldest son and I were in the kitchen.  I had fixed him a cup of coffee when I heard a strange sound.  Uh, oh...that sounded like the batteries were dying in our smoke alarm.  I tried to remember when we last changed them and continued talking with my son.  Then...about 15 minutes later...another series of beeps...errr....chirps.  The alarm was in the laundry room which is just off the kitchen. I peeped in there but the thing was quiet.  Nary a sound came from the confernal thing so I headed back through the doorway to the kitchen to continue the conversation with my son while we waited on the others to rouse from bed or arrive from their homes.  Soon...the goofy thing chimed again!  Alrighty then...out to the back deck it went.  It was driving me crazy!   We would have to depend on the other alarms that were playing nicely until I could find the proper batteries for this one.  After a bit...I heard the same sounds in other rooms.  Geez!  Those batteries must all be dying!  I spent a good bit of Christmas morning on the search for fire alarms and batteries!  I was thankful once everyone was ready to open gifts!  Yay!  Let Christmas fun begin!

  After all the gifts were opened, My son, Mark, handed out three "special" gifts!  One to each sibling and one to me!  Eeek!  I was excited...short lived glee but...excited!  I opened the package to find a puzzle box...you know...one of those nigh on impossible things to open??  Yep...one of those.  I fiddled with the box, all the while, complaining of those dratted "alarms" that were still screaming.  Aha!  Step one was completed!  I was quite proud of myself!  There, scrunched in the tiny compartment, was a packet of herb seeds!  But...there was more to open...so I continued to push, pull, twist and turn portions of the box until....another compartment and another packet of seeds!  Alrighty, then!  Mom is getting good at this!  Beep..beep...shut-up, alarms!!!  Mark informed me that there was one last compartment and reassured me that I was doing well.   Another few twists of parts of the box and a few shoves revealed the last compartment...completed with a tiny portrait of Jiminy Cricket...you know...that "moral guide" from Pinocchio?  Yeah, him...and he had a message..."Find Me!"  Huh?  I did!  I just found you!  Nope...the search had only begun.

  Well...now it came to light that my smoke alarms were not so confernal after all.  Their batteries were fine...the beeps were not coming from them.  Mark had hidden some sort of noisemakers all over my house!  The beeps (chirps) were Jiminy Crickets and I had to find them to make the noise stop. Arghh!  What had my son done???  Beep..beep.  The search was on while he sat at the kitchen table chopping vegetables for our Christmas dinner that I was supposed to help him make...and to top it off, he had a big smirk on his face.  Ugh!  Crickets!  Why did they have to be electronic things that, as he informed me, would keep chirping for approximately 3 years...THREE YEARS!  I searched, he smirked as the morning slipped by.  Soon this became a family effort and everyone who was not involved in his sneaky scheme chipped in to help rid the house of Jiminy!  Oh, was I happy when my son-in-law announced that he found a cricket on top of the huge china cabinet!  Whew!  One down....beep...beep.  Ugh!  About a half hour later, my sweet granddaughter squealed that she found one!  I could do nothing but hug her! Oh, happy day!  Beep..beep.  Not another!  Yep...another.   About this time, both grandkids decided it was time to play with their Christmas gifts and several other of my "team" decided it was time to help their sibling who was now in the midst of preparing the dinner by himself.  (Ha!  Payback for sending his mom on this wild goose chase!)  They cooked...I searched with my only ally...Darling Daughter, Elizabeth.  Beep...beep.  We were back in that laundry room!  Now anyone who has ever been in the Little Bayou House can attest that searching any room would be a difficult task but that laundry room also doubles as a storage area for home canned goods, dehydrated herbs and most of my canning supplies.  It also houses three large freezers so searching there would prove to be challenging but Elizabeth stuck with me and we found the elusive Jiminy!  Wow!  What an unexpected gift!  It was so much fun to have the whole family involved and the search will be talked about for years to come.  Not to mention...I am glad the fire alarms are still in good working order and were not chunked too far out the back door!  Thanks, Mark!...Now, son...no more shirts for you for Christmas...it is payback time!  Beep!

