Seamless: having a surface free from roughness, bumps or irregularities

January 15, 2012 at 9:42 pm (critters, Uncategorized, weekly ramble)

Great Blue Heron

Frosty Morn. It’s mid-January. Cold-scorched blossoms withered on the azaleas overnight. For the third time this season, I scratch frost from my windshield.

A quarter mile from home, I slip the Loon into the river and stroke the flawless face of morning.

It’s dead calm. Across the channel a great blue heron reflects on herself in the stillness.

Ripples and wakes. We’re in stealth mode, the Loon and I. Her prow displaces A-frame ripples, ruffling our glide.

Alarm!

Droplets bullseye the surface as blade-tips pierce the silence. We are a log. We are the river. Pay us no heed! We are harmless!

The blue broadcasts her distress – Graaak! Graaak! Graaak! – and leapfrogs around a bend.

The morning is perfect. I’m afloat on the moment. There’s nowhere I need to go, nothing I need to do, no problem I need to solve. Time stalls.

Grounding

I”m practicing grounding, calming mind-clutter by immersion in my surroundings.

The boat is green, the bank is topsoil gray. Halved clam shells litter the bottom.

I reach into elbow-high cold water and scoop a sealed one. It’s gritty, heavy, locked.

A florescent bobber dangles from a snag. The sky is an endless blue.

Viola!

Motion to my left. Brown lumps animate. Field and ground reverse. Pelicans appear.

The magic lingers. Long, Stan Laurel faces grin back at me as I inch forward. As intrigued by a hooded white man as he is by them, their six-foot wings stay furled until the last instant.

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About time

October 9, 2011 at 8:19 am (critters, that's life, veggies, weekly ramble)

"I'm pollinating as fast as I can!"

The bog’s where I go to get real, to touch life. When I stay away, I’m running from something. For several weeks other stuff’s seemed more pressing.

Interesting choice of words, pressing. Implies heavy, weighted down, encumbered, fatigued. Bogged down. I felt slimed.

Started with a statistic. Today’s average male will live to 76. Quick math – I have a dozen years left. Damn! Doesn’t sound like enough.

goldenrod

Pile on a particularly unpleasant test my urologist is about to run. My psyche is squirming.

As a kid, the dreary school year passed so slowly. In my senior days, time sprints.  Often I ignore opportunities to slow down and notice what IS.

It’s golden season in Lower Alabama. The bog is oozing yellows, purples and whites. Bloomers entice with fluorescent hues and fragrances.

enticement

Pollinators join the symbiotic plant ballet. Nature is as it should be. Bees and flowers aren’t worried about the future. They’re alive in the moment -sunny fall day, lite breeze, just the right temp.

Lately I’ve spent too much time in the future, dreading things that may never happen and that I have no power to change. Yesterday I took time to slow down and enjoy the moment. I was richly rewarded.

hungry pitcher plant digesting bug

Steve Jobs died this week. Never knew much about the guy. He had a lot to share, a lot to say about connecting the dots that have tracked our lives.

He had an interesting take on living his days, shared with graduating seniors at.

“…for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” Stanford University in 2005

Lately my answer has been “no” for too many days in a row. I need to change something. Time to enjoy moments more and worry less. Thanks, Steve.

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Terrorless in Pensacola – (written 9/11 2011)

October 8, 2011 at 10:54 pm (critters, Santa Rosa Island, that's life, Uncategorized, veggies, weekly ramble)

Tenth anniversary of the day America’s fabric began a slow unravel. The week’s media has streamed the “dis-ease” of remembrance. I haven’t gone there with the throngs. Don’t need the pictures and recollections to muddy my consciousness. Sadly, the terrorists hijacked more than aircraft, crumbled more than buildings.

On this Pensacola Beach Sunday, I launch my kayak (the Loon) into crystal Santa Rosa Sound. Sea-grass exclamation marks  dance above rolling lightning streaks on the seafloor.

sea-grass dancers

A snowy egret struts the waterline, browsing for sushi. A cloud of  minnows instinctively shifts course and speed to avoid the avian appetite. They move as a single organism, tiny cells that never touch. Intuitive magic is their nature. Life flows on.

hungry egret

Add a dash of humanity to the scene. A beach cleaner pilots his John Deere up and down the strand. He drags a collector to harvest yesterday’s leavings before the crowd descends.

