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!

First The Bayou...Now The Bay

  Commonsense seems to be a thing of the past.  Or, perhaps, people just do not care anymore.  Either way, the actions of the "non-thinkers" are not for the best of the environment.  Take, for instance, the water plants that have now fully clogged the Bayou.  Coontail is an aquatic plant that is highly invasive.  It has excessive growth habits that will fill an area and soon clog the waterways.  The Bayou is clogged.  The Bay will be if something is not done soon. 

  A few months back, someone decided it was a fine thing to dump their unwanted pond plants into the Bay.  Well, the little amount they dumped has now turned into acres of the invasive plants.  Truly...acres.  The sad thing is, there is very little that can be done to remedy the situation.  The amount is too massive to be removed by normal methods.  This could be the end of an era for the Bayou...and Bay.  Fish will perish, marine mammals and birds may become ensnared and boating may even come to a halt as the weeds tangle around the propellers.  Life is changing....and not in a good way.  And those responsible go about their merry way.  Saddening.  Saddening for the rest of us.  I am beginning to lose all faith in humanity.

Thriving between a rock and a hard place.

   Early this afternoon, it was quite evident that the north wind has dried things a good bit.  The garden needed watering so I set out with the hose.  Well, one thing led to another and I wound up even watering the pathetic looking herbs.  They have all seen better days as they are waning.  But...I watered.  While watering the herbs, a bright red mushroom caught my attention.  It had grown between the bricks of the front steps and actually looked quite healthy.  I pondered how in the world that poor, little thing found enough nutrients to, not only survive, but thrive!  

  That pondering got me to sort of comparing that mushroom to the fine fix this nation has gotten itself into.  The powers that be are shooting prices out the ceiling with nothing more than indecisions and fighting among themselves.  Our ancestors are probably shaking their heads at the weakness we are showing the world.  Like that mushroom, we are now between a rock and a hard place and it is only going to get worse.  Also, like that mushroom, we need to make the best of it and survive....literally thrive.  It can be done with ingenuity and hard work but most are not willing to go that route....this already shows.

  Folks, get ready.  Things are going to get worse before they get any better.  That pendulum has to hit rock bottom before it starts making that upswing again.  I can only hope that everyone is heeding the warnings and taking some proactive steps.  Otherwise, there are going to be a lot of folks not making it out of that rock and a hard place.  They will be stuck.  

Southern Flannel Caterpillar....Fluffy Pain

   Am I the only one who will find an interesting critter, pick it up, play with it THEN go research it?  You, know, research it to see if it is potentially harmful.  Yeah, well, maybe I am or, at least, maybe I am the only one that will admit to this goofy practice.  The thing is, I do not carry my phone with me so I do not have an instant method of finding out things.  Google has us all spoiled!

  This afternoon, I noticed that the basil needed water so I was giving them a drink when a critter caught my eye.  Oh, my gosh!  It was the cutest thing ever!  A brownish colored caterpillar was on one of the pots and it looked a whole lot like a tiny kitten!  It even had a tail and long, soft fur!  The two inch long critter was so fluffy that I just had to pet it!  I did!  Then, the thought was to run inside and grab the camera.  I needed photos of this adorable critter!  Yep, all of this happened BEFORE the idea of researching the safety of handling the caterpillar.

  To be honest, after the photos were taken, I did research the critter and found it to be, well, not safe.  This is a Southern Flannel Caterpillar and those lovely, soft hairs can cause skin irritations.  They also hide spines that are connected to venom glands.  If those spines make contact with your skin, they act like tiny hypodermic needles and shoot venom into your body.  Not good.  Not good at all.  In fact, this is considered to be the most venomous caterpillar in the United States!  How about that?  I was playing with a very cute critter that could inflict a good amount of pain.  I am just mighty fortunate that the critter obviously did not see me as a threat.  Thankfully, my hands are not irritated, not itching nor was I pierced by the spines.  

  Folks, this is a case of needing to use a bit of commonsense.  I admit that mine usually flies out the window when I find a critter.  There are very few that I will avoid and those are ones that are quite obviously dangerous.  I need to learn a few lessons in reasoning!  Yep, research that critter before handling and not after.  Sometimes the brain wanders, I guess.

