http://www.texanempire.com/pictures.htm OK, here's a photo I took from the new dock, back in the early fall. The sky was unusually clear and there was a full moon just rising early in the evening. The view is due east, and downstream towards the large bay leading to the Gulf.

The light was failing, but you may be able to make out the old channel, just off to the left, as it makes a little loop, isolating the big clump of trees on a little island. The photo makes it all look bigger somehow, perhaps because everything was so still, but the bridge in the distance is only about 300 feet long. I have been able to sit here almost everyday this year, with only a few days too cold or rainy to fish. This morning early it was calm and cool, but soon the west wind picked up and brought the chill from a cold front that is coming for the weekend. We sat for about an hour, just wasting time and listening to the geese that are milling about in the changing skies.

By now, the yard birds are making a last run at the feeders, and getting ready to hunker down for a few days of winter, such as it is down here on the coast. It was 73F yesterday, and now is dropping into the 40's. Still not bad, but add a 30 MPH wind, and it does tend to chill the back of my neck, and the fish weren't interested in playing anyway.

Of course, no matter the weather, Katy always goes along, her heavy corgi fur keeping the chill from even her 15 year old doggy bones. But Jazzy, that sissy, makes a brave showing then sneaks away to watch from inside the big windows in my office. I think that for today, I'll watch from here as well.

-- Lon (lgal@exp.net), January 13, 2005

Answers

What a lovely peaceful scene Lon. Thankyou so much. It looks like the perfect place to sit in a dinghy and dangle a line and hide from all the tragic news of late.

It's bushfire season here. On Tuesday nature conspired to give us searing temps.(110F) coupled with strong winds. The kind of day you dread a whiff of smoke or the sound of a siren. One fire went through a farming district in my State and nine people perished, four of them young children. Heartbreaking.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), January 14, 2005.

My sincere apologies for that depressing post. The only explanation I can offer is that we have had three tragic events down here in the last four weeks and I'm afraid I let it get on top of me.

Today I went for a drive with hubby to our nearest bird sanctuary. I needed to see nature at it's best. Somehow watching the hawks soaring higher and higher and tiny little blue wrens darting in and out of the bushes has restored some balance to my life. Regards. Carol.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), January 16, 2005.

We're here, thinking of you. Hope it gets better that direction.

-- Robert & Jean Cook (somwherein@GA.com), January 16, 2005.

Thankyou Robert. I guess I need "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change". I believe that quote comes from a prayer written by an American. Seems very apt. Best wishes. Carol

-- Carol (c@oz.com), January 17, 2005.

Carol, I believe we must have been thinking alike. I've spent much of the last few days watching the birds. Being on the Gulf coast, we're on or close to, many of the flyways between Canada and South and Central America and Mexico. We get a lot of transients in fall and spring, and quite a few little guys decide to just spend the winter with us. I've seen wrens, vireos, warblers, finches, buntings, and even a rare mountain bluebird once. We have a large number of hawks and owls that overwinter as well as the ever-present water birds, the terns, gulls and pelicans and cormorants.

My winter feeding program is finally starting to pay off. When we moved down here to the new place, there were few yard birds because of the months of construction and because no one had been feeding them. Now, I've got a whole herd of little goldfinches to welcome me, and of course, grackles and their buddies, the red-winged blackbirds and the doves. Yesterday I was watching the feeders when a large beautiful red-bellied woodpecker came in to join the general ruckus. As I was watching, a male downy woodpecker flew up right beside him, his white belly glittering like a floodlight in the sunshine.

Also, two days ago we were fishing at the old place, where the dock is more sheltered from the wind, and a pair of horned grebes came by, buisily collecting their fish dinners. They did considerably better than we.

I'm already looking forward to spring (sigh)

-- Lon (lgal@exp.net), January 19, 2005.

That was lovely, Lon! Thank you for sharing it.

A big hug for you (((((((Carol)))))))

No need to apologize for sharing tough/sad moments. We all have them. I think sometimes they lead to the most expressive, beautiful postcards or poems.

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), January 19, 2005.

What a wonderful variety of birds you have there Lon. The bayou must be lovely to come home to after you've been on the road. A good place to put things in perspective. I guess we can't change the sad things in life, but we can still appreciate the beauty.

