A "Shoulder" To Lean On....

  Every now and again, even the toughest of us needs someone with strong shoulders to "lean on".  We need the security, the reassurance, the comfort of just knowing someone is in our corner.  Those shoulders can be the big burly guy like Mark or the soft..umm...well-padded shoulders of a grandmotherly type.  The type shoulders matters not.  What matters is they are there when we need them.

  For the past two days, storms have pounded the Bayou.  We have seen hail, gale-force winds and torrential rains.  I did not need the "shoulders" for support as I love a good storm and this one fit the bill to a T.  We had all of the trappings of a squall without major damage!  That is my kind of storm!  Still, when I headed to the pier this afternoon, it was good to see that a strong "shoulder" was there when needed.  And, yes, I am speaking figuratively here as I am giving personification to part of the pier.  One of the broad pier posts was in the right spot to catch the wooden bench before the strong winds pushed it off the pier.  Had the post not been there, our bench would have gone swimming never to be seen again.  The wooden bench would have been shoved overboard and pushed away by the winds.  It has happened before!

  Everything on the pier took a beating but there is nothing that cannot be replaced or repaired.  Those "damages" are not worthy of complaint.  Instead, my thoughts are with those in the path of this system that have not been so fortunate.  Flooding, wind damage and tornadic activity wreaked havoc on some places.  They will not recover for months, if then.  Hopefully, there will be helping hands and strong shoulders for those in need.  

Oddly Enough....

  It was strange.  While on the pier early this afternoon, I heard a very clear rasping sound.  It almost sounded as if someone was crunching potato chips but no one was in the area, so this could not be.  Oddly enough, the sound was coming from the water and not the marsh.  Well, strange things always need investigating so I plopped down on the pier to be nearer the water.

  Since we have been have lots of rain, the water is clear making it quite easy to find the source of the crackle.  A blue crab was clinging to a barnacle encrusted board that was used to stabilize the small skiff.  That raspy sound was the crab's claws on the barnacles.  Oh, my!  The blue crab was actually raking out the small critter inside the shell.  The crab was dining on barnacles!  

  Barnacles, themselves, are arthropods and are actually kin to crabs and lobsters.  I never knew that the crabs would eat the barnacles but, then again, crabs eat most anything.  Apparently, this fellow was hungry enough to work for his snack.  So, barnacles were on the menu.

  The mystery was solved!  I now have a new tidbit of useless information to pass along to visitors to the Bayou.  That's what makes life interesting...useless information!  It is the stuff you can twist and turn to make tall tales seem much taller!

As A Rule....

  I have rules that go along with being on the pier.  I figure that some folks need a bit of "guidance" when it comes to being on the water even if that water is only about 5 feet deep most times.  There are rules that pertain to fishing such as..."You do not kill anything that you are not going to use.  Either eat it or use it as bait or let it go free." And there are rules about taking care of the Bayou..."Never leave behind any trash."  Then, there are the rules of common courtesy..."Do not harass any of my critter friends."  Of course, there are the general rules of respect and care of the pier and fishing gear but one rule is just commonsense..."Never be on the pier during inclement weather."   That last one is far more important than all the rest because, here, weather can change in a heartbeat.

Rainstorm coming across the Bay!

  This afternoon, Mark and I headed to the pier on three different occasions.  The first time, as soon as we stepped out the door, a loud crack of thunder roared just to the east.  Nope.  Not happening. We turned and headed back into the house.  Second time, the rain started just as we got on the board path. Well, that was not good!  We turned to go back inside.  The third time, we finally made it to the end of the pier, caught bait and then we noticed the raindrops starting.  Time to head back up the hillside.  

  One reason I am so adamant about enforcing the weather rule is that several years ago,  I watched out the window as one of our pier posts was shattered by lightning.  The weather was not even particularly threatening that day but it only took a few seconds to turn into something that could have been devastating.  Had I been on the pier ignoring the upcoming storm, that pier post might have been me!  So even though there are other rules applying to the pier,  I thoroughly enforce the weather rule!  

What?

  Every now and again something happens that just makes you scratch your head and say "What?"  Today, I was doing a lot of pondering and scratching that head.  Things were just not quite the way they should be.  Not that anything impossible happened.  More like things were just improbable.  