Learning From The Critters

  It is no lie that I spend a lot of time watching the critters of the Bayou.  I learn from them.  Critters are smart.  Their whole lives totally depend upon their survival skills and they have honed those to perfection.  People, on the other hand, have become lackadaisical and soft.  There are many who could not survive a week without some assistance.  By studying the critters, I have discovered so many useful ways and have been applying them, in a lot of instances.  These are all things that have made life easier for me.

  This afternoon, the sun came out for about an hour so I took full advantage of it and stacked yet more firewood.  With the two wood-burning stoves going full tilt, the pile dwindles quickly.  Stockpiling during nice weather sure helps.  It was then that I noticed someone else stockpiling.  A beautiful Red-bellied Woodpecker was helping itself to the birdseed that I had strewn on the ground.  The bird had eaten its fill and was stashing a good number of seeds in the bark of the nearby oak tree before moving on to the hickory tree.  Red-bellied Woodpeckers are known to store up to four times as many seeds and acorns as they need to survive.  In fact, they can (and do) stash thousands of food items in nooks and crannies and have an uncanny sense of finding them again when needed.  The bird was stockpiling food for hard times.  

  People need to be more like the critters and not expect handouts.  My pantry shelves are lined with hundreds of jars of home-canned food items and the garden is producing a fine winter crop.  This is all fine and dandy as it keeps me from having to go to the store for items.  My pet peeve is to hear visitors to the Little Bayou House exclaim "We know where we are coming if things hit rock bottom!"  Nope.  Everyone has the same opportunity to fill their own pantry even if it is with "store-bought" goods.  We are not playing the "Little Red Hen" game here.  Folks, just use a bit of commonsense.  You do not have to go to extreme but having a few things on hand never hurt anyone. Or, perhaps, commonsense has gone the wayside.  

"Hippie Gardening"

  "Hippie Gardening"!  I had never heard that phrase until a good friend used it to describe a method of gardening he had come across during a shopping expedition.  Perhaps he knew it long before but he mentioned it when telling of the vegetables and fruits at a market.  Hippie Gardening was the words he used to describe the habit of using co-planting or at least that was the way I understood it.  Co-planting or companion planting is a nifty idea  about planting flowers or other aromatic plants in the vegetable garden to cut down on pests.  This goes on to knowing which plants do well as neighbors or which do better far away from the others.  The idea of planting flowers such as marigolds and nasturtiums around vegetables that are attacked by bugs is an old one that many folks had forgotten.  In recent years, there has been a huge resurgence of planting "old-style" and that is a good thing.  "Back in the day", folks did not use insecticides or chemical fertilizers so companion planting was a method that came in handy.  Knowing which plants would tolerate being next-door neighbors and which preferred to be off by themselves was a necessity.  Another long-forgotten bit of good farming was crop rotation.  To keep the ground from becoming depleted of certain nutrients, crops were never planted in the same spot year after year.  Crops were rotated to assure that nutrients were replenished before replanting.  For instance, Pop would never plant peas in the same field year after year.  The pea rows were alternated with other crops and after harvesting, the dead stalks were plowed into the soil to replenish the used nitrogen.  Plowing old plants of any kind into the soil added organic matter and kept the garden soil from becoming too hard.  Methods such as these can go a long way in having a healthy garden.

  At first, I giggled at the term "Hippie Gardening" but then I realized that I was snickering at myself.  I do companion planting.  My gardens are filled with vegetables, flowers and herbs.  The tomatoes are grounded by marigolds, the bell peppers are best friends with the basil plants and the cucumbers were in love with the nasturtiums!   Not only are there flowers in the vegetable plots, there are vegetables stuck in the flower beds!  The whole garden space is one mishmash of plants...but they are happy plants.  

  I never thought of this as any certain "type" of gardening, I just followed along with what Pop taught me as a kid back on the farm.  It worked then...it works now.  It is all a matter of knowing which plants can coexist and which are detrimental to the others.  Getting back to some of the old ways is not all bad no matter what it is called.  Co-planting, Hippie Gardening, Commonsense....whatever works.

Meanderings, Baby Birds and Commonsense...