Thankyou Gayla. And you're right, I believe someone has already written a poem about the fighting spirit of the people of fire- ravaged Eyre Peninsula.

I realize now that I kept thinking I should be able to deal with these tragedies. But you don't really, do you? You stick it away in the back of your head somewhere, like 9/11, and then you see some footage on TV and you cry. Because it IS tragic and those people deserve to be cried for. Or I could be nuts. 8-)

-- Carol (c@oz.com), January 21, 2005.

Carol,

I left off most of the water birds which are so prevalent that I hardly take notice of them down here. But, the winter brings some real feathered finds. Yesterday, I identified my first Osprey on the bayou, along with some big white-throate western grebes. A barred owl is staying in the tall woods over on the little island, and gives me shivers with each hoohoo hoohoot, hoohoo hoohooawwww!

I really shift gears this time of year, when it gets too cool to work (which is anytime it gets below 60F), and practically live in an old barn coat with binoculars and a bird book and pipes in the pockets. The new place has a large southern deck which is sheltered from most of the raw wind and gives a panoramic view of the bayou and the marshes beyond. Katy is quite anxious to start fishing again, but she just sighs and curls up in any sunny spot available.

The winter also brings low water to the bayou, as the steady north winds blow the water out of the big bay. A couple of days ago, I noticed something peculiar in the little cut which is the western boundary of the property; the curving side and ribs of an old wooden boat. It's only about 14 feet in length, and looks to be one of the old type fish boats, but I went and got the nieghbor's grandson for an expert opinion. He's about 4 years old, and like me is well educated in all things like shipwrecks, catfish, mud and dinosaurs. Upon much discussion, we determined that is was probably not a Spanish treasure galleon, but more likely a pirate ship laden with the vaniished loot of the great bayou hero, Laffite. Anyway, a full exploration is planned for warmer weather - I'll keep you informed.

My youngest son, the one with the talented taste buds and the expensive culinary education, is home for a few days. As a treat for me, he is distroying my nice clean kitchen as I type this, preparing one of his signature dishes, Chicken Chardonnay with Risotto. I've got a fire in the fireplace, a wonderful tin of stout English tobacco to enjoy later, and a couple of fat happy dogs to warm my feet. If it gets any better than this, I won't be able to stand it!

I hope you all are enjoying a similar weekend, with family or friends and good food.

-- LuckyoleLon (lgal@exp.net), January 28, 2005.

Lon it looks like a wonderful place for birds. That little island (no name yet?) surely must be a great place for nesting birds. No big- footed tourists or fleet-footed cats and foxes.

In the nearly 25 yrs since we moved to this little town I've seen ONE owl. I don't get a great variety of birds in my yard because I live in a suburban street, so I'm always thrilled when the beautiful rosellas come to visit. They come as a pair and always watch out for each other. If one is on the ground eating crab-apples the other is nearby in the tree. Recently after quite a warm spell I walked 'round the back of my car, loaded up with groceries, just in time to see the female at the water dish. I froze so I wouldn't scare her away. When she finished the male flew down and had his drink. It was so unusual as they must have seen me and normally they take off if you walk too near the window inside the house. I must have looked a right nitwit standing stock still in the driveway for so long, but at least they got their drink.

I'm making a habit of looking like a twit. This morning I turned the hose on and the nozzle blew off giving me a thorough soaking. Once again I froze.

What a lucky little boy (4 yr.old.)to have you to fire his imagination with stories of pirates and treasure. Next thing you know he'll be wanting to row over to the island (still no name??) to search for buried treasure.

How was the meal? You do realize we're all jealous now. Did you let your son read Roberts cooking adventure? Isn't it lovely when one of the chicks that have flown the nest, come home for a bit. Lots of talking and laughing and catching up and hugging. I hope you had a lovely weekend together.

It's been a nice day here. Warm, gentle breeze. A poking around the garden sort of day. I hope you've all had a nice day too.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), January 30, 2005.

Random: Not knowing much more about the feathered fauna than the flowering flora, my not-entirely-controllable thoughts were struck by "Heart Full of Soul" with all the talk about Yardbirds, and now that ll-note opening riff is driving me crazy.

