FULL HEADLIGHT HAWKS MOON

The full moon rises just after sunset, Sunday afternoon, just before sunset Saturday. This is what is referred to as a Super Moon, it is in perigee or closest to Earth in its orbit, so if you make little slits out of your eyelids it may appear larger than normal, doesn't work for me, sorry.

"Old age is just a record of one's whole life" Mohammad Ali

"Where no kind of manure is to be had, I think the cultivation of lupines (a legume) will be found the readiest and best substitute. If they are sown about he middle of September in a poor soil, and then plowed in, they will answer as well a the best manure." Columella, 1st Century, Rome, Building Soils For Better Crops, Magdoff, Chapter 10. Cover crops are old time technology y'all!

11-4-17  Great full moon rose tonight, P and I caught some of that action before heading inside to watch only the first 3-4 innings of the World Series, this is how we did that, because then we go to bed and we have the excitement of finding out who won the next morning. This is a great way to watch a series and we are not sleep deprived AND our team won!

11-8-17  I'm standing out front of the Hamilton Hall Prairie Patch/Pollinator Habitat Garden, all 400 square feet of it. One can do this each day of the year and be treated to fresh and  new excitement each day. Lots of flowers, new growth, old growth, seed heads insects, spiders, Green Anole Lizards. This is a very diverse, very successful thumbnail sized patch of Louisiana Native Cajun Prairie. This thing is tiny, some of my student's pick-up trucks are larger than 400 sq ft. Today I spot, for the first time a mammal, a mouse, a mouse in our Prairie Patch! Since then I have noted members of our resident tom cat Mr. Hamilton's harem (6) lurking the Prairie Patch edge showing unnatural interest in that habitat. No birds yet, but I feel that that is coming soon, but first mamals.

                              THE THIRD MIRACLE

                             Score: South Plains Monument 1: Tornado 0
                            ----Photo caption: Avalanche Journal

All night the huge twisters
played hop Scotch and 
wreaked mayhem
across the Caprock rim

2:12 a.m.
Willy John snapped the photograph
that graced the Avalanche Journal's
Sunday front page

the sculpture draped
with St. Elmo's fire
around its suppliant base
the cattle's great horns ablaze

from a lightning ravaged sky
like the finger of God
stretched toward the obelisk:
a tornado funnel floating in abeyance

                 David Lee, Last Call, Wings Press, a great book of poetry



                                                     Fourth Visitation

Look at that cow groom her calf
that there is lady of elegance if I ever saw one
and by god knows exactly
what I'm saying about it
don't you, you persnickety senorita bonita

I'd appreciate the hell out of it
you being a man of letters
if you wouldn't repeat the following
until I'm gone
but her name is Juliet

I won't insult you
by mentioning the bull's name
just that this time they made it
unstrangled by their tethers
so what do you have to say about that?

                  Another one by David Lee in Last Call


Now, the reason for the book title by David Lee, Last Call

                Last Call

              The two saddest words in the English language.
               ---from a conversation with Bill Kloefkorn

                                                     1

              Tonight

               moonglow
               from within
               softly

               like a candled egg
        
               and softly
               stars diminish
               until incandescence washes

                the dark sky

                until midnight's
                lightstick
                its ebb and flow

                liquid

                the candent universe
                rolls
                softly
                                                  2

                 Midnight
                 remonstrance:

                 there are those
                 I wish honestly
                 only to remember

                 being gone and only memory

                  and
                  there are those
                  I wish to never remember

                   desiring
                   only their presence

                   lasting as long
                   as my life
                   until forever

                   as
                   I cannot imagine

                   living in a world
                   containing
                   only their memory

                                                    3

                    And you my friend
                    whom the gods call
                    into that other alone

                    wherever you wake
                    be it desert or forest
                    mountain or seaside

                    find tinder
                    dry moss and kindling
                    flint

                     strike a small fire which
                     being eternity
                     will flicker beyond forever

                      sing
                      your bright poem
                      fork your lightning dance

                       I will find you
                       sooner than later wherever
                       you wait in the darkness

                        We will sing together
                        delirious and off key
                        We will tell great lies

                         to shame the heavens
                         We will cook with wine
                         I promise you this

Hmmmmmm, seems that I saw somewhere that David Lee and  Bill Kloefkorn are both Poets Laureat of Utah...Shoots I didn't even know they had poets in Utah!!!???


11-16-17  I'm in traffic, headed in for my day job at the Big U, that is what we call it here perched on the Left Bank of the Big Muddy. Over there on the Right Bank that same term references another purple and gold entity.
I like to motor along just above the speed limit, say 60. That seems to keep me out of trouble until I get real close to Lafayette, then we all have to pick up the pace a bit, time to get serious y'all.
Anyway I'm motoring along, occasionally being passed by another vehicle when this white Jeep SUV slides past. the driver a late 30ish guy, contemporary, stylish hair-do, tee shirt, on the back seat a pretty little blonde girl, 8-9year old, alone, stares out of the window. As this guy passes I note he has two bumper stickers on his back side, both the same, side by side "The World Is Overpopulated
                                                                                           Breed Responsibly"
...two times, my guess is that this guy feels his fellow man is a bit thick and you have to tell us Ragin Cajun Catholics everything twice, haha, ha!

11-17-17  Lots of great hawks of late especially on the poles outside of Broussard. RTH, Red Tailed Hawk, I call them Headlight Hawks because when they are facing you from their perch a large round white patch stands out, glaringly white, glowing brightly at you. I can spot them in a tree line 1/4 mile away making this a very strong field mark for me to ID them with.