  Early this afternoon after the chores were finished, I headed to the pier.  The day was hot, the sun was bright and I needed a bit of cooler air.  With a slight breeze wafting across the Bay, the pier was the most likely spot to be.  On the way down the board path to the pier, I could hear the raucous calling of the seagulls and crows coming from the pier.  Seagulls?  Yeah, but crows?  What were crows doing on the pier?  It was best to investigate.

  Sure enough, two fine, black crows were occupying two of the pier posts right in the midst of a dozen or so seagulls.  Now that was different!  Not once have I seen crows visit the pier and mingle with the gulls!  The crows usually hang around closer to the woods or clearings but never out on the pier.  As I eased my way down the pier, all of the birds seemed oblivious of my presence until I was only about thirty feet from them.  Then, every bird down there started squawking!  What a din they were making!  Suddenly, the entire lot of them took flight, flew a few circles above my head and headed northward.  I suppose I will never know the actual reason the birds were together and will just chalk it up to another motley crew that ganged together in the search for food.

The Bee Post

  The posts on the pier each have several holes drilled all the way through to the other side.  These were at one time used as bolt holes when the posts were used at a harbor.  Now that the posts hold our pier, the holes sit empty...most of the time.  During the late fall, woodpeckers fill the holes with acorns and then at other times, spiders use the holes as hiding spots.  Yesterday, I noticed a bee fly to one post and crawl inside such a hole.  I pondered just what the bee was doing so I eased over to watch a bit closer.  The bee would disappear towards the shoreline for about ten minutes then be back at the post.  Each trip saw it carrying a tidbit of a leaf.  The bee was making a nice nest in the hole and was lining it with scraps of leaves.

  These bees are a type commonly called Leafcutter Bees...imagine that! The female works hard to cut leaves to line her nest before she lays a single egg inside the tunnel.  While that is miraculous enough in itself, the fact that she also carries pollen is pretty extreme. The pollen that she collects is packed into the nest and then she lays a single egg before sealing the tunnel.  Once the egg hatches, the larvae feasts upon the foodstuffs, grows, moults and then weaves a cocoon.  There it pupates until it comes time for it to emerge as an adult.  The whole life of a female Leafcutter Bee is spent making nests and gathering pollen.  Life goes on.

  We normally think that only Honeybees collect pollen but in reality, a myriad of other bees do as well.  The Leafcutter Bee actually makes more trips to carry pollen than any other bee.  The bee sort of "swims" in the bloom making it release more pollen.  Then, since the pollen is "dry-carried", it is more easily dusted onto other blooms.  This increases pollination and makes the bee highly beneficial to gardeners. 

  I watched the little busy bee as she made trip after trip from shore to post.  Her aim was to create a nice snug nest that was far out of the way of many predators.  Smart thinking, Little Bee!

The Sea Claims its Own.

This morning as I was on the pier, I noticed a clam shell had been left there.  How or why this shell was deposited on the pier is beyond me but it was there in all its glory.  The shell was not there just yesterday evening so I assume some critter left me this gift!  Anyway, I started studying that shell.  It was obviously one that had been emptied of its mollusk some time ago.  Around the edges, barnacles had already attached themselves and were doing rather well although they were still small.  These critters have a habit of making themselves right at home on any object that stays in the water long.  It then occurred to me that in the sea, if something stays long, it becomes part of the sea.  Yes, this shell originated there but it was void of its living being and had been cast aside.  After just a bit, it became part of sea life again.  Once it housed a clam.  Now it gives stability to the barnacles. Along side the pier, several old posts are the site of an entire community of assorted critters.  These posts are literally covered with shells.   The sea has a way of claiming what is there.

All of this started me thinking about how many things must be part of the Bay and Bayou.  Things that were not intentionally there to start.  Think of how many man-made items must be down under that water, in the marsh or embedded in the soft mud. With every hurricane that has ever passed through this area, tons of items were washed from their land-based beginnings and launched into a new life under the water.  There, they would be covered with barnacles and other shellfish.  Perhaps deep under the mud, things from hundreds of years ago wait to be discovered once again.

