If Only It Was Green

   I am one of those folks who will reuse or repurpose something until it literally is no more.  Take my canning pot, as an example.  Once the enamel got a bit chipped, it started rusting rendering it not the best for canning.  Since I had three of the same pot, I simply got down another from the upper shelf and relegated the rusty one to be used in the greenhouse.  There, rust does not matter.  Plants are not choosy when it comes to containers.  So, the pot found a second life in the art of gardening.

  The other day, I grabbed the pot that had been sitting upside down on the greenhouse floor for some time.  I needed it to haul the fine compost to the garden.  I filled the large pot time and time again and carefully deposited the mulch under the broccoli plants.  With the last emptying, I had to start giggling!  There, on the inside of the pot sat a blob of dirt from the last time the pot had been used.  It was the perfect silhouette of a movie character...one of the most loved characters in the recent history of all movies...Grogu...better known as "Baby Yoda".

  Yep, I had been carrying that pot for the last hour without ever noticing that image!  After seeing it and having a fit of giggles in the middle of the garden, I figure there had to be a reason that Baby Yoda came to visit.  In this old, messed-up world full of insecurities, bitter divisiveness and downright hostility, this puppet dude is the one thing that most folks agree on...he is adorable.  So, finding his image in my garden (and I admit to having an overactive imagination) gave me the inspiration to plant more, share more and care more.  Now...if only the image in my pot was green!...with big, sad, puppy-dog eyes and the innocence of a babe...I would be in awe.  As it is, though, this is just little blob of dirt but the thought of Baby Yoda did brighten my day.

Marsh Mat Mulch

   So far, this has been a strange February.  The weather has not been particularly cold but has been somewhat wet and windy.  Normally, one thinks of "winter" winds being from the north and cool.  Not here.  Our wind has mainly been blowing from the southeast which makes for an unusual occurrence.  While the north winds blow the tide far from the shore and we have a lot of mudflats exposed, the southeast winds do just the opposite.  We have unusually high tides.  In fact, those wind-blown tides have rivaled any small tropical system.  This is very wearing on the marshes.

  This morning, my walk to the pier showed me just how rough the weather has been.  Neatly laid across the tops of the marsh grass were what I call "marsh mats". These mats are created by the high tide and large waves pulling dead marsh grass from around the roots and stacking it atop the living grasses.  The mats are about a foot deep in places and tightly woven.  A person could easily walk across the mats without ever worrying about the mud beneath.  This usually happens during the late summer and fall when tropical storms whip across the Gulf and enter the area.  

  While the mats do make great hiding places and eventually snug dens for many of the critters of the Bayou, I wish the stuff would wash into the yard.  Yeah, strange wish but I have my reasons.  These marsh mats, once cleaned of any trash, can be mulched.  That mulch has proven to be ideal for the gardens and I am in dire need of it around the cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli plants!  It involves a bit of work but the gardens would benefit greatly from the nutrients found in the ground up marsh.  (This brilliant idea of grinding and using the marsh as mulch came after Hurricane Zeta when we were inundated with debris.  I was using an old lawnmower to grind the debris line when a friend had the grand idea of using it as mulch.  It is amazing!  Nothing goes to waste!)  So...perhaps one of these "winter" storms could push this stuff a wee bit further in the yard...not far...just a wee bit??  Maybe?

Mysterious Fern From The Creek

  Every now and again, I come across something on my walks that defies explanation.  To be honest, I know there has to be a logical reason behind the find but I have trouble understanding it.  Take today, for instance.  As I strolled down the newly mulched debris line left behind from Hurricane Ida, I came across the most beautiful fern frond.  Hmm?  How did that get here?  The nigh on 15 inch frond was laid perfectly across the path as if someone had placed it there just for me to find.

  The ferns grow mainly down in the creek bed which is a good thousand feet from the pathway that I was walking.  Since they are well below the hill which separates the creek from this path, there was not much chance that the wind had broken the fern and carried it here.  There had to be another explanation.  I pondered.  Did an animal carry it here?  Did a bird snatch the fern to line its nest?  Maybe a squirrel did the same?  Who knows?  

  The question of how the fern became positioned as it did is still unanswered.  As I said, there has to be some logical answer as to how and why the fern was there but it is beyond my reasoning.  I just accept it as another bit of mystery of the Bayou.

My Good Luck Charm!

   For the past few days it has been sunny and that meant yard work.  I am trying to reclaim all of the mulch that the torrential rains took from the gardens and put down near the marsh.  Hauling it back up the hill is proving to be my undoing as I live in a state of soreness now.  Old ladies are not supposed to push a wheelbarrow uphill twenty to thirty times a day.  I do. I am paying for the effort.  My body is telling me to stop but the weather says "Get it done now because I am going to take a turn for the worse come the weekend."  It is that old adage of "Make hay while the sun shines." at play here.  Good news is that I only have about forty more loads to haul.  Hopefully, I have it secure enough this time that the rain does not decide to mulch the marsh again.  If it does...it can stay...I do not care.  While doing all of that raking, loading and hauling of mulch, I discovered the "motherlode" of millipedes.  It seems that the critters are in mulch heaven under that stuff.  They are fat and happy!

