Bottle and Glass Trees

I just watched "Ray" again. I saw it twice on the big screen and now once on DVD. It is an outstanding portrayal of an artist of my time by a young artist, Jamie Fox. That is not the point of the post.

In the Ray and Mama scenes, there are trees decorated with glass of all kinds and especially bottles. The structure is not new to me. I have seen it elsewhere, but where. Ah. Yes. Because of Winn Dixie. The last movie that I took my now twenty year old daughter to. Cecily Tyson's character has a bottle tree in her hermitage.

I grew up in a section of the South where flower beds were constructed with tractor tires. Trees trunks in yards were white washed. As the times progressed it became popular to save the old hay rake that set up cut and wilted hay into windrows for the balers. They were painted usuallyr ed or blue depending on whether your state university of choice was the Cats or the Cards. The most intriguing cultural relic was the claw foot bathtubs that were buried upright about three quarters exposed and a Madonna was contained there in. Some were plain. Some had a spotlight. Some were trellised over with roses. Some were further clad in geodes. The mix was myriad. I have not however seen any bottle trees. I have visited every southern coastal city from Jacksonville, NC to South Padre Island. I have visited slightly inshore and it the backwaters of the croppers villages and the various islands of African culture near the coasts. I have tramped around Eatonville, Florida with my copies of Zora Neal Hurston. I experienced some "Sniglets" but no bottle trees.

In the village in which I now live there is a long settled and owner inhabited neighborhood where the wafting of illegal mangrove smoke is mixed with mullet drippings. That is inter mixed with ribby clouds of smoke and a big pot of well seasoned collards sitting on the side. It is all for sale. Just bring your own tote bowl. It is all quite illegal and on occasion the city and county fathers crack down a bit. I know people there andI visit. I sit on porches with couches knocking back 40s and a little smoke. I also siton screen enclosed pools just outside the living areas of fine Florida homes. Yet. I have not seen a bottle tree. I have never even seen a statue of MLK set up in a claw foot bath tub.

I may just be the first on my block . . . hell, in my village to have a bottle tree. I have the resources - lots of wine serving restaurants in the retail neighborhood and there are at least two martini bars that have gin and vodka bottles of every color.

I am glad that I am 62 and I can think about really important things.

"I am just an old hippy, and I don't know what to do. Should I hang on to the old or grab on to the new?"

LB

I have been experimenting with blog editors. I am composing this on Google Docs. I usually compose post here using the lnative Blogger editor. The reason I am posting from Docs now is that I have also been experimenting with Scribefire. It is a Firefox Add-on recently estranged from its nest at Performancing.

Much to my disappointment the Scribefire linking to this Blogger site is buggy. I have Googled for comments and a fix but to no avail. For now I will continue to keep the Scribefire pane open on my screen because it is a very nice tool that incorporates my del.icio.us categories into the Categ. button. The buggy linking will eventually work out. I do have one gripe about the del.icio.us functioning. Whenever I close out the original window in my speed browsing, I have to sign back in when I want to post another bookmark. There is no remember me next time and Firefox does not invite a remember.

I have been a user of Google, Firefox, del.icio.us, and other web based services for things that here-to-fore I kept on my HD. Well, that is not completely true because I am not fully trusting of the off HD storage just yet and I back up to CDs by category and project.

Old school blogging has been a practice of getting your thoughts out there in as many places as possible and to have a blog on one or several blogging hosts. I have had several experimental sites that reached my email list and some of the sites that usually turn out to be cat fight venues. Otherwise, I have been spammed dizzy by every sort of racket. The recent rise of social network sites has not changed the cat fight game. Those sites (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and others ) have become notorious for "Girls Gone Wild" and stalking content. As an aside, much to my delight I have found a Google Group that is named after my home county in Kentucky and draws contributors from surrounding counties. It is quite amazing. I know some of those people personally, I may know their families and I may even be related to them by either blood or marriage. There are the usual curmudgeons there but there is an amazingly deep and simpatico number of individuals with whom I would have never communicated otherwise.

The newest push in blogging is in the direction of what has come to be called web2.0. It is the new school. The goal in web2.0 is high quality original content and monetization from the presence of clickable ad placement. In other words, if you are good you get checks. I can go for some of that. How about you.

In these four short paragraphs, I have discovered why I would prefer to be able to post to my blog from Scribefire. The foremost reason is that I have several words that I always misspell and even though Google Docs calls my attention to it, it does not allow me to correct with a right click. I have just noticed that my Firefox Spell Checker has disappeared since a recent update. The linkmaker that presents you with the Blue Links is also a bit clumsy. 'm'I bad! I just spotted the Check Spelling button.


