Oh, to be a Forest Elf!

  Have you ever had one of those nights where the brain just would not stop working?  Last night, mine was in overdrive and with all that active thinking going one inside my head, there was no chance of the body resting.  Had I been here by myself, I would have gotten up and worked on one of the million or so projects that seemed so simple at 2 am.  Today, those very same projects seemed far more difficult.  Whether the simplicity of last night was a figment of the overactive brain or whether the lack of sleep made doing anything much harder today is yet to be seen.  No sleep makes for a long, long day.  I say "if I was here by myself", because if I start major chores in the middle of the night, those poor,  "sleep-deprived" menfolk are liable to complain. (A bit of pure sarcasm there, folks, as men can sleep through a freight train thundering through the living room. The complaining might be a real thing, however.) So, I suffer in silence until I see the eastern horizon starting to get that faint glow.  Morning is on its way!  Yep, about 4:30 am, I was on the pier.  The billion things that were in a frenetic state in the brain during the night suddenly flew away on the gentle breeze.  Peace, at last.  

  A fine, sliver of a moon hung in the sky just above where the sun would soon be rising.  That moon was shining brightly even though it was tiny.  It made me realize that my insignificant self could actually be pretty important.  Life has a way of battering folks in the head and making them lose all reality of their self-worth.  Lately, with all of the hullabaloo happening in the world, I felt about as tiny as a forest elf.  Now as much as I would love to be a forest elf and live amongst the mosses and ferns, they are a wee folk and I have great things to do!  It is better that I try to be like that moon and "shine on"!  Oh, wait a cotton-pickin' minute!  The moon is in its waning stage.  Not good!  In a couple of days, I would just fade away. I would be nothing but darkness!  I would not be here! There wouldn't be much shining then. Hmmm...I wonder how hard it is to become a forest elf?  I could be an elf and still do great things, right?  Plus, it might be pretty fun!

  

It came, but no one noticed.

  Spring has slipped in almost unnoticed.  Folks have other things on their minds.  Some are worried as their pantries are running low, some are fretting that the sore throat could be the start of something much worse than a cold, others are concerned about their neighbors, their loved ones, themselves in this time of uncertainty.  And rightly so.  Still, Lady Spring came and no one noticed.  She spread her beauty out before us and waited but no one came to the party.

  As I was out and about today, I took in the beauty around me.  Every plant was bursting forth with new growth and blooms.  Birds were singing and bees were busy gathering pollen.  A fine breeze blew in off the water making the day a delight...so much so that I had to smile and literally give a big "thank you" to the lovely Lady Spring.  Her ability to adorn the world in loveliness after the drab winter is one to be admired.  Her ability to lift the spirits of those in despair is to be appreciated.

  One of my favorite things is to see the fruit trees in full bloom.  Hopefully, this means that in a few months, those same trees will be heavy laden with fruit.  The sight of the snow white pear blossoms and the rich pink peach blossoms gives hope that the world will survive this chaotic time.  Given time, things will heal.  We will heal.  Patience and time...patience and time.

Deadly Poop!

  Early this morning, the hike to the pier was not the most comfortable.  The storm from overnight was lingering into the morning so a drizzly rain made the hike be shortened.  While on the pier, however, I did have the opportunity to photograph a pair of cormorants as they sat on the pier posts of my brother's pier.  These birds have to do a good bit of "drying out" as their feathers are not "water-proof" like most waterfowl.  The cormorants' feathers become waterlogged making it difficult to swim and to take flight from the water.  This morning's drying session was rather a moot effort as the rain had to be saturating the feathers.  

  As often as I have photographed these birds, I actually never knew one point.  While way up north on the river tug, Mark saw numerous nests in the trees on an island in the river.  One of his coworkers told him that they were cormorant nests.  The man went on to explain a bit about the birds and their use of the trees.  According to him, the birds nest in huge colonies and the excrement from the birds can literally kill any plant life beneath their nesting sites.  This included the very trees that the birds used as sites for their nests.  The man said that whole islands were devoid of trees simply because of the birds pooping.  

