Tonight an owl came to visit

It's amazing! A few minutes ago I was out mixing up some fertilizer to water my plants with and from my peripheral vision I noticed something big flying close by. I looked up and this owl flew right up to a branch just about 15 feet from where I was stooped over. He or she perched up on the tree branch and just looked down at me. We did a little non-verbal communicating, well mine was verbal, and then the owl flew off. He or she was definitely there to visit. No doubt in my mind.

Wow. They definitely are watching us. It just could be that the owl who visited this evening is the same owl that was in the blog picture I posted yesterday. More synchronicity.

There is no owl in my picture today so don't strain yourself looking. It is just a place on our little road out here where Maggie and I stopped on our walk yesterday. It does have some significance though. It is where a ferry dock once stood. A ferry that carried people across the river when our community was first established. There's a lot of history out here.... and I can feel it.

Whooo's watching who?

We spend a lot of time watching the birds, our pets and the other wildlife that share our neighborhoods and homes but are they watching back?

I looked up in a tree to see what I could see

and lo and behold, an owl is looking back at me.

An occasional skunk must walk through!

I went out this morning to take an early morning breath of fresh river air and pee U. It seems Pepe le Pew must have made a pass. In everything wonderful an occasional skunk must walk through.

Would we really know how wonderful things are in life if we didn't have to some pain and misery to compare it to? Wonderful might get pretty mundane and we might take it for granted if we had it all the time. I even think that we often set ourselves up to experience challenges because we need to test ourselves.

I realized a long time ago that I wasn't real comfortable with being happy all the time. When life seemed to be going really great, I changed pathes. I don't think we can evolve to our fullest potential without experiencing some hard times and pain.

Where I work, at the jail, I see people everyday who must really need a lot of evolving. Some of those women and men seem like they could do well in the "free world" but after a short period on the streets, they are back. I ask them, why in the hell are you back? It's hot, the food stinks, the beds are hard. The most frequent answer is, "I don't know".

If you look very closely in this picture of a beautiful water hyacinth flower there is one of those lubber grasshoppers. They like to hang out near the river. They can devour all your favorite plants. Even in my paradise, there are pests to keep it from being too perfect.

I like to think of life as a kind of school. When it gets really hard I just think well I'm back in graduate school. Graduate school is an endurance test. You can get through it if you want to but you have to want to. It's a test, it's only a test.

People on the river are happy to give...

Yesterday, this little fellow asked me to borrow my boat to do some fishing from. I said sure, because ".....people on the river are happy to give."

Still waiting. Waiting for your ponders....

Take a ponder, leave a ponder

You know when you go to the check out at the convenience store there is this little dish that says take a penny, leave a penny? Well here at Southern Spice the policy is, take a ponder, leave a ponder. The universe needs for you to share your ponders here. You each have something important to share. Something we need to know.

Anyone interested in adding their ponders can send me an email and I will add you to the author list. I don't have a clue what I'm doing and it's fine if you don't either. It's more fun that way.

Camp yard friends

I would like you to meet Lizzy. She likes to hang out around the camp. Sometimes she's a bad girl and chomps down on a dragonfly. She did that yesterday. Oh, I just hate it when she does that.

Let me see...is that Lizzy or is that Clotel? Does she have a mole on her bottom lip? Lizzy has the cutest mole on her bottom lip. Lizzy and Clotel look so much alike that sometimes I just can't tell them apart.

Just a moment every morning

Every morning, if I'm up and go outside at just the right moment, I can catch this beautiful red sky. It's a gift. It doesn't matter if it's going to rain or shine. The sky, like us, has a lot of different emotions. I like seeing them all.

Where do we go when we die?

When I was young I was so uncomfortable with the concept of death. All my years in nursing and reading some of those new age books about "moving into the light" have helped me achieve a little friendlier relationship with it. It helps to know that when we leave, the lights will be on.

The most difficult death I ever had to face was my mother's. For most of my years I didn't think I would survive the time when that would come around. It helped that it was a process that I had a couple of years to get used to. Having to watch her suffer also helped me to let her go even though much of what I thought was suffering, mom didn't seem to mind at all. I think she enjoyed having most of her kids/grandson trapped at her side. It was almost worth it to her.

There were times I thought that mom made some kind of pact with some entity, that she would take on this dying thing, if she could have most of her family out visiting more often. She already had a good bit of my free time but I did have to have a little bit of a life for myself. When it came real close to the end, I think she may have regretted that deal because we heard her mumble no, no, no in her sleep on several occasions, toward the end.

