FULL GRAND MAMOU FLOWER EXPLOSION MOON

 FULL GRAND MAMOU FLOWER EXPLOSION MOON 

 

The Full Moon rises at sunset May 15, be there! It will be a fine and spectacular affair y’all. The May 16 moon will be its equal y’all. 

This winter and spring have been crazy dry in our part of lower upper St Martin Parish. It stopped raining in November and rained very little until even now. I say 2-3” but it may be 3-4”. This has delayed leaf out in some plants including the spectacular Mamou and even some of our Coast Live Oaks. For the longest time my Mamous did nothing. I pruned them back and they just sat there. I was getting nervous especially the ones I planted on campus where there were rumors of herbicide misuse in my “unkept and messy landscapes”; to some eyes (native prairie and pollinator habitat landscapes are not like the poodle landscapes we see all around us and therefore undesirable, “hard to navigate my ZTR through, God forbid!”), I declare that they are delightfully rough. Did I say delightfully rough AND WILD! I call my critics the rat and snake lobby, and I tell them, when they will listen to and HEAR my rant, I hope to hell there are rats and SNAKES! Our children need this excitement and adventure in their growing up process, without this primal stimulation there can be no hope for normal development! None! 

My bud David Lee has a new book out, Rusted Barbed Wire, Selected Poems (that means already published works i.e. the best of the best). I told David when my copy arrived I was reunited with some "old friends". When David was first pitched to a skeptical New Iberia crowd as the "Pig Poet", poetry with a strong agrarian theme, we were relieved to find his work funny and something rural folk can relate to. But when they said he was the Poet Lauriat of Utah... most of us having never been to Utah, we figgered they didn't have poets, because they can't read n write, much less a Lauriat...

Good book, full of his best stuff. here is a sample:

SONNET ON THE SUN RISING

Cold. Last nigh a skiff

of snow. So I

got up at five o'clock, made

a fire. Watched the sky 

                            unbuild.

I mean, I'm

drinking coffee

             by myself. Shivering.

And I'm cold.

        So it's time, you

        wonderful sun

of a bitch. Get on up.

                    I'm ready.

                                Now.

AFTER AN ALL-NIGHT FARROW

The thin moon

burns silver

in henlight

Then gold lace

falls like dew

on the sheet-iron roof

Now sun sprays 

the pasture

and the duroc boar's shoulders

with fire

rooster: flap your wings!

Scratch up

a breadfast song

for these eight

newborn children

4-15-22 Full Chartreus Negligee was as grand as predicted.

4-19-22 Moved Ruby and the Land Submarine to Indian Creek campground for a few days or R and R. I didn’t think about it being beautiful spring weather and SPRING BREAK for all those kazillion school kids. We had fun, just had to drink a fifth of tart red a night to calm our nerves. 

4-20-22 Phone ringing in my pocket all day long. Tree consults, must be spring! I had to turn it off. 

4-22-22 Earth Day and Capt. Jake’s 50th. And, this is the historic return date for MIKIs in New Iberia. I have not seen them yet. MIKI = Mississippi Kite, a small acrobatic hawk that eats lots of mosquito hawks and locust and an occasional tiny bird. Word on the street, form Jon and others, is that they are in Iberia. 

We finished reading The Incredible Winston Brown by Sean Dietrich. A wonderful read, P and I read to each other on trips now, what fun! 

4-27-22 MIKIs all over Lafayette now. The Berry too, but not my spot in lower upper St Martin. I can usually hear them before I see them. I do not, even with my hearing aids in, ha! 

Eddie has a Swallow-Tailed Kite patrolling his tree lines, the lucky stiff! They are spectacular. Eddie lives near the big swamp east of us, STK country. 

Red buckeyes are in full bloom still, YEOWSER! What a wonderful plant. 

Mamou beginning to bloom, now that is an intense RED. Looking for the girl hummers, up to now it is mostly males. 

5-4-22 Second Wednesday Brothers Breakfast with Stanly at Edie’s, a week early Big is busy next week so Baby and Elder accommodated his complex schedule, 630am. Elder = yours truly, @#1. Baby = Jeff @#10. Big = Dr John @#9. Y’all this is always a joyful occasion. Baby lives out on the Indian Bayou Prairie. Big lives perched on the lip of the escarpment overlooking the Mississippi River Delta on the high ground, east of Broussard. 

I was surprised when they both exclaimed that they were seeing lots of RTHBs in their yards, nectar feeder emptying hoards of hummers. The girls must have arrived! Yay! I have not seen those numbers, I must pay attention more AND refresh my feeders. Birdman Bill Fontenot taught me that the males arrive in March some time and the females follow a month or so later. Lots in bloom for them in that time frame to nectar on. 

5-5-22 Cinco de Maya y’all! 

5-10-22 Mr. Al the famous (in Iberia Parish) Live Oak, 6’ DBH, 150-160 year oldster. Moved 1.5 mi North along US90 by LDOT bc couldn’t figger out how to engineer around it... Yowser! He has been moving along, growing stronger, getting better each year until now. Drought is taking a toll on him. He is greatly delayed in leaf drop and leaf out this season. I have asked LDOT to haul water to him until normal rainfall begins. Today they hauled the first 900gal of fresh water, slowly applying it over the original 42’ root ball At the time we moved him, his canopy spread was 110’.. I would guess the present root span is 2-3 times that. 

Margaret just lost her dad. Oh how she loved that man. He the artist, she the poet. They were quite the duet.

This poem after 6th grader Cloe's poem about a broken chess board:

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”

The girl sees patterns,
pictures in her father’s shirts,
gathered,
sorted,
cut,
stitched
into a quilt of many colors,
into a memory of many hugs,
into a dream of everlasting rest.
She sees more than anyone
a life lived as a husband, a father,
a doctor, an artist, a friend.
She touches every day what he wore,
a treasure in her hands.
Maybe you could do the same.
Maybe with a chess board.

Margaret Simon, draft

 

We, P and I, have been toying with the idea of striking out in a westerly direction, just to see what we can see and do what we can do. We have a few goals in mind. I guess we will have Ruby hooked up to the Land Submarine and strike out about June 12, wish us luck and stay tuned. 

I am playing with the idea of doing a "road blog" on the back of this FMA platform. See you on the flip side. 

Y’all have a great FM rising, P and I will be raising a glass of tart red to you our friends.  

Peace love possumhugs 

BT