When I leave I’ll take along two foam toys he missed. They will be melded into a piece of beach art some day. I always take home shards of memory.

deep thoughts

A meditator unfolds his chair and studies his scriptures through shaded lenses. Uncluttered, the beach is a wonderful place to absorb.

This is the world I inhabit. Nature speaks all I need to know today. PEACE.

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Post-shower rebound

August 20, 2011 at 1:10 pm (critters, veggies, weekly ramble)
Tags: , ,

Fish River moonshine
Sitting by a moonlit river isn’t always romantic. In mid-August Alabama, it’s often just muggy. I came last Saturday hoping for a primal meteoric experience, but the full moon cancelled the view. I sat and waited for whatever happened next.
Patience. Five AM was feeding time on the river. I heard splashing. Over by the rail a small, 30-foot wide wave was moving upstream. The wind was dead calm. Some lifeform(s) was pushing the water. In 50 yards it abruptly disappeared.
I don’t know what caused the commotion. It might have been a line of dolphins herding their next meal (as I’ve heard they sometimes do) or just a chorus of smaller fish moving in unison. Whatever, it was making noise and creating a wave. Did I mention I was alone in the dark? Spooky!
On the dock I watched the moon and sun change shifts. As the setting orb moved from its 40 degree elevation, its reflection on the water changed from an alabaster carpet to a long, orange tongue.
Half way to the horizon it disappeared behind a cloud bank. Strips of it peeked out as in passed behind layers of airborne moisture. A single tall thunderhead, stalled far out over Mobile Bay, sizzled and sparked in silence. Front-lit by the rising sun, its reflection instantly replaced that of the moon like the shift in a software slideshow.
Critters. Fish breach the surface in different ways. Some hit it lightly and sink back to the depths, leaving a bulls-eye ripple of concentric circles.  Minnows break the tension in an irregular bloom, the same effect you’d get by tossing a fistfull of sand.

my vantage point

Showiest of all are the mullet who hang out by the transitional marsh across from the dock. They explode from the water, go airborne for several feet and splat back into the river. A careless mullet once landed atop my kayak. Wonder which of us was more surprised.

On the dock, I had a close encounter with a belted kingfisher. These comic-looking fishermen are territorial. This one didn’t like my proximity to his favorite piling. He kept coming back to check on me but never posed for a picture.
Also on patrol was the biggest dragonfly I’ve ever seen. He could have carried off a field mouse without straining.

flower with a frog in her throat

My favorite critter ‘counter of the morning was with a tiny green frog posing innocently in the throat of a white-topped pitcher plant. It doesn’t get any sweeter than this for an insect eating amphibian!

Don’t know if she got there on purpose or just happened onto a handy perch, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Wish the shot had been a little sharper.

I also got a picture of a spider who had spun her web on a spike of  beautiful white flowers. Like most of my arachnid captures, I didn’t notice she was there until I pulled her up on my computer screen.

Veggies. Here’s a few of the veggies I viewed that day. If you recognize any, let me know.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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Packing my own parachute

August 15, 2011 at 9:58 pm (that's life, weekly ramble)
Tags: , , ,

Don’t know where I picked up the phrase “packing my own parachute.” Seems like it had something to do with being obsessively over-prepared.

Case in point: I got up at 3:30 Saturday morning to witness the intersection of a dusk-to-dawn full moon and the  Perseid meteor shower above the bog.

I could have just set my alarm, thrown on clothes, driven to the bog, walked to the boardwalk’s end, turned my face to the sky and watched whatever happened. That’s not my style.

Friday night – get Starbucks’ largest, boldest caffeine-bomb to nuke on arising. Google “viewing Perseid shower.” Charge camera batteries. Put accessories (camera, pen, notepad, flashlight, snack bar, doo rag, glasses) in ditty bag. Discover I’m out of mosquito repellant and decide I’ll wear jeans.

3:30am – too excited to sleep. Turn off alarm and warm coffee. Recognizing I am already in trouble, read from Patience by Akiko Busch as the warm liquid works its way through my system (note: my need to organize blocks out everything I’m  reading).

Preparation continues – change camera tripods. Drive to bog. Flick flashlight on and off every ten feet to scare away  snakes that lurk on the boardwalk (did I mention irrational serpent dread?) I flutter like a frightened firefly. At river’s edge, I toss my “parachute” onto a bench and unpack my supplies.

