The Unimportance of Being Ernesto

Waiting for Ernesto. Nothing there.

Noodling

It is a beautiful day on Bream and great for going about 100 yards out into the lake and "noodling"- that is to say riding astride a styrofoam-like flotation device which is shaped like a giant piece of pasta and spending the better part of an hour gazing up at the sky and hoping a gator d0esn't come along and chomp down on you - or your noodle. No gators today, but just before I took this picture of my wife she had let out a whoop and declared that something had "bit" her. More than likely that something was either a hungry bass nipping at the bright yellow floating ends of her bikini straps or a curious and quite benign turtle. Such are the thrills of noodling in Bream on a lazy August day.

Full Moon at Bream

We had a full moon at Bream the other night (as did most everyone else across America) and it was magnificent. I wandered out on our neighbor's dock just before midnight and captured this image, via time exposure. There was, however, another event going on at the time that was more spectacular than the lunar glow, and that was the sounds coming from Bream: the frogs were in full chorus- from the smaller ones to the large bull frogs. They were so loud that they could have masked human conversation had someone been with me. On nights with a sliver of a moon or none at all, the frogs are much lower in decibels.

Lake Creature

Bream Lake is lovely. It's clean and clear. It's a perfect temperature for swimming during the summer. Bream Lake also contains things that can kill you if provoked. Our neighbor Rick shows us the rather large water mocassin that he dispatched yesterday. The serpent was swimming in an area that we normally use for wading.

Neigh

Neigh is a miniature horse. She's two years old. She's fully grown. She was purchased and placed in a pasture for another two year-old (human) to ride. She will spend many happy days on a sprawling cattle ranch near Bream Lake...and suffer the occasional carrot-feeding visits from my better half and me.

They also serve...

Buzzard's Bay has nothing on Bream Lake. You want buzzards? Boy have we got a deal for you! Most days one can spy 50 to 100 buzzards circling above the perimeter of our little patch of water At first my wife and I thought this was just a simple omen of our impending deaths (since we are both well into our 60's). But since we have been here for over two years and have not yet shuffled off to paradise we have assumed that those magnificent scavengers of the dead are here for other reasons. Probably they find the lake a bonanza of dead things (fish, turtles, disposed-of-bodies, etc.). We have also decided that they roost near here and use Bream as their base headquarters. Of course they are doing us humans an enormous servce by disposing of all things rotting - a task that, given the propensity for the slow paced, "southern way of life" of the local populace, might otherwise never be accomplished. The alternative to the relatively quick riddance of our deceased fauna is too horrible to think about. Here's to our adorable vulture friends.

Shropshire come to Bream

Last year my wife and I spent several weeks in a little village just outside of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, UK. Although the climate was different and the surroundings new, there were many things that were akin to rural North Central Florida. The countryside was beautiful, the rivers idyllic and the people as warm as freshly baked scones. The couple, at whose home we were hosted, is coming to see us at Bream in a few days. In a way: Shropshire come to Bream. Too bad we can't have a bit of England on the horizon.

The Kase of the Kidnapped Kitty

Stumpy is a two-legged Siamese cat that lives at an animal hospital in Keystone, near Bream Lake. He is much loved by the people in the town. About a month and a half ago Stumpy disappeared. Where he went nobody knew. Needless to say, this caused a great sensation in Keystone and, indeed, most of the surrounding area. The community searched high and low (mostly low) for the kitty but he was nowhere to be found. Approximately four weeks after he left he came back. He was left in a cage at the vets, flea-ridden and bedraggled, but none the worse for wear. There was happiness again in Keystone. Pussy had returned.

O'Bassum

If you have looked at previous blogs on this site you already know that Bream Lake is blessed with all manner of fauna. Be they of feather or fin, the creatures of the lake are abundant and diverse. Until several nights ago, I was certain that I had seen everything that Bream had to offer regarding the Animal Kingdom. Imagine my astonishment when, on a post mid-night stroll around the perimeter of the lake, I happened upon the peculiar entity you see here. It was lodged in the branches of a cypress tree and, upon the flash from my camera, immediately scurried away. I have not seen it since. One can only imagine how such a creature came into existence. A chance romance of a lonely bass and adventuresome opossum? Intelligent Design with a slight relapse? Regardless, I shall always be on the lookout for this charming little oddity that I have named the O'Bassum.

