The Mummy!

  It has been rather hot here on the Bayou but chores still need doing.  After making another gallon of fig jam, Son and I headed out to do a bit of yard work.  Even with the heat and lack of rain, plants keep on growing.  A wisteria vine was just about to put the house in a choke hold so it had to come down.  When it came, so did the arbor that was hidden beneath all of those vines. Instead of just trimming and hauling vines, we now had to undo the mess of broken boards.  It was all good and that corner of the yard looks so much better.  Since we were ripping out things, I decided to remove a few of the raised garden boxes.  That is when I found....the MUMMY!!

  Yep, in the corner of one box, a partially skeletonized, partially mummified lizard was covered with leaves.  Ripping out the boards, exposed the corpse.  Ok...so I am not like most folks.  I admit it.  I had to examine that poor dead lizard.  Not that I have any great forensic inclinations or even cared to know how the lizard perished.  It is just not too often that one gets to see what a lizard skeleton looks like and I was curious.  I recalled Granddad telling me to look at everything and learn.  So I still try.

  It saddens me that the little lizard met its demise as they are great to have in the garden.  Hopefully, the mummified critter had lived a long and happy life before meeting its end.  With all of the insects taking over the garden, one thing is certain.  The lizard did not starve to death!

Sometimes, there is no denying.....

  Mark always says that Darling Daughter and I are "too much alike".   He claims that we think alike, talk alike and find the same things interesting. Personally, I take it as a compliment.  She is my best friend after all!  If I was half as talented, witty, smart and beautiful as she is, I would be nigh on perfect.  (In my book, she is totally perfect!)  So each time he makes the remark, I smile and hope that she does not find it insulting that he makes the comparison.  

  As far as finding the same things interesting, he is quite correct.  We do.  Sometimes even to the point of being intrigued by some of the most unusual things. Take today, for instance.  Today, she sent me a message asking if I needed a deer ribcage for any reason. Alrighty then.  Well, it might come in handy....for something, I suppose.  She found one (or at least she hopes it was from a deer), on the side of the road and had pondered if I needed it.  Ha!  Maybe?  What was strange about this was the fact that at about the same time she spied the ribcage, I found a skeleton (or what remains of one) in the woods behind the Little Bayou House.  I had pondered the same question that she fired at me.  Do I need a skeleton for anything?  It was interesting, to say the least.

  I inspected the remains of a critter that I tentatively identified as a raccoon.  The skeleton was found while on my early morning hike about the hillside.  Back behind the homestead and not far from the creek, I heard the blue jays raising a ruckus.  Something was amiss.  The birds were troubled by some critter deep under the brush.  Whether this was the fox that lives near the canebrake or the bobcat that has been seen frequenting the area was unclear.  Something had them upset.  I eased my way through the brush to see if I could discover the source of their distress.  Nope.  Never found a thing except my critter skeleton. Perhaps the bones were the leftovers from a predator's meal not too very long ago.  I photographed the remains and returned to the house.  

  It was later in the afternoon that I received the message from Elizabeth about the ribcage.  I found it a tad ironic that, on the same day, we both stumbled upon the remains of a critter.  AND that we both were not repulsed by the discovery but were more interested in the bones themselves.  Yep, it could be that she and I are more alike that we think.  Yep, I take it as a compliment.

Skeletons in the Walls

  Forget having "skeletons in the closet", I have them in the walls!  As the renovations on the Little Bayou House continue, Mark and I spent the past few days ripping down siding.  With that, we have found that nothing surprises us.  As the walls to the laundry room came tumbling down, a few skeletons came tumbling out.  Geez!  I am beginning to think that I should write some horror story here.  Skeletons hiding in the walls?  Alrighty, then!

  Yep, living on the Bayou affords us the opportunity to interact with any number of critters.  Some are friendly, others...not so much.  We find snakes, frogs, squirrels, flying squirrels and alligators in the most unusual places but I never expected to find things inside the walls.  At first glance, I recognized the tiny skeletons as geckos.  The perfectly preserved rack of bones was just over an inch in length so I knew these were just hatchlings.  Nearby was a cluster of empty egg shells. Obviously, the tiny lizards hatched and died almost immediately.  While that seems sad in some ways, it makes me wonder why they died?  I am wondering if the termite spray also kills geckos.

  There are a ton of lizards of all sorts on the Bayou and, needless to say, near and even in the house.  They do not bother me much.  I figure that I would rather have a fat lizard on my wall than a thousand termites eating that same wall.  The lizards are pest control in a natural way.  Now I am a bit worried.  As we are changing out the siding, we are, of course, spraying for future termites.  Are we killing our geckos at the same time? 