  As I stated, I had never known this fact so a bit of research was in order.  Come to find out, the story is true.  The bird poop does kill the vegetation (even trees) when a colony of several hundred cormorants repeatedly use the same nesting site.  This has even caused an uproar among people with different mindsets....those who wish to protect the trees and those who wish to protect the birds.  Things have even gone so far as to have people shoot hundreds of the birds only to find themselves being arrested.  Those shooting the birds were breaking the law since they shot migratory birds.  All migratory birds are protected by federal law.  Over the years, the illegal killing of cormorants has escalated to the point that thousands upon thousands of the birds are shot. Something had to be done as it was getting out of hand.  Laws were passed to allow the killing of a certain number of birds each year if done correctly with permits.  In some states, even the eggs are "oiled" to prevent hatching.  All in all, about 40,000 adult birds are killed each year (that number is the reported kills) but this does not include the killing of chicks.  This has some folks livid.  "How can anyone condone the killing of 40,000 birds each year??"  Well, when it comes to cormorants, that is about 2% of the population in the United States so it is an easy point to argue.  Still, even with these "kills", the bird population is burgeoning.

  I did find it interesting that the bird poop kills plants so I checked a bit further and it seems that the poop is high in nitrogen and phosphorous.  When used in small amounts, these are nutrients that help plants grow but when thousands of birds roost in a small area, the poop piles up several feet deep.  That extreme amount does the damage.  (After having to clean the chicken houses back on the farm, trust me when I say it does not take long for poop to pile up.)  To take this a bit further, being as the birds nest near water, those "nutrients" find their way into the waterways.  This is being declared as having a adverse effect to everything!  According to some studies, the excess of nitrogen causes extreme algae bloom which can be highly dangerous.  The birds are not only killing plants, they are polluting the water!  And let us not forgo the argument that as the cormorants are taking over prime nesting sites, other birds and wildlife are either dying out or having to move elsewhere.

  My stance on this whole spat?  It is hard to say.  Perhaps if the cormorants were killing every bit of plant-life (and, therefore, all the critter life) in the back of the Bayou, I would find it hard to not condone the limiting efforts.  As it is, we are in the "non-breeding" zone of the birds so the problem has not hit home.  While I usually live by the mantra of live and let live, there has to be a solution that would please everybody (cormorants included) and it definitely seems that people are attempting to find the answer.  This does make me appreciate the fact that these birds are migratory!

Once Again

  When one has a troubled mind, it is best to find the one place in this old world that makes you feel good.  For me, that place is the pier.  There, I can look out over the water and forget the worries of the world.  There is nothing so great that a bit of "Bayou Magic" cannot cure.   Lately, it seems as if the days were starting to clutter the brain with a bunch of riffraff "nothingisms".  I needed respite.  The water beckoned and I answered.  

  While I was watching the pelicans dive in the inches-deep water, a slight movement on the shoreline caught my eye.  A raccoon piddled in the shallows hoping to find breakfast.  At first, I assumed that this was a youngster just out from under his mom's care because, as raccoons go, this was a small one.  As I stared at the critter, it occurred to me that it was moving awfully slow.  Something was amiss.  As the coon neared, it became apparent that this was no teenager...this coon was an elder.  In fact, the critter was quite old and was having problems finding breakfast.  

 Slowly, slowly, the coon neared the pier.  I was in hopes that it would make the turn parallel to the pier and go up on the mudflats.  Earlier, I had noticed that a dozen or so fat killifish were trapped in a small pool of water.  The coon could have feasted there.  Instead, the old guy kept going along the shoreline until he was far out of sight.  I sure hope he found something to fill his belly as it is to be a rather cold night and there is nothing worse than being cold and hungry.  

  Watching the raccoon struggle just to find its breakfast made me realize that my troubles were minuscule.  I could handle the day.  The Bayou had once again worked its magic on me.  Life is good.

