My hikes about the property serve up some pretty interesting finds at times. I never know if a critter will be lurking in the palmettos, a new plant will surprise me with a bloom or if the rains will give me another treasure from long ago. This afternoon was much the same. Surprises abounded with each turn of the hike. Grasshoppers, hot peppers and church windows do not have much in common except here on the Bayou. The common factor? They (or portions of them) are all found in the back yard.
First and foremost, were the grasshoppers. The Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers are all about business this time of year. They have just about given up munching the garden and have changed goals to mating and egg-laying. Hundreds upon hundreds of the adult grasshoppers are out and about the hillside. Each female has dozens of suitors and eventually will lay about a bazillion eggs. Early spring finds me doing the familiar "Grasshopper Stomp" (the local dance of gardeners) and each summer finds me doing the "Twist and Turn" as I grind the critters to a pulp. These critters are aggravating as they literally have enough babies to cover the hillside each spring. The ground looks like it is covered with a black carpet...a black, wiggly carpet. So, that said, I try to get rid of as many as possible when they are in the adult phase.
While smacking grasshoppers, I discovered that my forgotten jalapeno peppers were making more peppers than I can possibly use. They are loaded! I say forgotten because I truly have not cared for the plants since sticking them in the back garden. Word of advice...never sow an entire packet of hot pepper seeds unless you truly plan on making hot sauce. These things never die, never quit making peppers and will be loaded with dozens of peppers at any given time. I suppose canning hot peppers will be on the agenda soon.
The discovery of hot peppers led me to realize that the garden was also weedy. Handfuls of weeds were yanked and tossed the wayside. While tossing one particularly large wad of weeds out of the garden, a glint of blue caught my eye. The recent downpours had washed the ground to be clean, white sand. (This sand was washed in on a hurricanes tidal surge.) The blue was striking against the white sand so I needed to investigate. Yep, blue glass. Blue stained glass that had come in with that beach sand. When Hurricane Katrina demolished everything across the Bay, it swept it all over to our side. A good bit of the debris wound up on our property. As near as I can tell, the shards of stained glass came from windows of churches that were demolished in Biloxi. I gathered a dozen or so pieces of glass from the sand this afternoon. For the most part, these were blues, greens and purples. Over the past twelve years now (since the storm), I have been collecting the shards of colored glass. Buckets full of the colorful pieces are stored in hopes that some beautiful craft project will become of them. It seems to be almost a sacrilege to dispose of them. Surely some use can be made from the once thing of beauty. I just have to get creative here.
So my hike turned into quite the intriguing venture. Now I have to squish grasshoppers, can hot peppers and be creative enough to recycle some beautiful glass into a treasured piece. It can be done...it can be done.
Living on a bayou, one expects (or at least should expect) storms to roll in from the Gulf. Most of these storms are not so severe that the damage is lasting but every so often one will ravage the area. Hurricane Camille was the "benchmark" storm for a long while. It was the storm that made history. For years, tales from those surviving the storm were regaled during front porch visits. Although the farm where I grew up was not right on the water like the Little Bayou House, we did see a good bit of damage from that storm. Then, along came Hurricane Katrina. A new benchmark was set. This was the storm that beat all storms. It is one that will be in our lore for years to come. Someone once said that Hurricane Camille killed more folks during Hurricane Katrina than it did when it hit the Coast. People never expected a storm to be stronger than the one that they survived. I say...never trust a hurricane. (And, for the sake of argument, Katrina did hit here. We did get the brunt of the winds and surge because we were in the northeast quadrant..the strongest part of any storm. But we did not get the news coverage that other places did. So be it. We survived.) Hurricane Katrina was one to reckon with and one to deal with even twelve years down the line.
Now, dealing with what Katrina left behind is becoming quite evident. The recent rains did not do us any favors. During the month of June alone, our area received over 24 inches of rain. Hmmm, that is more than some places see annually. With the Little Bayou House sitting high on a hill overlooking the Bayou, we had little worries of flooding from these rains. What did happen was that the torrential downpours washed dirt and sand down into the marsh. While this is not too bad for the marsh, it is bad for the hillside. Ruts have been washed wherever there was a lack of good sod. These ruts now have exposed a previously unseen hazard. Both of the aforementioned storms dumped tons of debris on our property. A lot of this debris was covered over with several feet of sand that had been carried on the tidal surge all the way from the beach. For over a decade now, stuff laid buried beneath the sand and presented no problems. It would have been great if it had stayed that way.
