Recycling

I am having a garage sale tomorrow.  Mainly, I want to reduce the clutter around the house and the office.  The fringe benefit is that some of the stuff will be recycled, i.e. used by someone else for a while rather than hitting the land fill.

Sounds of the Wing

Black skimmers and sandwich terns in flight at sunset

I had just finished running and was resting with friends when I asked Julie about her recent trip to North Carolina.  She said it was so peaceful and relaxing, I even heard the sound of a bird flying. To me that’s a normal day. Whether it is the buzz of a hummingbird, the whistle of a flock of blue-winged teal or the quietness of an owl flying over my head at night.  But to her with a busy life in Baton Rouge, family and job it was unusual and refreshing. A serene moment to catch up on the way it feels to really live on earth. Our conversation made me think it would do everybody good to take a few minutes off each day to listen to the sounds of nature.  You don’t have to be in a cabin in North Carolina or in the Atchafalaya Swamp to do it, for even in most big cities you can find a place to experience a little something called nature.

Seven Billion

I feel crowded.

About one hundred of the seven billion people on earth. 

Jeweled Web Print of the Month

Jeweled Web

 

About this print:
A winter morning backlit dew covered spider web shimmers and dances in colorful hues like jewels dangling precariously.

 

*For more info and to purchase your print  HERE*

Fall Hummingbirds and Surprise Lilies

Fall officially begins on Friday and I can already feel it in the air. We have had a few cold fronts that actually cooled off the nights enough to turn off the AC.  You don’t need a weatherman or calendar to let you know the best season is here, just the plants and the birds.  The summer garden is done, the muscadines ripe and dropped and the sugar cane is taller than my topknot.  The plant that really tells me fall is here is the bright red spider lily that some call the surprise or hurricane lily.  It pops up out of nowhere and in my yard there is always a new one or two not near enough to be propagated by last years. 

Surprise Lily

The cardinal flower is another.  I have a friend that calls it the summer’s end flower.  Its cardinal red also gives a spurt of color to the forest that will slowly lose its leaves throughout the fall months.

The birds are harbingers of the seasons too.  You can look in Dr. George Lowery’s book, Birds of Louisiana and see a list that shows which are here when...or better yet you can go out doors and look.  The blue-winged teal are here, the blackbirds are flocking, the warblers are leaving, and best of all the hummingbirds are flocking, or better put, there is a charm of ruby-throated hummingbirds in my backyard.  

When my one hummingbird brought in two, then three then more friends I got out my extra feeders. For eight days I have had six feeders out and the one by the kitchen window has had fifteen birds within inches of it at one time.  

Eleven Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds at my kitchen feeder.

I am estimating seventy-five birds in my back yard.  This will last for a few more days, then groups of them will head off to the south.  I clean the feeders, store them, enjoy the cool air and watch the leaves slowly fall, for fall is in the air.

Acme Book Co. 1981

While preparing for the upcoming LPB screening on August 17th of my 1977 film Atchafalaya: America's Largest River Basin Swamp, I have been finding all kinds of old memorabilia. One that brings back fond memories is a monthly newsletter that Acme Book Co. issued before my first autograph party for my premier book.  It too was on the Atchafalaya and came out 4 years after the film.

Acme Book Co. Newsletter Cover July 1981

Acme Book Co. was a unique bookstore owned and operated by Larry Fisher.  And on that day in 1981 I was dumbfounded to find a crowd of fifty folks waiting for my autograph, a pot of gumbo, beer, caviar, champagne, and a Cajun combo…fiddle and all.  These were pre Barnes and Noble days when bookstore owners were always in the shop and knew their customers by name. Charles Elliott also had a great independent bookstore called Elliot's. Claudette Price ran the bookstore at Godchaux's.  Claitor’s had a very nice private bookstore in the shopping center where I had my first gallery. There were a few more and it's sad to say that Danny Plaisance of Cottonwood Books is the only independent bookseller left. 

So, here is to beer and gumbo and Acme Book Co...what a way to present my first book.

Atchafalaya Memories

On August 17, 2011 LPB will broadcast my Atchafalaya Movie that originally premiered in the spring of 1977 at the LSU Student Union Theater to a standing room only crowd of 1,400 people.  LPB is going to show it during their summer fundraiser evening.  This brings back fond memories of my carefree early days in the Basin.

Meeting the people I called swampers was a big part of those recollections.  Calvin Voison and Gwen Carpenter Roland were two of the first swampers I met and we became fast friends.  I just saw a post in Gwen's Facebook page that told about her favorite picture I took of her. In the photo she is looking out the window of Pajo Curry's shack on the Atchafalaya River. 

Gwen Carpenter at Pajo Curry's shack

I wasn't a people photographer at all when I first entered the Atchafalaya.   The long stretches of calm and peaceful days out there exploring alone in my canoe made me appreciate the times I ran into the swamp people. I learned to photograph them from afar and not get in their way.  And in this way I learned people photography.

I'll post some more memories on my early days in the swamp before LPB shows, Atchafalaya: America's Largest River Basin Swamp.