A Good Sunrise Can Mend A Lot Of Things

  When the brain hurts from too much stress, it is my nature to cut myself off from the world for a bit.  I head to the pier before sunrise to contemplate what can be done to remedy the situation at hand.  More oft than not, just a bit of time in solitude pondering the sights around me is enough to mend my frazzled state.  I figure that some things just cannot be changed no matter how hard I try so accepting them is the next best thing.  Perhaps not accepting the worrisome part but accepting the fact that it does no good to fret over the inevitable.  We all have times that are not to our liking but, hey, life is not easy.  It is not supposed to be easy.  If it was, we would all sit back on our haunches and become nothing more than a bump on a log.  It is necessary to have things that kick our butts now and again purely to keep us on our toes and striving forward. 

  This morning, the sunrise did its job in rectifying a few of the hiccups that got in the way yesterday.  Listening to the birds awakening in the back woods, watching a redfish as it played the mullet along the shoreline and seeing the sun slip up over the pines on the opposite side of the Bayou was all the medicine I needed to face the day with renewed energy. After about twenty minutes of Bayou Magic, I headed back up the hillside.  There was work to be done and I had no time to be muddling around in despair.  Life is good.

Busy Building!

    Along about noontime, I glanced out the front window just in time to see something zip to the left.  Ok, so that was a big bee!  Shoes on, camera in hand and glasses..I need my glasses!  I had to go find a bee!  The search did not take long because the bee was busy building a home.  There, on my gatepost, was a nice sized hole and there, going in that hole, was the bee.  She was poking stuff into the hole.  This was obviously a female that had gnawed out a tunnel in the post and then gnawed individual rooms.  In these cells, she laid in a stock of pollen and regurgitated nectar.  She then laid eggs in the different cells of the tunnel before sealing them off from the rest of the tunnel.  The sealing is done with plant fibers and soft wood from her gnawing.  This was her intentions for the day.  It was time to seal the main entrance to her nest.

  

  These tunnels can sometimes be up to 5 feet long and have many, many side cells.  The female bee does all the work.  Several generations of bees might use the same tunnel with a female adding to the tunnel system each year.  The tunnels are also used as overwintering spots for bees.  They will again lay in a stock of pollen and seal themselves in once the weather turns cold.  Many of the adult bees will die during the winter but those who survive will gnaw their way out during spring and start the process anew.

  The bee that has claimed my fencepost is a Southern Carpenter Bee.  These bees are not as fuzzy and cute as some of the other bees.  Some resemble Bumble Bees but mine lacks the bright yellow fuzziness.  In fact, this one looks downright intimidating!  The females are not apt to sting.  She can and will if you grab her but she is far too busy to be concerned about a mere human.  That said, the male does not have a stinger but he sure can get himself in a tizzy and act like a big bully if he thinks you are getting to close.  But that is all he does...nothing else...at all.   So Carpenter Bees are not a threat to anything but the wood in your house and, well, any gateposts that just happen to be handy.  I guess it is time to remedy a problem before it gets any worse.

Another Tempest

  With the way things look at the moment, the Gulf of Mexico has received another slap in the face.  Just nine years ago, we had to endure the oil spill that, not only killed off so many marine creatures, it also killed off so many lifelines of the Coastal families.  We are a seafood based industry down here.  Fishing is a way life.  The shrimpers, oystermen, fishermen, crabbers, seafood factories, charterboat captains...you name it...were all out of jobs.  Their boats and gear lay idle while the oil killed most everything within its reach.  Many lost their boats.  Others lost their homes.  All lost their way of life.  It was a hard time for the Coast.  It was years before things began to return to any semblance of normality.  Finally, the seafood returned and was deemed fit to eat.   It took years after that for the industry to return to its profitable self but many folks had already moved on to be able to support their families.