But I can identify a few birds. A streetlight in the middle of a block apparently has some attraction for mockingbirds (Oh no! Another old rock song. Maw--king--bird!) but not for other species. The bead- eyed, sharp-beaked little individualists get up there and warble, screech and whistle away every so often. Doves set up such a howl in a tree across the street almost every morning that I wonder whether they've doped out an amplification system of some kind. Back in cub scouts, I used to cup hands one in another like this and blow at an angle down past my thumb knuckles to mimick that sound, opening the fingers on the outside hand slightly like a harmonica player to make the note rise and return at the end. A couple were on a bare branch of my pecan tree the other day "necking." It's easy to see where the term came from. They were the big mourning doves, not the little ones with stripes or spots that we called "Spanish doves" that rattle when they fly. The big doves sometimes make sexy little involuntary coo's of exertion on the downstroke when they fly. The dusty grey birds were silhouetted below a gray sky on the branch. By the time I got the camera, they were just preening and puffed, looking in opposite directions. Once, when I stopped behind a sporty little car at a light in the city, the driver and the girl riding with him immediately went to the mirrors. She turned down the visor and he twisted the rear-view. One of those rat-tailed combs appeared and both, as if synchronized, began to poke, pat and tweak their ample hair. At one point they both froze, hands poised, then they returned the comb and mirrors to their places and proceeded as the light changed. I missed that picture, too, for lack of a camera. I'd like to have caught them, hands aloft in contemplation of their own perfection. I'd have titled it "Preen." A solitary blue jay on the fence in the jasmine sat in his shadowy stand awaiting some sort of prey when the doves were on the branch. We lost a lot of blue jays a couple of years ago to the mosquito-borne West Nile virus. I heard the virus is especially hard on crows. It hasn't apparently hit Arkansas yet. I counted sixty-eight in one (gang? mob? whatever they call a bunch of crows) a couple of months ago.

It's nasty weather lately, as Lon mentioned. Not the brutal stuff of news pictures from the big storms sweeping the Midwest and Northeast, but definitely the kind of weather that makes me glad I don't have to work outdoors anymore to make a living. Dreary, drizzly stuff, forty or fifty degree temps whistling by on a stout north wind. I wouldn't know one of Lon's grebes if it pecked me on my numb skull. Not long ago, when we'd get a few warm days, little butterflies flitted around the jasmine. Maybe the jay tries his luck in all kinds of weather like Ol Lon, sitting on the dock with a line out even when the weather's not conducive to catching anything. It's what we do. Paul advises Christians in the Bible to be constant in season and out of season. There are no seasons on catfish, but there are on doves. I don't think Paul would have advised trying a scriptural defense on a game warden in court after hunting doves out of season though. As for the attributes of the Christian lifestyle, Paul reminds that there's no law at all against such good things. No seasons involved. I could probably easily find someone to argue that there should be. Pity.

For some reason, I'm reminded that a flight of larks is an "exaltation." We have a strange and wonderful language, do we not?

Perhaps the reason the ribs of the old boat came to light is because of the weather. Unfortunate as it seems, outfits over near Lon repair their bulkheads and piers when northers coincide with low tides to push the water offshore. That may have helped reveal the find, and it could be harder to access in the summer months. Watch for gators and such when it warms up. Ain't that the way of it. Carol's hose comes unstrung to get her wet when it's cold outside, and the best time to work in the water is when it's coldest. I've heard that leaving a hose hooked up to a faucet increases the chances that the faucet will freeze in cold weather.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), January 31, 2005.

Ah J., the Yardbirds. And the Kinks and Manfred Mann. Great music back then. Darn where's my "Hits of the 60's" CD. I'll put it on tomorrow and get twice as much work done, boppin' around the house cleaning and singing (with the doors locked of course). One crazy old bird, I know.

An exaltation of larks seems very appropriate. A bit like a host of angels or a pride of lions. Crows are a different kettle of fish or should that be bag of feathers. Incidentally people from this State are called "Croweaters". I have no idea why.