I don't know what happens to us when we die but I have been trying to come up with something I will find appealing. Remember my need to have a soft place to land.

My twin sister, my nephew and I, all took turns staying with mom around the clock. It was more often my turn because the others said they didn't want to be alone with her when she clocked out. It didn't really matter that much because I was also going through another crisis that had me teetering on the edge of sanity.

We had mom in a hospital bed in the middle of her large living room where we could eat, fight, watch TV and carry on other activities, all together as a family. I slept on an old curved sectional every night in that room. Fortunately that only occupied about two hours a night or I would still be stuck in a position where I could only look at the floor.

One night while sitting watch with mom, a friend called to invite me to go on a ghost hunting adventure with her ghost hunting group. I knew she was a member of that group. Jane was a photojournalist for our local paper. She learned about this group from an ad she found in her paper. At first, when she saw the ad for anyone interested in ghost hunting, she wondered if it was the Holy Ghost they were after. She called and was relieved it was real ghost they were after. She joined up. She had invited me to go on other occasions but I wasn't really interested in spending dark nights running around graveyards.

Well this night she called, she told me they were going to a graveyard not too far from where mom lived. My mom was asleep, my stepfather was home hiding in his bedroom, and I didn't have anything particularly exciting on my agenda, aside from self pity, so I thought, why not? It was a time between Christmas and New Years so not many in the group would be going. I was to meet them at the graveyard at 9 pm and keep my truck lights on until someone came to get me.

I did go but I clung close to my friend. I didn't look or listen for anything. I did watch where I stepped since, with the way my luck was running, I didn't want to fall into any open graves. They all had tape recorders and cameras. They flashed lots of pictures and made recordings.

We all met at the group leader's car afterward to have some hot chocolate. It was a pretty cold night. I got to see a couple of their picture albums where there were pictures from previous hunts. Wow, they had some interesting pictures. Lots of orbs, little circles of light, some smokey looking stuff they called ectoplasm and a few shadowy figures. I went home that night and did a web search to read about that phenomena. It was very interesting.

Well I forgot all about that until the day mom moved up. She went down quick. She ate like a pig for most of her illness. When she couldn't eat anymore she was ready to check out. My ghost hunting friend was there when mom died. We had been friends since childhood and she had recently lost her own mom. She was close to my mom and since she couldn't be there when her mom died, she wanted to be there when my mom died.

Mom made arrangements to donate her body to one of our state university medical schools. Since she couldn't have a career in medicine she wanted to make a contribution in another way. My sister notified the funeral home and they made the arrangements for the medical school to pick her up. She died around 5pm but they couldn't come to get her until 9 pm.

Shortly after mom moved up and we had everything arranged, I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. I felt this little flutter on my arm, like something trying to get my attention. I remembered that Jane, the ghost hunter was there and she had her expensive digital news camera with her. I went into the house and asked her to come out and bring her camera. I told her to take my picture. I asked mom, if she was still there, to give me a sign. The picture Jane snapped showed me surrounded by a blue aura. I took the camera and snapped a picture of Jane. No aura. I called my nephew out and had Jane take a picture of him. He was surrounded by a even more amazing gold aura. He was her favorite. Mom would have dumped the rest of us for him.



I called my sister out and the aura that surrounded her was lavender. When they took mom's body away I had Jane to take another picture. All the aura's were gone. For the rest of the week we all took pictures all over the house and it was full of orbs. We got them on all of our cameras, the cheap ones and Jane's expensive one.


I called the couple who led the ghost hunting group to come over that week to check out the orbs. I asked if they had ever had this experience before in a house. They said no. I asked if they were ever invited over to anyone's house who just lost a loved one? They said no. Figures.

The orbs were only there for one week. Then they were gone. I had never seen any of these things in any other pictures I took at mom's house before. I don't know what they are or what they represent but I assumed that maybe it was mom, picking up a few of her other friends who have already passed, to make one last visit with the family. We couldn't have her funeral for a week after she died since her husband had been out of the country on a church trip. The entire family spent the week at mom's house. The orbs stayed close by.

I think the auras represented a last hug. Just a guess. What do you think?
No time to edit so good luck reading this one.

Carol

The Magster, eager to go fishing. Well, at least until it got too noisy outside.

Large alligator cruising by.

It's a small world!