  Now, the Gulf of Mexico faces another tempest.  While all Coastians are ready and eager to help those in the flooded zones of the country, opening the spillways has, once again, created a mess for the fishermen. The marine creatures are dying at a great rate.  Countless dead dolphins, sea turtles and fish are washing ashore.  Entire oyster reefs have died.  Crabs have literally suffocated.  Shorebirds are not to be found. Schools of fish and shrimp have moved further out in an attempt to escape the water pouring into the Gulf. Many folks do not seem to see the harm in what has been done.  "It is just fresh river water so it cannot be doing any harm." is said over and over again.  Sorry, that fresh river water wreaks havoc on saltwater marine life.  They do not have time to acclimate before it kills them.  That "fresh" river water is also polluted from runoff.  Whatever has been flooded up north of us has now spilled into the Gulf.  Fertilizer, sewage, any number of chemicals and...yes...oil is making a mess down here.  

  Don't get me wrong.  We are not blaming anyone.  We are not pointing fingers.  We are not begrudging those who are trying to save their places and livelihoods that are flooded.  We understand THAT whole scenario as we are subjected to hurricanes that flood our area and we are sympathetic to those that are suffering.  We understand that something had to be done to provide some relief.  However, there has to be another answer.  Opening the spillways has done nothing but spread the devastation to another area.  

  All of that said, the fishermen down here are working frenetically to catch what they can before the waters get any worse.  The boats are going out further to make catches of "clean" shrimp and fish.  (The crabbers and oystermen do not have that option.)  This plan is working as far as catches but puts a new strain on the fishermen.  Fuel prices, boat upkeep and extra time spent are making it a struggle to "stay afloat".  The fact stands that the wages they earn has not kept up with the current state of affairs.   Many cannot afford to keep running as their expense outweigh their profits.  It is a sad situation.  

  Mark and I were able to get shrimp today from one of our longtime suppliers.  This shrimper had to go outside of the "dirty" zone to get a good catch.  The shrimp are beautiful and we are thankful he made the decision to keep trying.  It is our plan to buy as many pounds of shrimp as we can to help those struggling.  We have been there and done that ourselves.  It is also our plan to stock up on the seafood so that, if worse comes to worse, we will have a good supply on hand to ride us over until the Gulf cleanses itself.  Our freezers will be filled to capacity within the next few weeks.  To those in the flooded zones and to those struggling with the situation in the Gulf, we hope and pray that this is soon over for all of us.  To those with the ability to help any in need, please do.  There are so many out there that have been affected that need help.  We are all in this together.

 

Counting Them All

  There are a lot of phrases that are spouted by those well-meaning folks who give ill-timed and not well thought out advice.  People spiel out some platitude that they think will cure all problems.  These things don't.  At times, they make things worse.  Things like "No one said life was fair." or "This too shall pass." are a few that come to mind.  While perhaps given in good faith that all will be well afterward. it is not often the case.  At this point, I fully admit to using a lot of platitudes myself but not often as advice to others.  Giving out advice is not my strong point. My use of these is more as a way to kick myself in gear.  And one of my favorite things to tell myself comes from Pop..."It will all come out in the wash."  I keep telling myself that and, well, it usually does.

  Today's platitude (which, for those who are not up on the word, is an overused moral statement) for myself is "Count your blessings."  Yep.  I guess we all should do this but rarely do we.  It is one of those things that we throw out there when things are starting to be a bit daunting.  It is supposed to make us feel better knowing that we have "things".  So, with the current struggles here on the Bayou, I found myself thinking that I should do just that.   To start with, I could rattle off the ones every person does when faced with the question of daily blessings.  House...check.  Clothing...check.  Food...check.   Family...check.  Yeah, this was getting a bit redundant. All of these are things to be thankful for but, at the same time, I needed something that made me feel better in the moment.  