  

The Sticky Mess

   Way back in January of 1919, a deadly event occurred that could have been prevented had carelessness not gotten in the way.  Most folks nowadays have forgotten or merely have not even heard of the "Great Molasses Flood of 1919" and when you mention it, a lot of folks stare in disbelief as if it was not a true disaster.  Jokes are often made but the loss of life is not ever fodder for comedy.  The flood really did happen and it was all the result of greed and carelessness.  The flood was truly that...a flood.  It happened because of a failure in the structure of a 50 foot tall storage tank that was a slipshod construction.  A neighborhood in North End, Boston was completely devastated by a gigantic surge of molasses after the storage tank ruptured.  Townsfolk had pointed out the structure leakage long before the tank literally exploded but nothing more than a brown coat of paint was applied to the tank.  This was done to merely disguise the problem and not to remedy the situation.  Because of the shady dealings, the rupture caused the neighborhood to be engulfed by a 35 mile per hour wave that was 25 foot tall.  2.3 million gallons of molasses ripped through buildings, toppled trains from the tracks and, most horrifically, killed 21 people and numerous animals.  The town was in complete shambles and covered in a horribly sticky mess that made cleanup nigh on impossible until it was found that salt water helped dissolve the goo.  The fire department was then put in charge of the major amount of cleanup as salt water was pumped from the Boston Harbor.  All in all, this was a tragic event that could have been prevented had the Purity Distilling Company only inspected their tank to make sure it would withstand the pressure of so many tons of molasses.  Responsible action should have been key goal.

  Not to be compared to this catastrophic incident, something happened yesterday here at the Little Bayou House that caused this whole memory of that flood.  Purely because of a molasses spill on the kitchen table, I recalled that Granddad had told me about the Great Molasses Flood.  This spill, like the flood, could have been avoided had "protocol" merely been followed.  It appears that the lid of a molasses bottle was not properly tightened after use and then the bottle was inadvertently toppled.  Yep, a small scale "chaos" occurred.  Sticky syrup flooded the table.  As I was cleaning the goo, Granddad's story came to mind.  I was determined that, once I finished the task at hand, I was going to research the event.  It was eye-opening and, at the same time, heartbreaking.  There were 21 too many lives lost due to negligence.  In both cases, that "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" idiom comes to mind.  Responsible action could have prevented the devastating flood in Boston and the small-scale mess in my kitchen.  

  Folks, if you ever have a few moments, read the history of the Great Molasses Flood of Boston.  Something that happened over a hundred years ago should be a reminder that we all need to be more responsible in our actions.  

 

  

Twenty-two? Seriously?

   So the Clue Hunt on the Bayou got to a late start this year.  Between illness, injuries, termites and a mass amount of cleaning the property, things got hectic.  However!  Son and I were determined to bring the hunt to a reality again (after a 5 year hiatus).  We pushed through the setbacks, cut back on a few of the major props and dug deeper into ingenuity but we did it!  The hunt is in mid-run now and will continue for another week.  Even with our problems, each group attending gave rave reviews and voiced their desire to come back next year.  Success!  At least, success in my point of view.

  Each hunt is an immersive event where even the decorations fit the theme.  This year, our whole place was set in a Victorian town so everything had to have the appearance of being of that era.  One shop was a tailor shop.  Hmmm...well, intentions were good to actually sew a bunch of Victorian style clothing pieces for display.  That did not happen.  I was on the verge of despair when I recalled a trunk full of old clothing from...get this...the turn of the century...yep...that turn of the century!  I had clothes from around the correct time period just stashed in a trunk.  Mom had kept them...and whoever before her....kept them...I kept them.  Now, those dresses were to finally be stars of the show again! 

  As I carefully unpacked dress after dress, something dawned on me.  My goodness!  The waist measurments were absurdly tiny!  I mean TINY!  Keep in mind these dresses were worn by ladies not children.  Out of curiousity, I measured.  Yep...tiny!  Most were around 20 to 22 inches but some were 18 to 19 inches.  Were these gowns worn with corsets or were the ladies just slender?  Either way...I would never be able to wear one of these elaborate gowns unless the outfit did include a corset that was laced "unbreathably" tight!  (Unbreathably is not actually a word but it describes my feeling about tight-laced corsets.)  Still, the dresses were truly amazing as they were all handmade with most being hand-stitched.  

  Now, I wish I had the talent to sew beautiful gowns even though I do not wear them except for the clue hunts.  I may give it a try by following some of these gowns.  Perhaps a paper pattern could be fashioned?  Who knows...but...I do know that not many will have such tiny waistlines!  Mine will need at least an 8 inch increase before I would be able to breathe.  

Just A Lily Brightening the Way.

   I have been lax on taking care of the plants this whole summer.  It seems as if one thing or another has gotten in the way and anything not on that "priority" list fell to the wayside.  I feel bad about it but, at the same time, feel there was no need in pushing myself beyond feasible limits.  I am getting old.  Today, however, as I meandered back behind the old greenhouse to the grape arbor, I was greeted in the most pleasant way.  The lycoris lilies were in full bloom...at least as much of "full" bloom as was possible in view of the recent chomping by the Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers.  Those things are relentless!  The lilies proved stronger and were simply gorgeous.  The golden color is a perfect touch for the hint of fall that we are enjoying. 