  I was thinking about the millipedes and decided that was to be my research project for the evening.  (Learn something new and all that.)  Anyway, after finding out all the life-habits of the critters, there was an article on symbolism and life totems or spirit animals.  Ok, so that stirred a bit of interest!  It seems that millipedes are the symbols of good luck, energy and health.  Well, now!  I think I shall just have to adopt a millipede as my good luck charm! (Or all of them!)  I sure could use all three of those things.  If you follow my lead, just make sure to adopt a millipede and not a centipede.  First off, those critters can bite!  Millipedes just sort of musk you but centipedes can pack a wallop!  Also, while millipedes represent rather nice things, in most cultures the centipede is a symbol of evil or death.  Nope, don't want that following me.  So, millipedes are where it is at, folks.  Happy little campers there!  I will keep them.

Making Lemonade?

   The old saying "When life hands you a basket of lemons, make lemonade" holds true for my chores of the day.  After enduring the stifling "don't do that" woes for months, I was just about resigned to the idea of staying "Queen of the Small Gardens" for the rest of my days.  Then, a doctor visit and a hurricane visit changed that drastically.  Just days prior Hurricane Zeta slammed us, I received the "ok" to resume a somewhat normal schedule.  Life was good.  Wham!  Hurricane Zeta.  Life is hard.

  With the mountains of debris left behind when Zeta left, there was nothing else to do other than push up the shirt sleeves and get to work.  I found that if I sorted a section of debris, cleared out anything large and spread it thinly, I could use the lawnmower to cut it to a fine mulch.  Great!  With a burn ban initiated, the mulching helped to eliminate a good bit of debris.  At least now I had huge mounds of powdery fine mulch instead of unsightly mounds of rough debris!  Still...what do you do with about two tons (yes, that is what I have cut already) of mulch?  Well, you take those lemons and make lemonade!  

  I took a few days to clear the limbs and roofing from the vegetable plot and found that the cabbages still looked relatively in good shape.  A brilliant idea popped in the head (the second...the first being transforming a lawnmower into a mulch grinder)!  Use a good bit of that mulch in the garden!  So...28 loads in a wheelbarrow were pushed up the hill and into the garden area.  Using some of the salvaged planks, a pathway was laid out and the garden started receiving the mulch.  It worked perfectly in the garden and I started seeing the mounds growing smaller and smaller. 

  Now the idea of mulching all the pathways is starting to run around in the brain.  Clearing the gardens is my "playtime" after doing debris cleanup.  Moving the loads of mulch and seeing the progress is good for the morale.  We still have tons of trees down that need to be cut for firewood, a roof and windows to be replaced in one of the out buildings and the entire pier to be rebuilt but progress is progress no matter how slow.  A glass of lemonade sounds good right about now.  

Lawnmowers can be evil!

   Lawnmowers are dangerous!  It seems that the machines are out to get us.  I have it figured that they are monsters in disguise.  When you least expect it, mowers can leap out in attack!  Wham!  They've got you! It ain't pretty, folks!  It ain't pretty!

  I guess you have gathered by now that I had a run in with the lawnmower, today.  In all fairness, I have to admit that I was stupid and the mower was not at fault.  The mulching of the debris line from Hurricane Zeta is still in full swing.  Using the lawnmower as a mulcher was a hare-brained idea that came to me in the middle of the night when I found that chipper/shredders were outrageously priced.  Knowing that a new machine would rust quickly when putting salt-laden debris in it, I opted to use an old, refurbished lawnmower instead.  Smart thinking...stupid thinking.  The mower is lacking the back guard flap that keeps things from slinging out at your feet.  No problem...until today.  I had carefully (I thought) raked out the debris line and removed anything that could not be mulched.  For the past two days, everything has gone smoothly.  Today, I was obviously lax in sorting and left one unseen object in the debris.  That object could have been my undoing.  As it is, I have a slight injury to my wrist.  

  After mowing for about an hour, I noticed a rather large chunk of wood between me and the mower.  I reached down to remove it and, at that very instance, the mower picked up an 8 inch long bolt and propelled it toward my leg.  The bolt, now jagged from impact with the blade, caught my wrist, instead.  A two inch long slice was cut into the flesh and blood oozed down into my hand.  Well, now!  I wiped the blood off onto my jeans and I continued.  The wrist did not hurt so I figured I could keep working.  It was just a "flesh-wound".  Again, blood filled the palm of my hand and dripped to the fingertips.  Ok, so it was time to head to the Little Bayou House for a repair job!  

  After cleaning the wound, I packed it full of turmeric, bandaged it and headed out the door to work.  Since I am working with debris from the Bayou waters that teem with the flesh-eating bacteria during warm months, I figure I did not need to take any chances.  The turmeric should tend to that for me.  The bolt was obviously ripped from one of the pier stringer boards.  It was rusty and had been in the water for some time.  Perhaps, I should have called it a day but there was work to be done and no time to lollygag about.  The wound will be watched but I am sure not going to whine.  Life is good.  Lawnmowers, on the other hand, can be evil!....Nah, it is all good.  I just need to be a bit more careful.