Pickup Paradise

On the road leading to Bream Lake one will pass a row of three pickup trucks. They are of different ages, models and sizes. They seem to be there for no other reason than display.They are gracefully rusting away the remainder of their time here on earth- rather like the retired humans at Bream. The denizens around Bream love their trucks. Virtually everyone here has at least one truck, sometimes two or three. The dominant brands are Ford and Chevy, but the foreign models are making an impact. The bigger the truck the better. Money seems to be no obstacle in the purchasing of these vehicles. The loan on the family wheels must surely outweigh the mortgage on the doublewide. The joke around here is : A robber meets a lake citizen and , pointing a gun at him, demands "Your pickup or your wife!" After a long pause, with no answer forthcoming, the robber repeats the question. After another lengthy period of silence the victim replies "I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin."

The Road Taken

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood"...well, not exactly a yellow wood. The roads I speak of are in the tract of land known as the Four Lakes Community and they exist in two counties of North Central Florida: Alachua and Putnam. One road is paved (Alachua) and, when it crosses the county line into Putman, it turns to dirt... well not exactly dirt. It becomes a hellish concotion of sand, clay and limestone rock that will jolt the fillings out of your teeth when traveled upon. Sadly, this is the only way to access our Bream Lake. It is our purgatorial route to Paradise.The rich banker that developed this area named all the streets after members of his family (mostly women), so we spend our tortuous transit on lanes called Ashley, Sally and Dixie. It is not until we get to the masculine Benjamin that we are given respite. To call these thoroughfares washboard roads would not give them justice. The ridges that populate these bucolic arteries are monumental. Our goal, however, is Bream Lake and the gauntlet is well worth the peril. After all "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference".

Lewd sing

Bream is shutting down. With the cold Winter setting in, the animals and the plants are lying low. Our ducks have becone too fat to fly any further south. This, I fear, is due to my constantly plying them with whole-kernel corn. Instead, they cower under our dock at night, wondering what to do. We no longer have to worry about mowing the grass as God does that for us by lowering the temperature and stopping the rains. People from town are scarce at the lake. No one (save our Scottish son-in-law) wants to jump into the gelid waters . Wuthering Heights comes to Bream.

Christmas at Bream Lake

We believe in exercise at Bream Lake... particularly around Christmas. Seen here, from left to right, are my wife Jerre, me, my Scottish son-in-law David, and my daughter Laura. The image was captured as we vigorously cycled around the perimeter of our beautiful lake.

H.M.S. Ark Royal

H.M.S. Ark Royal is our johnboat. Normally it rests 3/4 of it's length on the shore in front of our lake house. The last two days it has been raining steadily and, instead of being safely on the shore, she has resided out on the water at the side of our dock. While it is convenient to have the boat out on the dock, there is a chance of rainwater filling the boat and sinking it. Normally, if one has a bilge pump, this is not a problem. Without the pump, however, the water can build up slowly inside the boat and...well, you can probably guess the inevitable result. My task was obvious: I had to move the boat from the dock to the shore before she sunk. For a 66 year old man this is easier said than done.The boat cannot be motored in, using the electric trolling motor, because of the distinct possibility of hitting bottom before coming ashore. The boat had to be paddled. So, paddle I did until I finally got her to shore. I then pulled her up on the ground about 4 feet and, wet and exhausted, I could sleep content that night, knowing that H.M.S. Ark Royal would not be at the bottom of Lake Bream when I woke the next morning.

The Bishop of Bream

It occurs to me that most of the images I capture at Bream Lake include people other than me. I take hundreds of photos of my assorted relatives, the dock, the house and various plants and animals. No images of Hank. I have devised a method of capturing my image in the Bream habitat. I think of myself as a gnome and a kind of shepherd of the flock at Bream. Voila! 

Bream Lake at moonrise. Incomparable. 