This afternoon, I made a quick hike around the hillside. At one point, I noticed some broken glass in one of the washout places. As I picked up glass, more became exposed. Nigh on a gallon bucket of glass shards was in this one area. I was a bit leery about being sliced by the shards so only those readily reachable were gathered. Tomorrow, a rake, shovel and bucket will be put to use once again. One thing that I have learned...it is smart to watch where you step. Any one of these shards could have easily sliced right through my leather moccasin and punctured my foot. Above is the first handful of shards that I retrieved on my walk. I had to go back with a bucket to get more.
Tomorrow's cleanup (over a decade after the fact) is in preparation of a special visitor to the Little Bayou House. I will be fostering a dog while my son, daughter-in-law and grandbabies are away for an extended time. I would hate to think that PJ might cut his foot while he is in my care. I will have to keep a close watch where he runs....or maybe get him shoes! Hmmm? Now that is a thought! Nah, a good scan of the lower part of the yard on a daily basis will solve the problem.
Hurricane Katrina hit the Coast over ten years ago but I am still finding stuff that washed in with the surge. Our property (along with all other waterfront pieces) accumulated mountains of debris. Everything from parts of houses to parts of semi trucks littered the place. At some points in the yard, the debris was more than twelve feet deep. Furniture, boats, shoes (lots and lots of shoes!) doors, refrigerators, curtains, knickknacks were all mixed in with boards, trees, marsh grass and dead critters. There was no accounting for what you might find while out traipsing the mountain of debris. Some was useful. some was disgusting, all was heart-wrenching. With no available markets open for daily necessities, I would send Son out on a scavenging trip. "I need detergent, a bucket and perhaps something to make a clothesline." or "Go out and find a couple of chairs and a table. We have more folks coming down the lane hunting for a hot meal." (We fed dozens of hungry folks. Thank goodness our grill was salvageable. With no power, folks had no way of cooking for months.) No matter what the request was, we usually could find needed items by scrounging about the place. To sum it up, when one out-of-state cousin asked what it was like living after the storm, I had a ready reply. "It is a lot like camping out....in the largest dump in the world." It was.
Still today, I find things that the storm surge deposited in the yard. In the far back corner of the property...down behind the canebrake, I made yet another discovery. The recent deluge of rain, uncovered glass. Not just any glass but more shards of stained glass that I assume came from churches demolished by the hurricane. I have boxes of like shards in all colors of the rainbow. Why did I keep them? I guess because I needed that rainbow. I needed something bright and pretty. I needed that "light at the end of the tunnel". I needed that sign that things were going to be ok. Now the box of glass has become just another bunch of art supplies. The blue one today will join the others and will become something of beauty...from destruction comes a thing of beauty....hmmm, interesting thought.
This particular area of the yard also received about six feet of beach sand from miles away. There is no telling what is still buried beneath all of that sand. Some months after the storm, I found what I thought was a "pretty board". Still in the salvaging mode, Mark helped me to dig (and dig and dig) until we uncovered a beautiful hall table. It had been completely buried except for about four inches of one leg. The table now sits upstairs along with a lovely rosewood bed and an oak table with two matching chairs....all finds from the debris piles. Darling Daughter laid claim to an entire rosewood dining set that we found and refurbished. But it was that shard of glass that brought this flood of memories.
Now...we sit watching the weather forecast that claims another storm may come our way eventually. Since this one is still far, far out in the Atlantic, I can only hope that it weakens and turns north. Folks down here do not need a storm on the heels of the massive flooding that our neighbors in Louisiana just received. They need time to dry out and regroup. They need time to rebuild and reclaim their lives. My heart goes out to them. The good folks of Louisiana need our prayers and any help that can be offered.
As I clutched yet piece of Katrina debris eleven years after the fact and with a storm out on the far horizon, I ponder what is to come. Funny how one little piece of blue glass can trigger thoughts.