I was out testing my worm theory and a guy in a kayak came cruising by. He said hi and I recognized his voice. He was one of my diabetes education patients. For 6 years I ran an out patient diabetes education program. Another one of those many career choices you have as a nurse.

He was one of my favorite patients. Mike, not his real name, was home from college, on a school holiday, when he found out he had diabetes. He came up to the hospital to visit one of his good buddies who had just been diagnosed with diabetes. They were both around 18 years of age. His buddy was also on school holiday but went to a different university.

Well, on one of Mike's visits he used his buddies blood sugar monitor to check his own blood sugar. Not something we recommend since you can spread blood borne illnesses using another person's monitor. His blood sugar was over 300. That scared him. He had been listening to his buddies instructions and knew that wasn't good. He didn't say a word, just put the monitor down.

He later told his dad and soon after that he was enrolled in my out-patient education program. I had a hell of a good time teaching him. We got to be quite close and every time he came to town for a holiday, he came to see me. He was an athlete and we discussed all the things that could affect his blood sugar and how to make adjustment to his management program. He managed his own diabetes very well.

It is such a joy to run into some of my old students whether they had been my patients or my nursing students. Another little episode of synchronicity today.

Those Who Can't Do, Teach?

I don't know where that saying originated but I heard it several times over the years. It may be true in a very few circumstances but I don't think very often.

I started my nursing career working in ICU/CCU. The hospital, where I was first employed, was just opening their first unit and a group of us were being trained to staff it. ICU/CCU is a very exciting place to begin a nursing career. It gives the nurse an opportunity to really focus on a limited number of patients and it provides the assistance of high tech monitoring equipment to assess what's going on inside the patient.

The RN working in ICU/CCU really gets to have close contact with his/her patient, from giving the bed bath, emptying the bed pan, holding their hands, to providing all the medications and treatments needed. It is a very stressful place to work because of the seriousness of most of the medical conditions found in that kind of an environment. You also meet more death there and as a young nurse I was not comfortable with death. When I had to go out to tell a family that a loved one had died, there was no doubt on my face what my mission was. I looked like a character from the movie about the zombies.

I went home every day after work and replayed the tapes in my head of what I did throughout the shift to analyze whether there was anything I could have done better or different. Sleep wasn't easy to come by for those two years that I worked in that unit. The staffing, as often is the case in many hospitals, got worse and worse and I decided I needed to find a place to work where I wouldn't spend all my off time stressing about it.

My best friend Jan, who graduated with me from nursing school, was working at our local university. She told me I ought to come try teaching. I could be a clinical instructor. Say what? Teaching, me? I wasn't even a good student. She said well you are a good clinical nurse and that's all you need.

My turning point was the day I had to take charge of our 13 bed unit with only one technical nurse and an orderly. I thought yep, teaching, me. It was either that or the mental ward. That wasn't a hard choice so I packed up my ugly cap and my stethoscope and applied for the clinical instructor job.

At the same time I started teaching, I also enrolled in a graduate program in Houston. Even though a graduate education wasn't required at that time to be a clinical instructor, I felt I needed it. If this was going to be something I wanted to do for a while, I had better be qualified.

Teaching did turn out to be a wonderful choice. Nothing will keep you on your toes like being responsible for preparing a bunch of eager students for their life long careers. Nothing will motivate you to learn more than having that responsibility. The information I will impart would impact a lot of lives.

To teach, I had to understand the information really well and believe me concepts involved in medicine aren't always easy to understand. It's even more difficult than going to school where you can just get enough of an understanding to drop it on the test and then move on. You had to answer questions. If I didn't have an answer, I always told my students I didn't know but I would find the answer. With my ego, I didn't want to have to do that very often so I read everything I could prior to teaching a subject so I would be prepared with any answer I thought could come my way.

I knew I would get some Karma there also. When I was in graduate school and thought I had a pretty smart teacher, I would come up with a really difficult question to ask, just to test the depths of my teacher's understanding of the subject. I was sure there would be some little whippersnapper, like me, waiting to do the same to me. Just in case, I was going be prepared.

I had to work a lot of moonlighting jobs to make ends meet while I was teaching. They don't pay teachers very much but we did have all those nice holidays. Of course I had to work all my holidays and most of my weekends to make up for the drop in salary. But I found that my time spent teaching added so much to my ability to function as a clinical nurse. In addition to being able to perform clinical skills, I really understood the whats, whys and hows of it. My moonlighting jobs also provided some interesting antidotes for my lectures.