There is something primal in the air. Humans have watched the Perseid for at least two millennia. I’m about to experience what the First People felt as scores of light streaks shoot across the August sky. This is the stuff of legends, a portent of fortune’s change.

But on this morning, the moon is a spoiler. Have you ever stood in the dark when the moon was full? It casts shadows. It’s bright enough to illuminate large print. Its light pollution snuffs stars. Streaming specks of space dust we call meteors disintegrate anonymously in the atmosphere. Not a single visible flash. The shower is a wash.

But I was ready if anything had happened.

It’s 10 pm the same day and I just stepped out my front door and looked up. No stars in sight, but a bright planet-like light is straight above. Its motion is barely perceptible. Google tells me it’s likely the International Space Station. Awesome! Legend to space travel in less than a day.

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By the riverside

August 8, 2011 at 9:53 pm (that's life, veggies, weekly ramble)

8/7/11, 7:15 am. Weather – Temp 78 F, dew point 78, heat index 86, humidity 100%. Partly cloudy, chance of rain 50%.

By 8:15 make my way to the squirrel cage down by the riverside. Only visitor I see today is scoping the treetops with binocs. I keep forgetting to bring mine.

scribe at the squirrel cage

squirrel's lunchbox

On the way out, I stop at the sundew spot and shoot some spiked ones. Hairy shafts of vegetation tipped with gooey digestive juices. Also find a new tiny yellow flower, the size of a fingertip, that thrives in the boggy underbelly.

tiny unidentified flower, likes the compamy of carvivores

Dew-Leaves or threadleaf sundew

The next successors are still pushing up. I wait week to week, trying to remember where they are. Plants change so quickly. Next week’s version may not even resemble these. The shoots and spikes don’t predict the eventual shapes or colors.

The river is coming awake. I get a breeze from upstream. It wrinkles the surface, then dies.  A boat passes. Its wake washes ashore 40 seconds later.

The surface is smooth. It reflects nice images of the bridge and a moored boat.

boat moored upstream of Fish River Bridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cars sound across the bridge like a train clacking rail to rail. Another boat shushes by. In a few minutes the rebound wake drifts back from the other shore.

It was high tide when I got here. The foam patches were barely moving. I watch as it reverses, tugging the the bubbly mats towards the Bay as it starts to recede. It gains speed slowly.

foam at dead calm

Velocity uses any obstacle in the water’s path to cleave the liquid. Water swirls around a snag, spinning harmless liquid vortexes downstream.

receeding tide eddies downstream

Breeze is gone. My page is damp with sweat.

A Natural Ice can, floating on its side, drifts towards the dock. It holds just enough water for ballast. The slotted opening points to 12 o’clock. So far it’s seaworthy. It narrowly avoids a submerged trunk only to become marooned in a swath of alligator weed.

A later wake may shove it through, or it may just bob in place until the next tidal surge pushes it back upstream. It’s completely at the mercy of the tides. Patience.

The river always moves. Its tidal pulse never pauses. Water ebbs and flows, blending salt with fresh. An estuarine heartbeat.

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Sitting out the heat

August 1, 2011 at 9:44 pm (critters, that's life, veggies, weekly ramble)

Sunday, 7/31/11. Wind from the north/northwest at 6 MPH. Humidity 100%. Fog was hanging right over the meadow area when I drove by at 7. Temp and dew point are both at 79 degrees, so moisture is condensing on myskin. It’s  mostly sunny and headed for a high of 95, heat index 105-107. 70 percent chance of rain. Think I’ll sit this one out in the shade.

On the walk to the ends of the boardwalk, I run into Brody J. He’s a speaker at the local photo club next month. Has 3-4 more stops to make this day. He looked up Barbara’s buttons too, although he’s not as into ids.

I go down to the necking bench at the end of fern glen. Even on last July day it’s dark, cool and moist enough down here for billowing ferns. Lovers’ names carved in the railing. Z path of older wood.

Squirrell cage down by the riverside. Joe Pye weed’s already done and lst few blossoms of ironweed as bright lavendar. Yellow sunflower-like blossum about to flare.

Righ by river are gum, cypress, magnolia and a few pines. Five feet from water is a water hyacynth’like spike of four petaled blooms paralle to ground. Tuberous stem. Each leaf has long stalk with paddel on end, growing in a bunch. Also right by water appear to be pick mallow blooms.Today saw my first hummer and two more lizzards.