  While out in the gardens or roaming the marsh lines, I observe.  It seems that is what I do best. I am a watcher of sorts.  I investigate everything...plants, critters, weather...whatever catches my eye.  Mostly, I watch critters.  The animals around the Bayou have not flourished as they have by being stupid or ignorant.  (And, yes, there is a difference.  Look it up.)  People of the world should take note.  Animals are smart. They know how to take care of themselves and don't go whining about their lot in life.  The tiniest mouse has just as good of a life as the huge alligator.  Neither are up in arms about the other.  People are not so smart.

  Today as I piddled in the gardens, I could hear a family of blackbirds as they came up from the marsh to get a bite to eat at the feeders.  I was pondering why it took them so long to make the 300 ft flight but then I realized that they were coaxing their young along the route.  The parent birds were not only encouraging their young to fly but were teaching them where they could find a free meal at times.  The mama blackbird would fly to a tree and call to the little ones.  Once they made it to the tree, she would do a short flight to another branch.  Never did she let them actually reach her until they were finally at the feeder.  Then, she and the papa bird pecked furiously at the seeds.  The little ones peeped, fluttered their wings and begged to be fed.  Mama and Papa pretended not to hear but kept pecking at the seeds.  It was only a short time before the little ones got the idea and tried to mimic their parents.  The lessons were a success.  Baby birds only have a couple of weeks to learn the ropes to being an adult bird.  Flying, finding food, finding shelter are all lessons that need to be mastered before the mama bird takes to the nest again.  It is this way with most critters. Very few spend more than a couple of weeks or, at best, a few months caring for their young.  It seems that humans and elephants are just about the only ones who baby their young for any length of time.  

  It got me to pondering a lot of things watching the birds today.  It has not been that long ago that human kids were put to work at an early age.  Families depended upon it.  If you were able to toddle at all, chores were assigned and were expected to be completed.  Maybe that's what is wrong with society today.  Kids are mollycoddled too much for too long.  They become dependent, lazy and have a "me" attitude.  They expect to have everything handed to them or they pitch a fit just like the little birds at the feeder.  Gimme!  Gimme!  Gimme!  Thankfully, those parents had commonsense.  They led their brood to the feeders and expected them to start feeding themselves.  No more handouts!  That, my friends, is commonsense teaching.  That, my friends, is what is lacking nowadays.  No one thinks for themselves anymore.  'Nuff said. 

Just Stay Home!

  Perhaps it is time to put something out there that may make a point hit home.  At least, if folks really think, it may make this whole "self isolation" or "social distancing" seem a little clearer since there are those who either simply do not understand or who do not care what happens to others.  

  A few weeks ago, I posted a photo of the Groundsel Bush Beetle larva.  This is a pretty, little thing that munches happily on the bushes near the pier.  The critter grows and turns into a small yellow beetle.  The main diet for the larva is the Groundsel Bush hence the name.  It does not venture into the garden to eat my turnip greens nor tomato plants.  It does not infest oak trees nor hickory trees.  It simply stays put on the Groundsel Bush and eats to its heart's content.   Now if that host plant is removed, the larva dies.  

  Trying to explain the importance of social distancing or isolation to some folks is nigh on impossible but it can be compared to the larva and the Groundsel Bush.  If  we remove the host, the virus will die.  It is as simple as that.  Remove ourselves from mass meetings, crowded public places and unnecessary groupings and...wham!...the virus will not have a bunch of hosts in which to live.  These social gatherings of any sort puts us all at danger but also puts everyone else who we interact with in danger as well.  The virus WILL DIE if it has no host...simple as that.

  So, that said, folks, it really boils down to a bit of commonsense and a lot of respect.  Would you want someone bringing the virus to your house?  To infect you?  To infect your loved ones?  Then why do you insist on doing the same?  Stay home!  If you are not an essential person needed to keep this country running...stay home.   If you are not a health care worker of any sort..stay home.  If your services are not direly needed for the safety of others...stay home.  If you are not someone directly helping in some form...stay home!  By getting out, you are putting so many in danger and are making the jobs of those out there trying their best to keep things safe and keep the country rolling much more difficult.  Just STAY HOME!

The Dark Path

  Sometimes, it is a bit intimidating to walk down a dark path not knowing what may be lurking in the shadows.  Anything could be there.  Something evil may be waiting to pounce but, then again, something beautiful may be waiting to be discovered.  Facing our own fears can be quite daunting.  It is that unknown the pulls the creep factor up to the highest point and our minds refuse to temper it.  We cling to the sure and safe and rarely go down that dark path.  It is far too scary but. at the same time, our brains remind us of that "something beautiful" and the urge is real.

