The Rock Wall

Davis attempted to go froggin’ at the new spot he discovered. Score: Davis – 0 although he claims he and his girlfriend each caught one and decided to let them go. That’s the beauty of hand grabbing. Mud – 1, it caught Davis and his girlfriend pulled him out. Frogs – clean sweep, grand slam.

Thank goodness he didn’t ask me to accompany him. I’d be up for more familiar territory.

– Did I tell you about my experience trying to catch blue crabs? Kimball and I were bass fishing in Bayou Catherine, a dead end canal off the Intercoastal Canal (for barge traffic all across the Gulf Coast). We were  between Lake Ponchatrain and the Gulf east of New Orleans. It was a low tide so a lot of bare shoreline was exposed. Every time I moved the boat close to the shore, a bunch of crabs ran from the waterline across the 10 yards or so of exposed bank and up into the grass.

I told Kimball I was going to catch a bunch of them in my dipnet for a crab boil so I put the 12-24 volt trolling motor on high, built up speed on the other side of the canal, then headed for the other bank. As we approached, crabs went everywhere. Just before the boat beached on the bank, I retracted the foot controlled trolling motor so the shaft wouldn’t get bent. When the boat slid up on the bank, I hopped out, dipnet in hand. The plan was for Kimball to get on the trolling motor and come back to get me and my crabs.

As soon as my feet touched the bank, the plan ended. I instantly sank to my waist in the soft mud. No panic yet. The boat was nearby and I wasn’t sinking any further. Then a large worm or something started wiggling against my right calf way down there in the mud.

Time to panic. Kimball wasn’t able to get the boat moving my way soon enough. I told her to throw me the lead rope which she did. As quickly as I could I pulled the boat to me and climbed up on the bow. I went out into the middle of Bayou Catherine and washed and washed and washed.

I vowed to never again put my feet where the sun doesn’t shine. And I haven’t.

– How much rain did you get over the weekend? We left out our rain gauge until Tuesday morning. In it, we had an even three inches of rain and one yellow jacket.

– We worked at the office on Saturday. On the 4th, I spent four hours transcribing my tape of the June 23 meeting so you can hear what the board is thinking. Yep, they think out loud.

I thought the discussion of the finances might be a little heavy, but important, so I broke off it into a separate article. That made the other article much shorter on the board’s look at the school staff’s opinions of what facility upgrades are needed at the school. Who better to tell us what doesn’t work right than people who use them every day?

– We’re chasing a story on ElDo Rocks. Kimball just got the name and number of the young lady who may have brought them to ElDo. I did look at facebook and there are pictures galore. Even one commemorating the Joplin tornado and those killed by it. It’s not clear if the pink, tornado shaped rock came from here or from Joplin.

– This showed up on a page I opened somewhere this week:

Sing like no one is listening,

Love like you’ve never been hurt,

Dance like nobody’s watching,

And Live like it’s Heaven on Earth.

Mark Twain

KL