That is the way of life here.  Not that folks are dumping tons of stuff into the Bay and Bayou but Mother Nature does occasionally with the storms.  We, humans, try to clear out as much as possible with annual "cleanups" but the sea claims its own and refurbishes what we cannot retrieve.  It makes use of the most unusual things!  This shell belonged to the sea..it still does.

The Enigma of the Acorns is Solved!

Back in mid January, I wrote about finding acorns stuffed in some holes down on the pier posts.  I pondered just what critter had decided to hide its stash two hundred feet out from the shoreline.  Several thoughts came to mind but none were ever satisfactorily confirmed.  The enigma lived on and went unsolved for the past six months.  Although, I watched the pier posts, I never saw any critter that struck me as being an "acorn-eater" ever even come near the area.  I was bewildered.

This evening after our (here lately) usual thunderstorm, I headed to the pier.  This storm, like yesterday's, was quite fierce.  Strong winds and lightning seemed to be the "way of the day"!  Today, we even had a slight bit of hail.  What a difference an hour or so makes!  As I walked the pier, you would have never expected that a violent storm had just passed over the Bayou.  All was calm and peaceful!  As I neared where the marsh meets the water, I saw a flicker of movement on one of the posts.  I motioned for Ms. Ez to stay.  Whatever was on the post had not seen us as of yet but if that big, lumbering dog had her way, no critter would be safe on the pier!  I waited for just a few seconds and then saw what was working so diligently on the post.  A Red Bellied Woodpecker was trying its best to extricate an acorn from the hole in the post!  Aha!  So you are the smart critter that hid your future feast far from filching friends! I watched as the bird went from post to post all the while trying to find an acorn.  I knew that there were still some in the posts but the bird could not get to them.  Earlier, when it had poked the acorns into the man-made holes, it did not take into consideration that later they might be hard to reach.  Each acorn that was shoved in the hole pushed the previous ones further into the post.  Some were a good eight inches in the middle of a hard post. This was proving to be the undoing of the bird's well-laid plan.  Sure, he hid his stash from all the other birds but now he could not get to them himself!  Poor bird, maybe he was not so smart after all!

I am supposing tomorrow I will be the kindhearted friend of the critters and will fetch a stick to help out the hungry bird.  Since the holes were drilled all the way through the posts, I should be able to shove the acorns to one side.  Hopefully, the bird will be able to figure a way of hiding his acorns a bit better this next winter!

Brains over brawn..

 Every now and again,  Mother Nature goes and proves beyond a doubt one of the truisms that man has conjured.  Perhaps this is just a way of keeping our human pride in a bit of check by showing that the critters of this world also think...and at times, think better than we do! After working all day in the gardens, I made a quick run to the pier just at sunset.  The sun was fast slipping behind the pines on the opposite shore so I did not have a lot of time to dawdle.  Still, something a tad strange caught my eye.

Keep in mind that our pier stretches a good two hundred or more feet from the shore.  Not too many "land" critters make their way all the way to the end over the water. Perhaps the openness of the marsh and water makes them feel vulnerable to predators or perhaps they have just never had the urge to venture down the long stretch of planks.  It is true that ducks, geese, pelicans and other waterfowl occasionally visit the end of the pier but rarely anything else.  Yet, I am quite sure that none of the waterfowl were the perpetrators of the scene that I encountered on today's visit.  Our pier was made mostly using recycled lumber.  This included the large posts that keep the whole thing in place.  These posts bear evidence of their previous use via holes drilled through them at varying heights.  It was what I found hidden in these holes that led me to think that some land-loving critter had visited the pier often.  Poked deep inside each hole were acorns!  Lots of acorns that some critter had stored there for the winter!  I do not think this was done by squirrels...surely!  By the rat-a-tat-tat that I hear all day, I would have said that woodpeckers might be the perpetrator but then, again, blue jays have been known to store nuts for future use.  But why in the pier posts?  Unless....