I believe that I will post this at that my home county Google Group site.

Got to go. I heard a noise in the yard. I believe that a coyote is trying to get in my new chicken run.

Duck is gone.

the chicken remains. It is even beginning to pay its way. I have moved the chicken from the pool lanai to an enclosure in the yard with much more room. I may add another half dozen chickens.

It's like . . . being a post modern suburbanite. I am also sprouting mixed baby greens in shallow plastic mortar tubs. I will pitch them to a small local foo-foo eatery when I get the process down.

LB

Note for Nov. 8, 2006

My duck has gone south with the coming of the cool blast that arrived here with yesterday's torrential rain.

The duck was in the yard last evening, but gone this morning. On Sunday morning, I discovered him walking around on the screen enclosure for the pool. I suspected it wouldn't be long. I will visit some of the ponds and gathering spots for his kin later today. In my neighborhood there are probably several thousand Muscovy ducks on the ponds. Many of the ponds hold Mallard, drakes and judies. There are also a great variety of less common call ducks and a few of the domesticated, white variety. In those same ponds are to be found, wood storks, a variety of egrets and cormorant.

Yesterday just before the rain, I saw a great vee of white pelicans arriving for the winter. The Canadas will arrive soon and also the brackish water ducks that winter over on the bays. The Harris hawks and the wintering over red tails are also marking territories and screeching at each other.

This is also the beginning of Sheephead season. They are an outstanding food fish, tastes like oysters, but they are either caught quite by accident or by careful technique and great skill.

I can't think about that now- too many other deadlines and commitments to go fishing now.

I know that it's already . . .

Chilly-ish up yonder where some a you all live and sometime your assigned far-starter can't git up enough wind to "git-er-done"

Well, here's the cure.

This is door and winder season where I am. All the doors and winders are open. I got the big ol' Shop-Vac out and set to blow and, I am git-er-done. I used to do that with the compressor stringing a yella hose thru the house, but my woman caught me at it. I also tried it with the Echo Back Pack leaf blower. Even when I put a little vaneler in the gas mix, it just didn't set right with her.

There ain't no pleasing some women.

I have a duck.

It came with the daughter's previous boyfriend. When he came here he was black and yellow fuzz. Today, he is kind of a Rottweiler of a duck. He is a Muscovy Duck. He lives in my yard and eats lizards and Palmetto bugs. Today, I was watching and he and my six foot pine snake were facing off. The Pine Snake has lived in my yard since the second Clinton administration. They say that dinosaurs were reptiles. I think not. I believe they were ducks.

I have a chicken.

Saturday night, I got to listen to the Wailin' Jennies on PHC, then this American Life.

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Cosmo Coaltrain

Cosmo Coaltrain, Cosmo Coaltrain, Cosmo Coaltrain, Cosmo Coaltrain

"Cosmo Coaltrain"

It is Cold Here Today . . .

for here. I know my limits and this is one of them. This blast will drive the Sheep's Head to feed very heavily on the bridge pilings. They are not considered a game fish and are unworthy of a sportsman's attention. Most sportsman just can't catch them. Taking a six pound Sheep's Head off of big structure is a challenge for anyone. But you have to hook up. Good lightly grilled with glarlic-butter and each bite rolled in toasted bread crumbs. Tastes like aw-stuhs.

Half what?

The clothes are the man; especially the tie.

Owl Baiting in America

Inventive minds should never be idle. Years ago I discovered the great fun that can be had with a fishing rod, a soft hookless teaser mouse and an 8 pound Siamese cat on a tile floor. I know that cats are not stupid, so their method of continual play with a repetitive game must just be compulsive or manicy. My cat would attack that mouse on the fishing line for hours. I know that I wore out a drag set the first several months that I played the game. I would flip the mouse across the tile floor. The cat would pounce and hold and I would drag him across the slick tile until he got some purchase in the grout lines and then the drag would squeal. It was great fun.

About a month ago I was approaching my drive way and as I illuminated the street ahead of me I saw the movement of a relatively large insect skittering across the road. I slowed and as I did a miniature owl swept down out of a tree and pounced on the insect. He was just twelve or so feet in front of my car. He stared right into the lights, gave a blink, and then took off with his snack. I am impressed by things like that. My wife was fearful, and asked, "Will that thing get in our house?

Tonight, I let the dogs into the back yard just as it was getting past dark. I heard an owl calling. I immediately asked myself, "Where did I put that mouse?" I am going to try it when I get back from my walk.

Noodling Flatheads

Some days it just all comes together.

http://good-fishing.info/193/

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High Five

Wailin' Wheelie and Me

Families are sometimes messy affairs. Things happen. You just go with the kids as they come to you.