The duck problem is simple: we like the ducks...we don't like what they do to our dock. We feed them corn on a daily basis. After eating the corn they immediately swim out to our dock and let nature take its course. Note the results of their endeavor just to the right of the assembled trio. This is a problem that is easy to bear. Harry, Bess and Margaret are far too charming to resist and so the cycle will continue.

The Sounds of Bream

The sound that came with this image was the boyish squeal of pure joy at being momentarily suspended between the sky and the cold waters of Bream. We hear these kinds of sounds a great deal on weekends when we visit our grandchildren and their friends at the lake. On week days the sounds are much different. At Lake bream there is a default absence of sound. When nothing is happening at the lake nothing is heard. This, however, is usually not the case. There is often the sound of dogs barking in the distance. At Bream one can see sad little country dogs all over the place. They are often flea- ridden, rather emaciated, pathetically forlorn little mixes of dachsund and...you name it. There must have been, at on time , a terribly lusty and determined dachsund sire roaming Bream and impregnating very other bitch in sight- usually not dachsund. As a result there seem to be innumerable little clones all over the neighborhood. If the dog is not of this variety, then it is usually of a pitbull-mix type. Pitbulls are much coveted by the denizens of the Bream and Hawthorne area for reasons that should be evident. All of these dogs bark at the slightest provocation and they continue to bark through much of the day and night. There is a sound that comes to Bream as regularly as that of a Big Ben in London: that is the sound of the CFX freight trains in the distance. There are two rail lines that run within a few miles of our lake house and the trains have regular schedules, bringing them through several times in a day and night. This is a good sound. It is even better if the engineer feels the need to blow his whistle. There is a timeless and nostalgic quality to a train whistle that never becomes tiring. Another type of sound emanates from various critters in and around the lake: the slapping of the water by bream and bass that punctuates the daytime hours; the various bird sounds, including the clarion shreik of the hawk, the sweet singing of the mockingbird, the comedic squaking of our duck family, the indescribable noise of the various waterfoul, and the obnoxiously intrusive calls of the crows. In the late afternoon and early evening the insect world begins to contribute to our Bream symphony: the cicadas and crickets join in, a few at first and then building to the thousands. The last to enter the chorus are the frogs and the occasional nocturnal avians, such as owls and whipperwills. There is one sound that can occur anytime day or night. It is a sound that I absolutely despise. The ugly, jolting sound of gunfire. It seems that the folk around Bream love their weapons and everybody has some. The noise of weapons being fired- pistols, rifles, shotguns- is prevalent throughout the 24 hour cycle, in and out of hunting season. It is is a sound , at once, of insecurity and desparate bravado. A pitiful cry of "Look! I really am somebody. I've got a gun and I know how to use it." The first part of that statement is patently true...the latter part is seldom the case. Bream is laden with sound and most of it is heavenly with only a tiny bit of hell.

The Trumans

Harry, Bess and Margaret: the Trumans. Ducks all. I have managed to quack like a duck (somewhat in the manner of Donald Duck) and call these three ducks when they show up on the lake in front of our Bream Lake retreat. They seem to recognize my feeble attempt at ducksound. They come to the shore and I cast whole kernel corn at them. Most of the time they are quite grateful. Sometimes they simply quack disdainfully and paddle away. This is my first real experience at animal husbandry and I must say I am immensely fulfilled. I fear, however, that we have misnamed and mis-sexed the poor birds. We witnessed the discouraging spectacle of Bess mounting Harry a few weeks ago. To us they will still be Harry, Bess and Margaret. 

Sean or Gabby?

I have recently grown a beard. My wife likes it. I have mixed feelings. My wife thinks the beard is Connery-esque. I say it makes me look more like Gabby Hayes (Roy Rogers' old sidekick). Beards are definitely a vanity item. If you don't have it on top you can certainly grow it on the face. I tried a beard in my younger years- specifically when I played Henry VIII in the Florida Players' production of A Man For All Seasons. Back then it sprouted dark and robust: a youthful and manly beard. Imagine my surprise when I sought to grow that same beard in recent days. It made its appearance, a wizened and hoary brush, fit for Methusalah, but not for one of my years on this earth. Beards are for peacocks, narcissists and old men. I guess I belong to the latter group.