One of my moonlighting jobs was working as a nurse at a local horse racing track on the weekends. What those jockeys did to lose weight by shedding extra body fluids worked real well with my fluid and electrolyte lecture. Throwing in a few other tidbits about a jockey's lifestyle kept my students from getting bored also.

Nope, those who teach can do, and do it better.

I do miss my 23 years of teaching at the university, but it is always a part of any nursing career. I do almost as much teaching while taking care of my inmates. They have the capacity to be big consumers of health care in their futures and often won't have any means to finance it. The Doctor I worked for at my first correction's job complained about the time I spent teaching my inmates. He said they just don't care. I told him that if just one of a hundred cared, it was worth the effort.

I can't prove it but, if I can get my inmates to pay more attention to managing their own health care problems or even preventing some, I can save a great deal in future health care costs to our community, state and federal government.

Was your life something you chose or did it choose you?

I really believe that my life wasn’t exactly my idea. I have asked many young people, including my nieces and nephews, over the years what do you plan to do with your life and most all of them at one time said, “I don’t know” but then several years down the road they moved in more of a structured direction, thank God.

I probably would have felt the same way if mom wouldn’t have started her brainwashing very early in my life. She insisted that I was going to be a nurse. I got a book about a famous nurse or a nurse’s kit for just about every gift getting occasion while growing up. I didn’t read any of those books, I just stored them under my bed. It probably would have helped me in my nursing philosophy class in graduated school if I had.

Nursing was really mom’s dream, not mine. Her grandmother, who raised her, told her she wasn’t going to be a nurse because it was a dirty profession. She resented that decision and decided that I would fulfill that dream for her. It wasn’t that I had any more potential than my two other sisters, it was that I was the easiest to manipulate. It took me a good while to recognize that.

When I got to college, which is something else both my mom and dad insisted on for their kids, I was asked what I wanted for my major. The word nursing came out. I looked around to see who said that and it was me! I guess the brainwashing worked.

Thanks mom. Nursing turned out to be a pretty good career choice. And there are so many different career choices within nursing. I’ve tried on many and wore them for a while. You can always find something that you like and never get bored. Every time I changed career paths, there was something blocking one direction and something else kicking me down another.

I am currently working as a nurse practitioner, in a corrections setting, providing the health care to 1200-1300 inmates. It takes all that I have learned, from all my other career experiences, to adequately fulfill this responsibility. Besides being a tremendous challenge, there’s never a dull moment with this job.

The life that chose me didn’t offer any children either but I got my procreation needs met throughout my nursing career. Teaching nursing for 23 years, and now taking care of inmates has more than met that need. I often tell the people I work with that I feel like I’m raising a huge bunch of teenagers because most of the people we have in jail seem to be stuck in their adolescence. I don’t think they chose their lives either, at least they swear they didn’t. They just “caught that charge”.

PS. It's so weird the synchronicity that goes on every day. As I was finishing this little post I checked in on a blog that I follow every day. It's Craig Crawford's Trailmix, a political blog. http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/ I can't get through a day without checking in there. I saw Craig on MSNBC one day. At the time, he seemed to be the only person I heard on the news who made any sense. I looked him up to thank him and I ran into his blog. I've been addicted to it ever since.

One of our blog members is Lard. Lardass Liberal is his handle on the blog. I didn't know it but he is also a journalist. He was recently diagnosed with brain cancer and has started his own blog to share his experience, http://seanholton.wordpress.com/ Isn't it interesting, that at a time when the country is involved in a serious discussion on health care, that this journalist gets brain cancer and has to examine the health care system from the inside out. I don't think he actually chose his life either.

To each his/her own

When I tell some of my friend and acquaintances about someone I met on a blog or something I'm discussing, I often get strange looks or even a snide comment on why would I want to waste my time talking to people I don't know.

We all need our time for recreation. The Wiktionary defines recreation as any activity that diverts, amuses or stimulates. My time on the computer, reading and writing on blogs, certainly meets the criteria for recreation. I could understand the criticism if I were avoiding work or other important responsibilities that I needed to attend to.

I work 40 hours a week. I take care of two places, not really well but then I wouldn't do that even if I had nothing else to do. I spend time with family and friends, no less than usual. I cook for myself and my dog. Maggie gets special home cooked dog food ever since the dog food scare. I garden, sometimes not so well. I still fish and play outside. That is limited due to the heat index around here this summer. It is just too hot except for a few hours either in the morning or in the evening. I do everything that I used to do before finding blogs to hang out on.

I guess the only thing I may do less of is watching television and sleeping. I'm certainly not missing anything important on TV and sleep is something I can catch up on when I'm dead. I have stopped going to the casinos. We have many of those here and when I felt lonely or depressed I would go to one of our casinos and play the slot machines. When I left, I was still lonely and even more depressed because the odds of coming out with the money I brought in, much less taking any extra out, was slim to none. Don't need that anymore. What I have saved there more than pays for my computer and Internet service.

Blogs offer a community that is bigger and more diverse than what one can find in a small or even medium sized town. I like to learn about and discuss things that my friends aren't interested in. For one, I'm a very blue girl trapped in a very red community/state. When I want to discuss politics, not only are most of the people I'm around at the other end of the spectrum from my philosophy, they don't even want to talk about it.

Blogs offer people to communicate with throughout the day and night. Not many people want to talk early in the morning or very late at night when I may be in the mood to chat. After working in a very intense environment all day(at the prison) with many people, many of whom are distressed, I need some space and down time. Blogs offer that space and time without losing any connectivity.

Blogging goes well with my ADHD. Under what other circumstances can you chat with people, jump up and cook a meal, run out and make a few casts with the rod, water your plants, go feed the birds, and do it all at the same time without someone saying, why don't you just sit still for a while?

There are so many other great reasons to blog. What do you think? I'm still very much in awe of computers and the Internet and all the potential they both bring to our world.

To each his/her own.

Everything needs attention and nurturing

Everything needs attention and nurturing to thrive and grow whether it be your significant other, your children, your pets or your plants.

I joined Colorado Bob's Hopi Blue Corn experiment and after two plantings and building a special structure to keep the critters out, I neglected to fertilize or properly take care of my corn plants. It showed. My corn gave as good as it got. My excuse was that I planted it where I wasn't often there to take care of it but I could have made more of an effort. I'm ashamed.

I've never been good at long distance relationships. I have even written off the friends who moved away. Now when something is right under my thumb I will take very good care of it.

This is my bell pepper plant friend. She lives right outside my door. I gave her lots of love, attention and fertilizer. It shows. She has so many peppers that I had to tie up her branches to keep them from breaking from the weight of all the peppers.

Now if anyone is interested in seeing what loved and nurtured Hopi blue corn looks like, go to http://cbhopibluecornexperiment.blogspot.com/

That's Bob's place. He's a really cool guy who can do just about anything. He even built his own solar oven. You'll also meet a lot of other neat people there.

Cajun Condos

Here are a couple of cajun condos, one option for living on the river. This little area is referred to by the river rats as Joeyville. Joey is an icon on the river. He can have his way with any boat motor and will do it for a case of beer, most likely doesn't matter what kind either.

Joey rode out Rita, the worst hurricane we have ever seen in these parts, on his houseboat. Rita was quite a bitch. I rode her out hunkered down at the jailhouse, a strong building made of concrete and steel and I was shaking in my boots. I've never heard the kind of sounds that came from outside that jail. Rain was actually blowing through the walls.

The winds from Rita were clocked at more than 100 mph in this area and the surg brought the river up over 10 feet. Rumor had it that Joey had his girlfriend and dog riding it out with him and they both slept through the entire event. I don't know what they were on that night but I will try to find out before we have the next hurricane here. Only thing is that it might be a little difficult smuggling it into the jail.

Joey's place is the houseboat on the left. I think the other is one he recently acquired. Maybe that is going to be his new bed and breakfast. If you are interested I may be able to get you a good deal on an overnight stay. I know I can find a case of beer around here somewhere.

If you wonder what some of the damage looked like after Rita, this is the view of my front yard at the camp. That metal thing on the right is part of my roof.

When they allowed me to escape from the jail, that was eight days after the storm, I moved out to the camp. It was easier to set up a place for roughing it there. The jail was pretty miserable since we had no air conditioning and for 4 days, no water. If you are wondering, I don't live at the jail, I'm in charge of the medical department.

Bad Girls

Ever get booted out of something? I read on one of my favorite blogs last night that one of my favorite blog friends was suspended from Facebook for writing too much. Now that sounds silly to me but then there are a lot of things about Facebook that seem silly to me. I thought that maybe I'll try to get booted out too. It's kinda fun to get booted out of something, I seem to remember.

