Sunday, 2 February 2020
It was a beautiful warm day and I spent it in the campground. As often happens, more than half the campers left today - they'd only come for the weekend - so the population level was easier for us to take.
This campground feels like it's half underwater, and many of its sites are unusable because of so much standing water. Rain is predicted for later this week so it'll just get worse, I guess.
But the roads and campsites are paved, so the dogs and I aren't having to slog through mud when we go for walks.
Deer
The deer are, though. About 4:30 yesterday afternoon, Dexter and I saw 4 deer picking their delicate way through the enormous puddle - practically a swamp - in the trees next to the RV. We saw them a couple of other times picking their way through other puddles in other campsites. These deer didn't look like I expected them to with odd markings on their sides, and I wondered if they were something other than white-tailed deer. Later I saw a 5th deer that seemed to be following the other 4, though I never saw them together.
Saw them again this morning. In fact, that 5th one decided to cross the road not too many yards in front of where we were walking. So both dogs started bouncing around and Dexter was so excited he actually barked, which made the deer pick up his pace. When he started running, his tail flipped up and - sure enough - there was the white patch I was looking for.
We saw them walking in the same areas several times during the day today, so I'm guessing that's a regular route for them, though I have no idea where they're coming from or going to.
Other critters
Here and there I saw little mounds of dirt that just didn't look like ant hills, and finally in some dim distant recess of my memory I came up with "mole." We didn't see them in Austin and I assumed they were northern critters. But these little mounds, plus the holes I was finding occasionally, made me think I was wrong about the "northern" part.
It was so beautifully sunny and warm today that the dogs and I had several long walks. One of them took us to the park's Visitor Center, open luckily, so I could ask the rangers my nature questions. Yes, they have moles here. Yes, these are white-tailed deer. Yes, that is a Pileated Woodpecker I've been hearing. I didn't bother to ask about the Red-headed Woodpeckers I've seen a couple of times. Or the beautiful pair of Eastern Bluebirds and the equally beautiful pair of Cardinals I saw together on the road to the Visitor Center. The bright blue and bright red were a nice combination on a sunny day like this.
I forgot to ask about the owl I heard in the middle of the morning, which seemed like an odd time for an owl to be awake. According to the bird book, my best bet is on a Barred Owl which lives here year-round and is "much more likely than most other owls to be heard in daytime." There are only a few mainly diurnal owls, none of which live in LA.
I also forgot to ask what kind of frogs I've been hearing here. They must be loving all this water and are singing like crazy all around the campground. Their song sounds a lot like a very creaky gate being opened very slowly - a kind of ratcheting sound - very loud.
History
The campground has some beautiful ancient oaks in it. At left is one. Tree age is deceptive for me and all I know for sure is that a huge trunk doesn't necessarily indicate old age. But I'm still betting the trees this size in the campground have been around for 100 years or more.Not far from the Visitor Center we came across the remains of an old sugar mill. The state has left them for public education, I guess.
There are parts of 2 chimneys left, along with some of the broken walls of the buildings.These signs explain what the mill was about.
Within a short walking distance of the sugar mill I found a huge field with oak trees and this historical marker.
This marker seems to stop in the middle of the story, which I'm sorry about, but what they've got is interesting. The field, only part of which is shown in my photo above, is beautiful, and I'm glad the parks people left it as it is and didn't put campsites around it.
Miscellaneous
I'm still dealing with the injuries I got from 2 incidents in Alabama.
When that SUV hit me in Birmingham, I must have hit my right knee directly on the street, because it's been sore ever since. But not just sore like a bruise, which I also had there. There's a spot where it feels like my kneecap was chipped. I looked it up online and concluded that's not what happened, but something happened that feels like that and it's still hurting after coming up on 2 months.
Then there was that very bad scrape to my right elbow I got when the stray dogs in that campground near Satsuma agitated my dogs into pulling me along the ground. It was deep and I now realize I probably should have gotten professional medical help for it. But I didn't and it took weeks to finally create a scab over the entire area, and even more weeks for that to do its job. Most of it's gone now and I think there'll be a scar, but that area is about as sensitive to touch as it was when it happened. Me being right-handed means that spot often touches things. I just wish it would finish healing and leave me alone.
I bought a whole chicken at the grocery store yesterday, intending to cook it in the slow cooker today. But it turned out to be seriously frozen so all I can do is keep it wrapped up in the frig till it thaws. Just as well I didn't buy the greens I was tempted to fix to go with it.
That was an odd experience, actually. The only lettuce choices in this Winn-Dixie were iceberg and prepacked Romaine. But they had a whole section of bags of greens - mustard greens and turnip greens and collard greens and kale and beet greens - it was amazing, especially next to the limited lettuce selection. I don't remember ever seeing such a variety of greens in a grocery store.
For some reason, the dogs were beautifully behaved in this campground the whole time we were here. I wish they were always like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment