Traveling

 

The Finman and I went for a nice paddle on Saturday.  Our trip location was actually "Plan B" but I think I enjoyed it much more than I would have enjoyed the originally chosen launch site.  We put in at Kreb's Lake in Pascagoula and then kayaked under the high rise bridge and down (or up, not sure which) the shipping channel.

Here is a hitchhiker that jumped on when I picked up a piece of marine debris.  He hung out for a while and then scurried across the top of my boat to the other side where a gentle wave sent him on his way.

It was a beautiful day for a kayak trip. The weather was just right, the water was calm, and the sky was lovely blue. I hope we have many more days like this one in front of us.

Summer Blues

Long time, no blog.

It's summer.

Summer is:
Hot
Humid
Busy for Librarianing
Blueberry Harvests
B.P. Oil Spill
Exhausting
Dealing with death and dying
Cutting Grass
Tending the garden
Walking the Hound

FULL

Yes, I've been a bit overwhelmed. There are so many words in my head that I don't even know how to start getting them out. I do miss this little corner. It's a bit bleak knowing that there is no point in checking in as I know for a fact I haven't blogged.

Hopefully, things are calming down and I will stop here more often.

The photo to the left is of the lovely hundreds year old oak tree that shaded my Mother and me last Saturday at the U-Pick Blueberry farm. We had a lovely morning. We both ran into friends and were able to catch up with others and each other. Plus, most of labor was spent in the shade, which made our time very pleasant. Now, there are lots of berries in the freezer ready for pancakes, muffins, yogurt toppings, and who knows what else. Yum!

Title-less

I'm making a definite effort to keep my online life from "being all oil spill, all the time."

This is more difficult than one would imagine. I'm just so appalled by the oil. I know that by the end of the summer, when BP finally gets their relief well drilled, and the oil is finally (hopefully) done surging freely to the surface (or floating away in plumes under the surface) that the rest of the world will be burned out on coastal crisis. I know that the short attention span of the general public both national and international will be turned to other things. I know that some camps are tired of hearing about oil even as I type. I know that there will be other disasters and and it is natural for the world to move on.

Yet, when I think about the oil, all I can see are the least terns diving and fishing off Ocean Springs East Beach. I see how free and lovely they looked last Friday as Fin and I kayaked.

I think about Louisiana Congressman Charles Melancon emotional in front of his peers as he said, "Everything I know and love is at risk".

I think about my frustration with our government at both state and federal levels. A government busily singing a refrain similar to that of Little Orphan Annie, "The sun will come out tomorrow" and glossing over and sitting on real information about the oil spill, from the amount of oil actually polluting the Gulf to the real number of animals already impacted by the spill.

When I think about the oil, I have a very difficult time not allowing it to dominate my online life.

Tonight, I sat down to write a non-oil entry. Yet, the non-oil words don't come. When I contemplate how so much in my adopted home, so much of what I "know and love is at risk" the words about oil can't help but dominate.

Camping

The Finman and I went camping last weekend on Dauphin Island. Dauphin Island is a small island right off the coast of Alabama and right down the road. Since moving to coastal Mississippi this little island has become one of my favorite places to visit.

It has a charming atmosphere, a great bike path, beautiful areas to kayak, and white sand beaches. What a nice chance to get away and thanks to some clever packing and bikes that come in pieces we were able to take all our camping gear, two kayaks, and two bikes in a tiny little gas saving car.

Of course, Dauphin Island is threatened by the Oil Spill just like the rest of the coast. In fact, when Fin saw the photo above he immediately noted the symbolism inherent in the mixed images. If you look behind the fishing boat you'll notice an oil platform. Then, you have the birds flocking around the boat. Two of the things most threatened in the spill and a symbol of the industry that created it. Sad.

However, I will say that our weekend was unmarred by oil. It is was good, in even a small way to contribute to the economy of a favorite island as it struggles through a tourist slump.

House Broken

People often ask me if the coast has recovered from Katrina. In fact, I've been asked so often over the past few months that it's given me much reason to really consider my answer. In many ways, the coast picked itself up and moved on. The biggest most obvious things were fixed.

It's when you really start to look that you see how tattered everything still is. It's like everyone pushed really hard and got the essentials back, libraries open, schools open, new places to live, etc. Things were put back to a point.





For example, I visited an antique store the other day. When I went in the shop, there were no antiques. There was new gift merchandise but the bulk of the store was off limits, still full of flooded antiques that will have to be dealt with. The owner told me that from time to time as people have special requests they'll go back there and sort through what they have and show a piece.






Then, you have places like this house that I walk by some days at lunch. This beautiful historic home, with a gracious southern porch, perfect for rocking chairs and sweet tea with gorgeous windows. A house for sale that apparently no one can afford or is willing to buy because the inside was utterly destroyed and all you'll really be buying is one beautiful shell that will cost a boatload to restore. So, is the Mississippi coast recovered from Katrina? Oh yes, in so many ways but still there are pieces to come together and things to restore.

And really, I hate to belabor a point but now there is the oil...

On The Way Home

Took time today to take a couple of photos of the oil booms protecting the mouth of the Singing River today outside of Gautier, where the river flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Just a few miles from here is where I took the photo of the nesting osprey, the mammoth alligator, and saw a nesting great horned owl.




I was at a workshop yesterday across from the beach in Gulfport. The beach and water were absolutely gorgeous. If I hadn't know better, I would have thought the smell of creosote (or crude oil smell) was coming from a roofing project just out of my line of sight. Here we are still waiting to see what happens.