Your Spanish doves that "rattle when they fly" remind me of our kookaburras. They are known for their laugh, but I think the way they eat is more amusing. They will come down and take a piece of meat and fly back up to a safe place. Then to swallow they tip their heads back and shake their beaks quickly back and forth. It makes a loud clattering noise as if they have a screw that needs tightening. They also catch snakes for food, so maybe the shake kills the snake before they swallow it. That is just my observation, I could well be quite wrong (what again).

I bet you had a chuckle watching the couple in the car. Couple of peacocks I reckon. The things you see when you haven't got a camera.

The weather here has turned cooler quite suddenly. Yesterday was warm enough to melt the tar on the road and today is much cooler and we had some very welcome RAIN. Hopefully it has put out a large fire that has been burning for about a week in a conservation park about an hour north of me. There are no homes threatened, but I hate to think what it's done to the wildlife. I expect you will all be getting an occasional Springy kind of day soon. That's something to look forward to isn't it?

Unfortunately it wasn't the faucet end of the hose that came off, it was the nozzle which I was holding facing me. Lol what a drip. We don't have to worry about the tap freezing, but you can get burned if you don't let the cold tap run for a bit first on a hot day.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), February 01, 2005.

It's "murder" of crows. (who said I didn't know any USEFUL infomation?) Kinda like a gathering of lawyers.

Carol, you sound like a Texan. It's said that you know you're from Texas when you get into the shower and find that someone has used up all the cold water.

It's raining today; a miserable little rain, scuttering in with a cold north wind. Kit is somewhere in the tub, under a mountain of bubbles, and the dogs are trying to be invisible so as not to be invited outside for a morning walk.

-- Lon (lgal@exp.net), February 01, 2005.

Lon, I had heard that "murder" usage before but could not officially confirm it from an authoritative source. Er, I mean, before now. (As we have observed before, language is murder.) And I thought it was a "billing" of lawyers (interchangeably used for doctors). Lon, don't let anybody talk bad about you. You are a veritable fount of youthful information.

Carol, unless there's a big consistent wind, I think most of the critters just hop/slither/stroll away from the flame front. Some, however get caught in their burrows and smothered or in an unfortunate synchronization of events (fuel/wind direction and velocity/position) and caught. This last can even happen to people. For a long time, there were few deadly accidents involving professional fighters of forest fires in this country. (The most notable being in the excellent non-fiction treatment Young Men and Fire by Norman MacLean, the same guy who wrote A River Runs Through It. But there have been a couple of other tragedies within the last few years, since the author died.) Now AFTER the fire, in many areas wildlife prospers (as the essential elements can get to low-growing plants that sustain most ground-dwellers). However, it would seem to me all bets are off in arid and simi-arid climes where a fragile ecosystem of vegetation might not be so renewable. Maybe ten years ago, I climbed one night to the top of the stairs of a tank battery out in a broad expanse of old fallow fields and patches of brush and watched as a fire burned hundreds of acres. Turned out to have been set by the local farmers, but I didn't know that until the next day. Anyway, it was still and I could hear coyotes working the flame front, catching displaced rabbits no doubt. Even in circumstances that must be unique to them, some animal species are adaptable and resourceful. Others are less suited to survive. Mobility is the foremost imperative, I would think.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), February 01, 2005.

Lon, I see you Texans understand summer. Stangely though our weather is almost the same as yours at the moment. We have just had the coldest February (mid-summer)day on record. Not that cold mind, not cold like Tricia gets, but a cold south wind and showers. A stuck inside day and my old dog has been curled up in a tight little ball for most of it. I'm waiting on clear skies for some star photos.

Kit sure likes that tub doesn't he. I thought of him the other night when a Phantom movie was on. I didn't realize the Phantom's name was Kit. It's not a name you hear in Oz. The only other one I've ever heard of is Kit Carsen the cowboy.

J. You're right about regrowth after a fire. A lot of seed-pods on Australian native plants wont open without the heat of a fire. The park fire went through 26,000ha out of 270,00ha (one hectare is about 2.5 acres) so I guess they were pretty lucky this time. It is a fairly regular occurrence due to the inevitable summer lightning strikes and the lack of controlled burns in the past. Park management is slowly improving, however when the conditions are just right no amount of preparation will stop a big burn.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), February 03, 2005.