The Gravel Road

Jeff Foxworthy made the following quote somewhat famous:

"You might be a redneck if directions to your house include 'turn off the paved road.'"

Although the road directly in front of our house is paved, a little ways down, the paving abruptly ends and the road becomes a gravel road.  It is a road that you want to drive slowly on as there are no shoulders and a passing car is likely to throw a rock that will chip your windshield and even though it is gravel, it becomes slick when it rains that will fill your fender wells with clay and gravel.  When you get close to a stop sign on a gravel road, graders cause things we call "washboard."  Washboard will vibrate your vehicle so much that it will jar the fillings right out of your teeth.  In dry spells, roads like this will deposit a layer of dust so thick on your vehicle that it guarantees the local car washes stay in business.  So what good are gravel roads or dirt roads anyway?

Well, I posit that real America exists on these country roads.  There is a simplicity and honesty and lack of pretension here that is lacking in our 'civilized' culture.  Even though I was only 5 years old, I remember when John Denver sang a song called Country Roads that sang of this notion nostalgically, "Country Roads, Take Me Home, to a place I belong, West Virginia, Mountain Momma, Take Me Home, Country Roads..."  I had read somewhere that John Denver had never even been to West Virginia before he co-wrote that song. Anyway, there's something about getting off of the pavement (in any State) that is healing for the soul.

Gravel Road

The other day after a series of rains passed through the area, I took the boys and a neighbor's kid down the dirt road to a gully that eventually flows into Bayou Nezpique.  We come down here every once in a while to plink at cans that knuckleheads have thrown into the water with a .22 rifle.  Sometimes we'll catch some unsuspecting snakes basking in the sun on the mud and give them 'lead poisoning.'  This lazy afternoon we brought some fishing poles and some worms we dug up from the compost pile in the garden to see if we might catch some fish.

Anything biting?

When rains swell the gully, the fish swim out of the bayou, traveling upstream and the fishing can be pretty good.  On this day, however, it was not.  The previous day we had hooked a big catfish, brought him to the surface and then he promptly broke the line. We came back to try again, but on this day we were only successful in drowning some worms.

Our farm in Oberlin sits on either side of a gully similar to this one.  I can remember setting out a big fish trap in it each time it rained, catching different kinds of fish and turtles that would swim in and then be unable to get out of the funnels in the trap. It's really amazing to think how fast the gullies swell with water after a big rain and then how fast the waters recede.  You can see the water line 6 or 8 feet up in the trees on the bank if you look closely in the photos above and below.  

Oftentimes the water drops so suddenly that it will leave small perch stranded in puddles in the road.  When I was a young boy, I'd walk along the roadside and watch the iridescence of sun perch flipping in the shallow water in the sunshine, with the fishy smell heavy in the humid summer air.

Muddy water

If fishing isn't successful, the day isn't wasted, you can always throw rocks at turtles or snakes that inhabit the muddy water.  We ended up snagging a line on an underwater obstruction and lost a hook, sinker and bobber, but Benjamin was undeterred and claimed a hook, sinker, and bobber that a previous fisherman had lost in a tree (and didn't have the industriousness that Benjamin had to retrieve it), so it was a 'wash.'

Skipping rocks off the water

Our stringer of fish was fish-less, but we had an enjoyable time nonetheless.  

A bridge too far?

We loaded up the pickup truck and drove the mile or so back east down the gravel road before life became civilized once again when the gravel road converted into blacktop.  I have an unproven theory that the pharmaceutical industry could see a huge drop in anti-depressant sales if more people would take an hour or so out of their busy schedules and drive out on a country road with no set agenda but to kill a little time.  

I hear her voice in the morning hour she calls me,

The radio reminds me of my home far away,

And driving down the road I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday.

Country road, take me home, to the place I belong

West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home, country road... - John Denver 1971

Work Day in the Pecan Orchard

This past weekend we drove over to our family farm in Oberlin, Louisiana.  It is about 30 miles from our home.  The weather was overcast and not too hot yet, so it was a good day to clean up some big branches that had fallen in our pecan orchard.  The orchard was planted by my great-great grandfather and still produces pecans.  The old family homeplace used to be just to the left of the huge live oak in the photo below.

One thing about pecan trees is that they tend to drop lots of branches and big limbs in storms.  My Dad and Mom met us there and they had 3 of my sister's six boys with them.  Unfortunately, I only have one photo of the work we did.  Basically, we used a chainsaw to cut all the limbs that could be used as firewood and stacked in one stack and then made piles of the smaller stuff that we'll burn.  We made 5 or 6 different stacks like this at various locations throughout the orchard.  Later we'll come back with a trailer, pick up all the firewood and push all the smaller stuff to one big pile to have a bonfire.  You have to be careful picking up the pecan branches.  For some reason fire ants love to build their mounds around them.  If you are picking up pecan wood, you can take it to the bank that you are going to get into fire ants.


The work went fast with this crew of laborers

Note the large, old live oak tree in the background of the picture above.  No telling how old it is.  It is really amazing how big that tree is.  There was a family of foxes that lived in a hole near the base of that tree at one time.  It is a great tree for climbing in.  As a boy I would climb way up into it and Russ was doing the same on Saturday.


Tree hugger

This large live oak has its branches absolutely covered in resurrection fern.  It is like carpeting on the tree.  It doesn't harm the tree at all, but attaches to the bark and gets its nutrients from the air and water around it.  Here is a closer look at the resurrection fern:  

Resurrection fern

The reason it is called resurrection fern is because when it gets dry, the fern leaves will curl up and turn brown and appear to be dead.The fern can survive drought like nothing I've ever seen.  All it takes is a little rainfall and... poof!... it will green back up again as lush as a springtime meadow.  This photo I took shows some of the fronds starting to appear dry or dead, but the plant bounces back (resurrects) with only a little rainfall.


Drought proof fern

Russ made his way higher and higher into the old oak tree.   It's hard to show scale of how big this tree is or how high up Russ is with a picture.  The limbs droop down to almost ground level and the cows congregate around the limbs and scratch themselves.  Some of the limbs are worn smooth by their scratching.

Once the work was done, we walked out in the pasture and visited a baby calf that was born the day before.  The little heifer is not afraid of humans yet and let us pet her.
 

Baby calf

She perked her head up as her momma arrived.  Momma cows leave their babies and go eat grass, but they keep an eye out and if someone or something finds their baby, they come to check things out.


Here comes momma

The little calf got up on wobbly legs and made her way over to tell her mother that we didn't mean any harm. 

While we were finishing up the work, Benjamin and his 3 cousins jumped down in the gully and began making a dam with mud and sticks, throwing mud at each other and just generally being country boys.  Funny thing is, I can remember swimming in the gully at this exact spot years ago.  Around here when we get a good rain, folks call them "gully washers" because the water rises and washes all the branches, trash, etc. downstream and washes the banks clean.  The cows have a water trough to drink from, but they also climb down the banks of the gully to drink as well.

Boys will be boys

It's always good to get the cousins together.  They have a good time together and always need a good bath and scrubbing afterwards. 

Outlaws in the gully

Yep, they had a good time and we got a lot done in the orchard which will make the bush-hogging (mowing) much easier.


Swimsuits?  Who needs 'em!