  I did not sleep well last night.  The body feels like some evil entity is trying to enter.  Thinking that a brisk walk in the night air might help, I headed out far before the sun rose in the east.  Things were dark, a bit creepy and, yes, daunting.  While on the pier, I was fine. Being over the water allows for a good bit of ambient light to surround you.  Plus, the pier gives some semblance of safety since there is only one entry point and anything clomping down those boards is easily heard.  Still, there was that uneasiness that lingered so I headed back up the hill.  Not wanting to go back to the Little Bayou House, my path veered to the right and around the marsh edge until it led to the woods.  Did I dare enter?  The path sure looked dark but I know this place as well as the back of my hand.  Yep.  I might as well push onward.  I might as well face those fears right up front.

 In this time of uncertainty, fear is playing a large factor in people's actions.  It is not fear that is going to get us through this chaos.  Commonsense is the best answer.  When it was put out there to hunker down and isolate from others, it was wise advice.  If everyone would use the logic behind this idea, the virus would soon die out for lack of hosts.  BUT....a lot of folks are lacking in the commonsense area.  Even here.  While I am a pro at this social distancing thing, others are not.  If the virus infects the Little Bayou House, it is because it was brought here not because I was out and about.  I am just going to go down that dark path and hunt for the beauty at the other end.  It is there...regardless of how many monsters I have to battle before finding it.  

  STAY HOME, folks!  Use commonsense!  Be strong.  Fight the urge to mingle because "I am strong and healthy".  Think of others.  If you want to play games with your health...so be it.  Don't inflict it upon everyone else.  Now...that said...pardon me while I become a hermitess for the next couple of weeks and search for something beautiful at the end of that dark path.  Do not come to the Bayou!

Strange Things In Strange Places

    One never knows what may wash in with the tide around here.  We are accustomed to finding all sorts of "treasures" after a hurricane but having things come in during the winter months is a tad unusual.  The north wind has a way of pushing the tide far out from the pier leaving no water to float anything much less a bunch of oddities.  An oddity did make its way to a small inlet on the other side of my brother's pier (just to the west of us).  A freak storm from the south pushed the tide far enough up into the Bay that it left gifts behind for us.  By gifts, I mean debris that needed clearing.

  At first, I had no idea why a buoy was sitting almost on shore.  It then occurred to me that this thing was yet another "treasure" left behind by the high tide.  At least, it is not MY treasure and I do not have to discard that huge thing.  According to the "Regulatory Buoy Markers" list, the marker seems to be either a "no swimming" marker or a "swimming" marker as both have a huge red diamond mark in the middle with an + in the middle.  I find it odd that both have the same emblem but, hey, no one should be swimming in this area anyway.  First, there are alligators that do not like to be disturbed.  The gators stick to the small inlets where they will not be harassed by people but will defend their territory if necessary.  People are the intruders...not the gators.  Second, the bottom here is mud...soft, mushy mud that makes it easy to sink up to your waist in no time flat.  In a matter of minutes, you can become hopelessly mired!  The mud has been compared to the "quicksand of the Deep South".  Third, under that mud lies anything that previous tides, reckless people and numerous storms have dumped into the area.  This means everything from broken glass to boards with barnacles or other pointy, sharp things hide just out of sight. 

  I am not sure what the writing says on the buoy but lets hope no one takes it to heart that this is a "swimming" area.  Once in, a swimmer may become stuck and, as that person sloshes around trying to free himself, all of the gators in the inlets will be alerted to his presence.  The gators will come to investigate causing panic in the swimmer.  Said swimmer will slosh even more to get to safety and may just happen to stir up some shard that causes a wound.  Things will go drastically downhill from there.  Again, people are the intruders...the gators live here.  But...sadly, if an alligator ever does defend it territory, it will be the one dispatched.  

  The buoy sits right against the shoreline in about a foot of water.  Hopefully, another storm will come in and either wash it further ashore or back out to where it originated.  Also, hopefully, people use some commonsense when it comes to being around the bayous and not need some marker to inform them one way or the other.