  Ask anyone on the Gulf Coast and you will hear disgusting tales of the swarms of termites that come each spring.  Great clouds of the critters envelop the houses, street lights are completely shrouded and driving becomes nigh on impossible.  There is a ready cry of "Lights out! Termites!" that can be heard being passed from neighbor to neighbor. We need all the help we can get so killing the lizards is not an option! We may have to do a rethinking of this project just so we do not find anymore skeletons in our walls!

All in fun!

  The move to the Coast by my daughter and son-in-law brought a ton of things to be stored at the Little Bayou House.  There are still many boxes to be carted to the storage room and a few things needing to be unpacked.  It was a mutual decision to keep out all of the Fall/Halloween decorations since it will not be too long before we start to decorate.  I wanted to put them in the closet with my decorations instead of stowed away in some difficult to reach place.  This was not a problem but I do, indeed, keep finding some of the strangest things lurking about the place!

  It all started yesterday when we were hauling stuff inside.  The screen door kept slamming behind us until suddenly a Halloween skeleton was kind enough to act as doorman.  I got the giggles and nearly dropped a box of dishes when I saw just who was holding the door open for me! Someone (not sure just which of my kids) had interlaced the skeleton's fingers into the door handle and left him sitting on a nearby chair.  I must admit that this worked perfectly and sure saved a lot of time, not to mention, a lot of wear and tear on the door!  After we finished our unpacking, Skellie disappeared.  I thought perhaps someone stowed it (along with its twin) in the decoration closet.  This morning, however, I realized that I was so wrong with that thought!

  I opened the door to our guest bedroom to discover that my kids had been busy once again!  The two skeletons were placed on the bed.  One was lounging back while the other was perched at the end of the bed. That one's hands were placed on Elizabeth's keyboard as if it were playing the piano.  I suppose that skeleton was entertaining the other. My, oh, my!  What next? Sometimes it seems as kids never grow up! This has gotten to be quite the game about here. I just wonder where in the world I will find the Skellies next! 

Friggatriskaidekaphobia!

Oh yes! I got you with that one! Friggatriskaodekaphobia! According to Wikipedia this is the fear of Friday the 13th and well..today was Friday, August 13th. For anyone that is superstitious Friday the 13th is considered a day of bad luck. The day that Murphy's Law is in full effect..you know the one that is paraphrased to state that "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." This is a day that is supposed to be filled with black cats, broken mirrors and spilled salt. Maybe I should break out some of the "good luck charms". Let's see got my four leaf clover..check..got my horseshoe..check..got my rabbit's foot..check! Ok now! I am ready to face the day! Not really! I guess I have never really thought that Friday the 13th was any different than any other day. And besides..think about those good luck charms..we killed a plant, hobbled a horse and amputated a bunny's foot..not too lucky for any of them I must say!

BUT..today I found skeletons in my yard! That sort of fit right in with today's reputation..something sort of eerie and maybe unlucky (at least for the skeletons!). And I am playing with you again! I did find skeletons but not the sort that are bones. I found skeletons of the flora not fauna type. Leaf skeletons and some really cool lantern shaped skeletons of the Japanese Lantern Plant. These skeletons unlike the boney type are made from the veins of leaves and seed pods of plants. The fleshy part of the leaf (or seed pod) has rotted away leaving wonderful lacy designs. I have always been fascinated by these leaf lines and today, to have found the lantern skeletons really pleased me. I picked up all I could find and carried them into the house. Not sure just what I was going to do with them, I laid them all on the table. Here, I left them while I went to get the camera..maybe I could get a few good shots of them! I came back to discover my skeletons were missing! This could not be so! Where had they gone? Surely Ezzy did not eat them! I glared at the dog! She wagged her tail. Maybe not, she looked too innocent..hmm..I guess. But how could skeletons disappear? They were not on the table! I got down on my knees to look deep into the "no man's land" under the table. I stared into the creepy

world of the Dust Bunnies! Ahh, there they were rolling around as if they were tumbleweeds off of an old western movie set! The ceiling fan had whisked my skeletons away! It was harder to catch them inside than it was out in the yard. The chase was on and after a mere few minutes I had corralled all twenty-two of the little rascals! Now for the photo shoot sans the whirling ceiling fan! These skeletons will be set aside in hopes of becoming an art project some day.