As I sat pondering the enigma, a thought entered the head!  Two things actually occurred to me!  Maybe whatever critter hid the nuts in the posts grew tired of having other critters find and eat their other stored ones.  By hiding the acorns all the way  down at the end of the pier, the stash would not be easily found by other land critters.  The other thought?  The posts had pre-drilled holes!  If this (most likely) was a bird, that bird did not have to use brute force to peck holes in a tree!  The bird was using its brain over brawn!  Smart bird!  Smart in many ways!  The holes were already accessible allowing for more time to gather nuts! The posts are in a remote location, not many others would find the stash!  The post are durable unlike a dead tree ensuring that the nuts would remain intact! Waterfowl would have a hard time retrieving the nuts even if they wanted them! Good job!

Now, my job comes!  I need to watch the pier more closely to discover just what type bird (or other critter) is using the pier posts!  It will definitely be interesting to find this intelligent critter!

Glistening in the sun....

Every now and again, something catches my eye and holds my attention for a good while.  It does not have to be some earthshaking phenomenon to do this..sometimes..most of the times it is some tiny thing that most would overlook.  The other evening, Ms. Ez and I had settled in to watch the sunset.  She seems to enjoy the view as much as I do!  There was just one problem!  Even though the western sky was "alive" with the most spectacular show of colors, my attention was elsewhere.  I was staring at the water's surface.  I even went so far as to get down flat on the pier to take photographs!  The scene on the water was made more spectacular because of the gorgeous performance of the sun and I was totally enthralled!

The first thing that caught my eye was the reflection of the pier posts in the water.  The tide was low exposing all of the barnacles on the posts but from my position on the pier, it was honestly hard to tell just where a post ended and the reflection began!  The setting sun cast a beautiful golden glow on the posts and the water!  I am not sure if anyone but a fisherman or a Bayou Woman would ever call pier posts beautiful, but in some strange sort of way...they were!  While I was photographing the light dancing around on the posts, I noticed something on the water..seeds!  The Sea Myrtle bushes had shed most of their wispy seeds by this point.  There were just a few remaining and the north wind was catching them and tossing them out into the Bay.  There, they would  sail across the water until they were flung into the rough waters.  Near the marsh and under the pier, the waters were slick calm which allowed the small, fluffy seeds to be scooted by the wind.  Once they were pushed out from shore a bit, the unprotected waters soon sogged the poor seed and made it sink to the bottom.  From where I was sitting on the pier, these fluffs glistened like gold from the late sun beaming on them!  One after another, the wisps sailed past the pier like tiny ships.  One after another, they met a devastating fate.

Yep, I can find the most mundane things fascinating!  Pier posts and seed pods captivated my attention for the better part of an hour.  I soon realized that it was getting dark and cold!  I looked at Ms. Ez, who by this time had decided to take a nap, and noticed that she was shivering!  Time to get my old dog back inside where it was a bit warmer!  Once inside, she got an extra treat for being so patient!

Tiny Tots!

This is not what I had good intentions of writing about today. I had plans of showcasing an art project and its progress but then something so adorable plopped into my day that it deserved a post of its own. It was mid-afternoon and I was out watering the rose garden. My violets were flat on the ground from the heat and definitely needed attention. Ezzy, the squirrel chaser, was doing her usual bird protecting when I heard a bark. Not a ferocious bark, just a bark. Now what??? I put down the hose (still pouring water) and walked out of the fenced garden to see what mighty dog was trying to tell me. Oh no, she was by the pier! Maybe a snake? A snapping turtle? Hopefully not the alligator!! I grabbed the shovel and headed toward her. By her motions, I could tell she was not really upset, just more happy. She would race to me and then back to the pier. She seemed so elated that I was following her. What did she see??? Then I saw it..or should I say them. She had "treed" three tiny, tiny baby raccoons. Not in a tree but rather on the pier post. When we built the pier, we left the first several posts extend up about three feet above the planking with the idea of putting on a handrail. Ezzy had treed the three baby raccoons on top of the first eight inch in diameter post. She was so proud of herself! At any given moment, she could have easily grabbed them but she was more intent on showing me what she had accomplished. Needless to say, the babies were terrified of this huge monster that was standing with her feet against the post, looking at eye-level with them. I must say they were the cutest things that I have seen in quite some time and it made me appreciate that I carry my camera with me. After snapping endless pictures, Miss Ezzy and I wandered back to the house to continue our duties..she went back to guarding the baby Bluebirds and I went back to flooded violets! Living on a bayou gives such wonderful photo opportunities!