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| We wave goodbye to our beautiful sunny days for a while. |
Changing would have been the word I would have used to describe the weather on Friday morning. The temperature was rising from around freezing and was 37 degrees when the dog and I began our walk. The humidity was in the upper 80 percent range and was rising. Rainy weather was on it's way to Grand Bay again and would be here soon. I decided to walk down into the woods behind my neighbor's unoccupied home for a change of pace. As we crossed the untended pecan orchard behind the home I noticed that all was quiet
there.
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| The blue sky saves the day. |
Now that the grass and trees in the orchard have taken on the colors of fall a small slice of blue sky was all that was able to break the somber monotony of the scene. The Cogongrass is beginning to lie down in mats across the field after being killed by the recent frosts. The field rats and mice and other small animals are probably making dry nests under the grass for the winter where they will give birth to their young. Under the dry grass the animals have built a world of their own, the vastness of which would most likely scare the average person if they knew it was so near their homes. We continued on into the woods where the dog found a big stick to carry. Once he finds a stick to take home his attitude about walking changes. He thinks that as he has found what he came for it is time to go home. He starts back home but when he finds I am not following he returns and looks at me with an expression that seems to say" Alright I got my stick, come on lets go home!".
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As a kid I always imagined a possum was living in
all hollow trees. |
On this day I was not acquiescing to his requests and instead I wanted to look at a living hollow tree that stands near the end of the trail. This was a small oak tree that may have suffered from an attack from a fungus or insects and has managed to stay alive though much of the trunk has rotted away. I am always interested in what is inside these hollow trees so I attempted some photography with the IPhone. It is hard to get a shot inside the tree because of the widely varying light conditions at the opening.
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| The scary inside of a hollow tree. |
I did manage to get a photo of the inside by leaning against the opening to cover it and then snapping the photo. I had to lock the focus and exposure on the IPhone to get this photo in case you are wondering. There are several other hollow trees in the area and I will be trying to perfect my photography skills on them as well. I headed back out of the woods up to the yard of the unoccupied home and found the dog happily chewing on the big stick he had found. When he saw me coming he started for home where he would add his new stick to the devastated collection which I burned last weekend while trimming some of the banana trees. It was a wonderful fire which lasted well into the dark of the evening.
I believe I now know what breed my dog is. He is a firewood dog. A product of years of careful breeding. However since the breed only collects one or two pieces of firewood a day I think I may also see why this branch of the family has nearly died out. The firewood dog's owners most likely froze to death and their was no one there to feed them and that was the end of the firewood dogs. Now only one of the mighty firewood dogs remain to roam the earth or at least Grand Bay Alabama. Thanks for putting up with my blog today. Bye.