Psalm of Home Redux
          after reading Cormac McCarthy and taking
          a five mile run through the River Ranch

          Laughter is also a form of prayer
                      -Kierkengaard

Okay then, right here,
Lord, here in Bandera,
tether me to my shadow
like a fat spavined mule
stuck sideways in Texas tankmud
bawling for eternity

At midnight"s closing whine
of the 11th Street Bar's Steel guitar
when the stars slip their traces
and race the moon like wild horses
to their death in the darkness,
let my hoarse song twine with the nightwind

May the bray of today's good laughter
fall like a brittle topbranch
windnudged from a sprawling live oak
straight down like early spring sleet
to the hill country's bent
and trembling bluebonnet covered knees
                      David Lee, In a House Made of Time, with William Kloefkorn

11-17-17  "Carried" as we say down here, my Native And Other Interesting Plants Class to the Cajun Prairie Restoration in Eunice today. Prairiedog was hung up in "the Florida Parishes" as we refer to southeast Louisiana above the Pontchatrain. Malcolm "The Great" Vidrine was not able to commit to a Friday afternoon in the great remnant grassland. That I totally understand Mac. So there we were, my poor students stuck with this sad old Tree Guy who loves prairie, but does not remember all those grassy names, a few, but not enough. We had a great time anyway.
We passed under a fine Headlight Hawk coming up La 13, sweet! Oh yea, today I saw my first Am Kestrel in Lower Upper St Martin Parish.
Darn! I Missed another Leonids Meteor shower, hmmmm, you might say I was caught napping again.


                   
              This image of the Bayou Teche (pronounced tesh) in New Iberia and the Duperier St Bridge   inspired the poetry explosion below:
 

Explore New Possibilities

On the water,
the canoe turns
toward a horizon
I do not know.

I paddle-pull
under a bridge,
listen to the rumble-
a passing car

like thunder from rolling clouds.
Under a bridge
where teenagers
huddle close and smoke,

where wooden gates
direct water
as if one could
contain such a wild thing,

a golden sunset
draws me toward
a new destination.

--Margaret Simon

Mary Lee Hahn invites us to join #haikuforhealing. Inspired by the same photo, a haiku:

where road meets water
a bridge, a golden sunset
a new horizon.

--Margaret Simon

From Margaret's Reflections on the Teche Blog 

You say they are just drafts but i like them as is Margaret!

11-21-17  Last night P went on and on about how stunning the sunset was, how the entire Western sky was in full blazing color. Well friends, she would have loved this day's morning light, is was grand, blinding, full of color and a flash! You would have loved it as well. Right at 640 in that little bitty crack between Earth edge and cloud cover, that fireball exploded into view for an brief moment and then it was all over, cloudy day. OMG, what a Flash Rise! 

11-23-17  Thanksgiving Day, Ol BT's fav holiday. Lots of good comfort food, loving family and friends and no gift pressure. I have to tell you that I am so GRATEFUL for all of you. I know we meet seldom but those chance encounters are so sweet.

11-24-11  Cooper Hawk down low and dirty in tree line behind my bird feeding area, that label of Bird Feeder Hawk is well earned.

4pm, flight of Vultures moving E-W single file, 15, this kind of stuff makes me stop and look, jaw settin on my chest.

11-27-17  GHOs all around in the predawn light. This is an awe inspiring sound, I hope my pretty little hens and Boots our new teenage cat are paying attention.

NEKID TREE ID! P says the difference between naked and nekid is that nekid is more fun, and boy did we have fun. Anyway, I took my Plant Science Lab, ENVS 151, to the Louisiana Arboretum (Arbo) in Chicot SP, for a session on bark, buds and twig plant ID. Timing this year is a bit off, we found too many leaves on the trees. This class is best taught in the dead of winter. The Arbo is a deciduous forest and is perfect in January. Kim Hollier, our cooperator with the park system and Ville Platte native is the finest of biologists and she usually hosts us leading us on a walk in the woods. We always learn much from Kim, oh yes that is right, even ol BT.

11-28-17 LDOTD was setting up to irrigate Mr Al the huge Live Oak we moved in Iberia Parish in 2011, we couldn't figger out how to "pass" that service road around him. Let me stop now before the rant starts! It has been really dry here about and time to water, something we seldom need to do anymore. He is almost ready to go it alone. So they wade into the Prairie Au Large around Mr Al and find that the well pump has been stolen, oh my, some folks children. They got the job done with a water truck.

While moving around in all that tall weedy mess, which is all the tinder that the "Rats and Snakes Lobby" need to become inflamed. Anyway they found this snake and sent me a photo of it, dead I'm sure, a Texas Rat Snake no less. My response to them "Rats and Rat Snakes!". My normal answer to the Rats and Snakes Lobby is "Thank God we still have places where rats and snakes can live". Prairiedog, i figger that is why i git dem looks, know what i mean?

12-1-17  December already. I'm celebrating by taking my Native and Other Interesting Plants class, ENVS 360, to the Arbo, my second trip this week, I always go in on my short cut through the carbon black plant and down Indian HillsRd, over the RR tracks and down the dirt road, through the dark woods and up to the South Gate of Chicot SP. I never tire of the journey. We hope Kim is around today and feels like a walk in the woods. 

This Sunday full moon rises just before sunset Saturday. Open that bottle of tart red, sit on that blanket on the ground, smile, talk, listen, love each other.Don't forget to bring the old people and the kids. This is the kind of stuff memories are made of. 

peace love and possumhugs

BT