Well the only thing I was ever booted out of was the Little Theater back when I was in high school. I was a tad of a rebel back then. Rebellion and sports was the only two things I excelled in back then. They were both very compatable with ADHD. I don't think Ritalin was available back then or maybe it just wasn't heard of in my neck of the woods.

My mom, being raised up north, thought she would try to get a little culture into my twin sister and me. She got us involved in a play, West Side Story. I tried out and got the part of one of the singer/dancers. I was a Shark girl. As white as I am I'm not sure how I got the part of a Shark but maybe it was because I could dance. I certainly can't sing even though I do have an ear for music, and enough of an ear to know I can't sing. I just pretended to sing.

Well after the last show was over I got booted out of the Little Theater because I got drunk. There were these girls that befriended me who went to Catholic girl's school. If anyone knew how to misbehave it was the girls from Catholic girls school. They taught me to both drink and smoke. The smoking stuck but the drinking didn't, I'm sorry to say. The reason I'm sorry is because it is hell to live down here in Louisiana and not drink. Everyone down here in Louisiana drinks and do you realize how hard it is to have to listen to everyone slur their words and repeat themselves a dozen times and be the only one in the group who recognizes it? I did try to pick up the habit all through college but after about three drinks, I was in the bathroom selling buicks. That got old real quick.

Well they caught us all drunk after our last performance and we were asked never to return to the Little Theater. Sorry mom, no culture here. I'm really surprised I survived the experience now. We were up on a water tower with a half a bottle of vodka in us, doing flips on the water tank. I shutter to think of it today. Now, no matter what I'm doing, I'm always looking for a soft place to land. Just thinking about the crazy things I did as a kid can break one of my ribs now.

Well fed river band

And on my river we have our own well fed river band. I know the guys but don't know the name of their band. It just might be Well Fed River Band.

Everyone around these parts is well fed. We are famous for our food down here in Louisiana. We may have a reduced life expectancy because of it but while we're here we're gonna grab for all the gusto we can get!

Lassez les bon ton roule

My chicken taco salad

To get the food section of this blog started I'm adding a pic of my chicken taco salad. I just love the colors in that salad but not as much as I loved eating it. You can't see it, but buried under the other stuff is some spicy lemon broiled chicken.

Good pondering spots

There are a lot of good pondering spots on the

river. I thought I would share of few.

I love to ponder

I just love to ponder. The Wiktionary, a website I use often since I have trouble spelling and I often come across words I don't know the definition of, defines to ponder as " to wonder, to think of deeply, to consider carefully and thoroughly; to chew over, to mull over." I have enjoyed doing that for as long as I could think.

Mowing the grass is a great time to ponder, so is fishing. You pretty much have to have a riding lawnmower to ponder though. It would be very difficult to push a lawmower and ponder. Also it is best if you aren't catching too many fish if you want to ponder. Catching too many fish will definitely distract from pondering. Of course catching a few fish is a nice addition to pondering.

I decided that my new blog is going to be a place to share ponders. Anyone having a ponder that they would like to share is welcome here. Also a place to share recipes since I like to cook and I like to eat. If you share a recipe, you can also share a picture of your finished product if you like. It helps to see how good it looks before you eat it.

Since I also like to fish, you are welcome to share a fishing tip or a picture of your catch. I think I will share one today. Here is an example of what I can catch off my wharf. It's a Bluegill, I have lots of Bluegill swimming right under my wharf. I have been feeding them and I hope it is not cheating to feed them then turn around and try to catch them.

My best friend Maggie

This is my best friend Maggie, before she took to hiding under my bed. She used to be queen of the couch.

Not a clue!

I haven't a clue what I am doing here but I decided to go for it anyway. It seems I always have something to say but now that I have started a blog that should take care of that.

I'm currently staying at my camp on the Calcasieu River. I came out just before the Easter holiday and have never gone home except to wash clothes. Living at the camp is like living in a tree house because it's high off the ground and surrounded by trees. It is just too nice waking up and going to bed with a view of the river.

I have a best friend, my dog Maggie. She used to be a wonderful companion but lately she has been spending most of her time under my bed. It all started when I followed a friend's advice on how to break her of her fear of thunder by giving her cookies to keep her out from under the bed. I tried it and the next week she was afraid of the noise that was made by my neighbors building a wharf outside. I gave her more cookies. It seems the only thing she learned is that if she stays under the bed she will get a cookie to come out. I'm working on a plan to break her of that habit.