  These particular lilies were from a few bulbs that I received some 30 years ago from a dear friend.  Ms. Twin (yes, there were two and they were both "Ms. Twin") had dug up some of her bulbs just to share with me.  This sweet elderly lady knew I loved flowers of any kind and knew that she had the perfect gift...one from the heart.  I was elated and immediately planted the bulbs.  They have bloomed every year since and always remind me of the dear friend.  Sadly, she passed only two years after gifting the bulbs to me.  

  The lilies are in the same family as the Red Nerine lilies that are so abundant across the Deep South.  They have a dozen or so names including Lycoris Lily, Nerine Lily, Spider Lily, Jersey Lily, Guernsey Lily and even Naked Lady Lily (due to the lack of leaves...not clothes.)   The spotting of the lilies gave me a much needed lift this morning and I was able to continue the day with a bit more ambition that before.  I figure if the lilies could fight against the drought and grasshoppers then I should be able to fight against the tiredness that wracks the body.  Never doubt that somewhere hidden among the trials is an answer that can make everything right again.

Unfounded Fear?

   When you are fishing around in the Frog Pond trying to pull out some of the spent water hyacinths, the last thing you need to see is a snake.  For me, it is enough to make the work pause while I determine the type of snake.  Here, we have all kinds...both venomous and nonvenomous so it is always a wise move to verify what type is nearby.  There is absolutely no need to put yourself in danger if said snake is apt to make you wind up in a hospital but, on the other hand, there is absolutely no need to quit work if the snake is a friend.  (Unless, of course, the work was not something you wished to do, in the first place.)  Anyway, the snake was identified and the clearing of hyacinths continued.  This was merely my friendly watersnake so there was nothing alarming...at least, not for me.  The snake may have not appreciated this "monster" messing in its domain but that is a different perspective, altogether.

  Finding the snake in the little pond made me ponder just how many folks are terrified of ANY snake.  I have literally seen people have panic attacks over a black racer so I can only imagine how those same folks would have falsely identified this critter as a cottonmouth.  Where did this intense fear originate?   It cannot be contributed to just a phobia as their stories tend to be a bit on the wild side.  "Snakes are all "poisonous."  Nope...while there  may be "poisonous" snakes somewhere...they are extremely rare and...you have to eat them to be affected by the toxins.  Now...there are "venomous" snakes around here but not ALL are in that category.  Most are nonvenomous.   Then I hear,  "Snakes hunt you down to bite you."  Huh?  Why in the world would they do that?  If a venomous snake does bite you, it is because you invaded its territory.  (Like me wallowing in the Frog Pond.)  A snake has more sense than to waste its venom on something that is not going to fill its belly and, trust me, our snakes are not going to eat you.  They cannot.  They physically cannot.    Finally...they resort to "The only good snake is a dead snake!"  What foolishness is that?  All snakes do good things by keeping other critters in check.  Without them, think of how many rats, mice, insects and other critters would be crawling about the place.  Plus, killing anything just because you do not like it is never the right thing to do.  Live and let live...in peace.  It just makes me ponder. 

 

  Perhaps this is a thing passed down through family members.  Pop made sure we could identify venomous snakes over nonvenomous and to let all live if entirely possible.  Possibly, the fear of snakes is a learned thing simply because no one ever took the time to teach kids which to not handle.  Maybe it was just easier to "scare" kids into not messing with any snakes than to take a few minutes teaching them.  Who knows?  Also, there is a big cultural thing that portrays all snakes as "evil" which is a bunch of crock.  To my experiences, humans are the only species that can possibly be called "evil".  Snakes get a bad rap just like crows, ravens, black cats and even goats.  Those poor critters have been splatted across history as being bearers of bad luck, misfortune and even death.  Once again...a big NOPE.  Some folks just have to create a justification for their own silliness.  Critters are not evil.  Snakes are not evil.  This does not mean critters cannot be dangerous but a bit of commonsense should come into play somewhere.  That said, had my snake been an actual cottonmouth (or any other venomous snake), it would have been removed from the Frog Pond simply because the pond is so near the back door.  The watersnake can stay but I do warn visitors that the critter is there simply to avoid any panic attacks.  Me?  I did get those water hyacinths thinned even with my friend having to be shooed off of some that needed pulling.  It obliged and I continued.  We are a pretty good team!