Spmeone, perhaps a class had been thrashing around all yesterday afternoon in the meadow.

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100% humid!

July 24, 2011 at 11:05 pm (critters, veggies, weekly ramble)

8 am, Sunday July 24. It’s 76 and partly cloudy. I thought 100% humidity meant raindrops would be pouring from the sky. No such luck. Sweat clings to every centimeter of my skin like spray-on cooking oil. Not a hint of breeze to evaporate the moisture and cool me. Yuck!

no help from the shade

I’ve been sitting in the boardwalk’s covered shelter on the theory that shade will eventually cool me. My water bottle is half empty already. The heat  of my skin fogs my glasses. It’s gonna be a short ramble today.

High clouds scatter aloft, making room for the sun. At ground level a breezy puff clears my lenses. I hadn’t noticed before that River Road bisects the bog. Rainwater pools in the roadside ditch. Bog-buttons and a few random pitcher plants sprout from the poor soil.

bog-buttons

Throughout the bog, trees and woody shrubs are coming into their own. The controlled fire at the beginning of the season either burned them back to the ground or charred their trunks into lifeless sticks. They’ve been gradually sprouting all season long, but with the recent rains they are becoming a dominant force. Tulip poplars and bushes in the bay family are still knee high, but some maples and sycamore stretch above my head.

tulip tree reaches for the sun

maple

Spiky wildflowers reach to my shoulders, leaves and small flowers unfolding. Barbara’s buttons, bog-buttons, meadow beauty and yellow-eyed grass still abound, but the taller growth is shading out the lower-blooming flowers.

Rain has coaxed out a new crop of white-tipped pitcher plants. The flowers are small and dark, about half the size of  spring blooms. The pitchers (specialized leaves) are miniatures, too. They show the effect both of the growing shade and the months of drought. But the coolest thing I noticed today is the growth spurt the moisture brought on.

new crop of smaller pitchers

wasp doing Ma Nature's business

Caught sight of several differnt polinators. I honeybee with full sacks of pollen buzzed around a blossom. A wasp fertilized some yarrow. A tiny butterfly sat on a blade of grass opening and closing her wings, and a dragonfly stayed just  out of camera range.

I’m terrified of snakes. Near the beginning of the boardwalk, a linedrawing of a cottonmouth warns visitors to beware of the aggressive reptile. I quicken my step every time I go past the sign, as though its post is stuffed into the serpent’s den. Some outdoorsman!

Sure hope there's no snakes out there!

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Dew point

July 23, 2011 at 2:55 pm (weekly ramble)

dew point collision

It’s 7:22 am and the south Alabama atmosphere has reached its dew point (77 degrees). Saturated air close to window has lost its knack for suspending water. Moisture molecules clump together on the outside glass, gauzing my worldview.

Three brief rain bands are keeping me from bog-land. On a earlier run to Starbucks (“Buckie’s” in family lingo) I marveled at the tons of water, lofted thousands of feet skyward, poised to rain down growth. I pushed my way through resistant atmosphere as I walked to my truck. Interesting sensation but way MUGGY!

I can’t wait to hit the bog. It’s been a week since the flooding rains last Saturday and Sunday. I’m anxious to see how seven days of sponging have altered the veggie patch. I’m just not dedicated enough to weather a downpour to record it.

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Feast or Famine

July 16, 2011 at 1:20 pm (weekly ramble)

Crashing thunder woke me at 3:30 AM. The lights winked off and on twice, requiring a reset on a half dozen flashing appliances. Puss, our daughter/house cat, has been up under my butt ever since. It’s eight now and still raining.

Rainwater has pooled in the southeastern corner of the back yard, out by my raised gardens. It stands four inches deep and is rising. Frogs, mute for months, are are loudly croaking a chorus like the rhythmic thrum of an off-balance ceiling fan.

backyard pool

My sunflowers, usually rigid sun seekers, have bowed their heads and are staring at the ground. The weight on the downpour has been too much to support.

soggy flowers

I’m betting the bog is awash. We’re 15 inches behind the normal rain for this date. In the past few hours we’ve made up three inches of that, much of which will run off before it can be absorbed. It will be interesting to see how the sponge that is the bog responds. By the time the rain stops it will be too hot and humid to take to the boardwalk. My weekly ramble will have to wait!

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