  As I wandered about in my miniature hiking area due to the old dog's health, I pondered what my blessing for the moment was.  I have seen this area a thousand times or more in the past year alone,  It is hard to decide what is earth-shaking enough to be listed.  Then it occurred to me that earth-shaking is not necessary.  It just had to be something that was there only for me...at that time...at that place.  And it was. 

  At that very moment, the clouds separated and the sun peeked through.  I was graced with the view of a perfect sunrise over the Bayou.  A small opening in the tree row near the marsh allowed me to be witness to this phenomenon.  Had I been a few steps to either side, I would not have seen it.  Had I been deep in the woods near the creek bed, darkness would have still surrounded me. Had the old dog, Mr. PJ, not felt better this morning, we would have never made it this far down the hill.  This was my sunrise.  IT was my blessing for the day.

  Although we sometimes overlook things because we see them on a daily basis, they happen for a reason and they happen just for us. The timing, placement and thoughts all had to be perfectly aligned for me to see the sunrise in a new light.  (Yep, pun intended there.)  This lifted my spirits and gave me strength to face the day.  

Not again

  I have this problem with mechanical things.  Well, I actually do not lay claim to the problem, it is applied to me.  I blame the machines.  Things are just not as well made as they used to be.  Hmmph!  It has nothing to do with me, my using the machines nor the way I use them.  It is the poor workmanship in building the machines to start with.  I am not to blame!  Ok, so maybe a little bit.  The problem is that a lot of the yard machines literally fall apart when I am using them.  I have had wheels fall off of lawnmowers, gas tanks dangle from hoses on lawnmowers and even entirely lost a motor...don't ask...that was just crazy.  Weed trimmers and I have the same type relationship.  Bearings drop out of the housing, on/off switches refuse to work and, once, the whole thing caught on fire.  Not fun on any account especially for Son.  He is usually the one that has to repair said machine.

  Yesterday, however, it was not a yard machine that gave me fits.  I was vacuuming up the mountain of dog hair that accumulated overnight.  Mr. PJ sheds more than any dog I have ever seen making the task a daily thing.  While I was pushing the vacuum cleaner around the rug, it suddenly became self-propelled!  Wow!  That made life easier!  I thought that perhaps I had overlooked this feature in my many years of using the machine.  Life was great!  Then, I noticed that, even though the thing was pulling itself around the room, it was not sucking up that dog hair.  In fact, it was not picking up anything....but it was self-propelled!  In the next moment, pieces started flying out from under the vacuum cleaner.  First, a wheel zinged past my leg.  Then, an axle and another wheel bounced to the floor and rolled under the table.  Uh, oh...I got that sinking feeling that was all to familiar between me and the yard machines.  Something was amiss.  Then...whacka-whacka-whacka!  Whoa!  Whacka?  That was a new noise!  By this time, Mr. PJ (who normally runs and hides when I vacuum) came running over to the rug and made a pathetic sound.  A large plastic cover was lobbed over to his direction and a weird smell of rubber burning started emanating from the vacuum cleaner.  I unplugged the smoke hissing, dust spewing varmint and called Son.  (Keep in mind, this all happened within about 20 seconds so I had no control of how much damage was done!)

  Thankfully, Son repaired the machine in a few minutes and informed me that it was not "entirely" my fault.  It seems that a belt had worked its way loose and flipped a roller off which smacked the 
wheel and broke the pin that holds the axle in place.  When the axle broke free, it flipped a locking mechanism that holds the plastic belt cover in place causing it to fly out from under the machine.  The burning smell was the belt as it continued to turn the roller brushes even though it was at an odd angle.  The dust spewing was due to a hose that became dislodged during the ruckus.  No problems...his words.  Ha!

  At least though all of this ordeal, Mr. PJ was doing his proper doggy thing by trying to protect me from his evil nemesis, the vacuum cleaner.  When it started attacking by hurling pieces through the air, he took instant notice and came running!  (Either he was protecting me or, maybe, he thought the parts were reminiscent of his toys.)  Anyway, all's well that ends well and Son had me back up and running in about twenty minutes!