The Swamp May Claim My Body One Day…

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Abstract, Animals, Birds, Black and White, Butterfly, Caterpillar, Damselfly, Florida, Hike, Humor, Insects, Merritt Island, Misadventure, Nature, Photography, Story, Sunset, Swamp, Video, Water, Wildlife, Writing

The Swamp may one day claim my body. This past weekend I was found sinking into the muck, yet again. I never mean to deviate out into those gurgling and gushing, reedy and thrillingly mucid marshlands but something always draws me in.

In this case, it was vultures…

A great cluster of black vultures descended right in the middle of the great sprawling mire below and I just had to go tumbling down after them.

They wheezed and grunted and hopped about in a frenzy as I sloshed near. Then in a great charcoal gust they fluttered up and adorned the palm trees above, their crinkled heads bent with sharp, bilge-water brown eyes studying me, looking like dark-frocked, feathered judges scowling down at me.

I sifted about looking for a corpse. To no avail. Disappointed, I continued on. I was soon slopping along in happy oblivion until the mire became a river and the reeds turned into mangrove trees; and even then I ventured further. A tiny gator slipped away and a flurry of silver bodies slapped the surface of the water as they swam away in a fast flash. Little black minnows danced in the golden, tea-stained waters bathed in warm sunset.

Suddenly I remembered that I do not live in the Swamp and that these ruddy parks always have a blasted time-limit. I turned and squished back toward the great sprawling knoll where the path was. I clambered and crawled up through an impenetrable green fog of knotted grass. A merry wind casually chucked vulture feathers, globs of yellow pollen, sticks and burrs into my wild, tangled mane as I clawed along like a blind bear.

At last I popped onto the trail, adorned in Swamp.

I was surprised when I heard a squeak pierce through the meditative hum of honey bees that I had just walked through as they danced from flower to flower at my muculent feet.

I began to concoct a haphazard smile, realizing the squeak had issued forth from a wide-eyed dog-walking lady that had been startled by my sudden appearance. I guess she had no idea someone had been crawling around in the somnolent mire below all this time. She rapidly gathered up her canine companion and shielded the small and thoroughly fascinated terrier from my ghoulish and slovenly sight. The pair darted away as I said with a stumble, becoming entangled in some gigantic weed I hadn’t noticed, “Lovely time for swamping, eh?!” She didn’t reply…I don’t think she heard me…

I immediately became distracted by the lake on the opposite side and soon found myself in the water, yet again, joyfully fiddling with the camera. Time was forgotten yet again as the sun was swiftly hoovered away and squeezed to rust. The phone deep in my pack tootled but I couldn’t be bothered with attempting to dig it out, so I continued to film as I slowly made my way back.

Then I heard a great booming cry warble across the glimmering waters glazed in purple dusk, “PARK CLOSING!”

It seemed to be coming from a tiny dancing dot on the shore across the way…where the park entrance was…

Oh dear…THE TIME!

I tried to assure the little black dot (that was an irate ranger) that I was hurrying as I called out, “I AM COMING! DON’T WORRY! BE RIGHT THERE!”

He was miles away…well, perhaps just one mile.

I wasn’t very near and the wind was probably erasing my calls, so I gesticulated wildly in order to encourage the ranger that I was hurrying. He continued to hop up and down.

Then I started splashing back as quickly as possible.

And then I crouched down in the water to film a rock.

“PARK CLOSING!!!!! PARK CLOSING RIGHT NOW!!!” came a very jarring, caterwauling cry.

I decided I should put the camera away…this was a very difficult chore as my arms suddenly weighed about 18,000 lbs.

I managed to make it back and even avoided being pounded by the red-faced, snowy-mustached ranger as he crammed me into the car and Sir rapidly peeled away (well, rapidly for a tortoise, that is, as Sir is a very sedate, I mean careful, driver- to the outraged ranger’s dismay…). I was able to obtain enough footage for a few wee videos featuring some minute creatures. Here is one below, shot at Pine Island Conservation Area in Merritt Island, FL. Thanks for drizzling by,

Smiling Toad

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The Art of Rabbit-Charming

Tags

Anecdote, Animal Rescue, Animals, Black and White Photography, Comedy, Florida, Humour, Misadventure, Nature, Nikon, Photography, Rabbit Walking, Rabbits, Story, Strays, Video, Writing

The night was humid and tangy, heady mist hovering in the air. The sky was low and moldered with deep purple cloud, reflecting in swirls the city’s incandescent glow.

I oozed along the gritty path, sweat creeping down my neck. Feral cats caterwauled and twirled ahead. I stopped to gaze at them when I noticed the black silhouette of a rabbit- a domestic rabbit- right amongst a sea of rowdy felines, ferine.

Rabbit Noir

“Are you trying to catch that rabbit, too?!” came an excited exclamation from a female voice.

I swiveled around to face a beaming woman with a crine of giant, lemon-hair outlined brilliantly in the gauzy strobe of the path-light. Her smile beamed through the darkness.

I must have had a sickly, rabbit-besotted look on my face as I stuttered, “Oh right, certainly so!”

“I’ve been trying to catch her for DAYS!” the woman boomed as her Siberian husky-dog companion stepped forward and my hand warbled gently onto the top of his silvery head.

Sir, another Rabbit-gatherer

“Well, I’ll gather her up then,” I said.

“It’s just about impossible! Oh PLEASE if you catch her will you give her to me?! I really want her!” cried the lovely blonde-haired companion to canines.

“Oh right,” I murmured, gazing into the gelid blue eyes of the great dog, his tongue lolling.

A dyspeptic sort of smile crackled across my ruddy visage, imagining a rabbit taking up residence with this fine canine…

Then came a gust, the lass bugling with a touch of doubt about her elongated words, “GOOOOOD LUUUUUCK!”, as the ashen-grey sled-hound suddenly javelined forth, hurrying the dog-owner quickly away.

I turned. A cat rolled into the stubborn rabbit who staunchly held her place, her head poised, haughty. I belched forward.

The rabbit shot into the woods at approximately 90 mph. Hum. Not like the usual wild rabbits that seem to always swarm at my feet, darting up to me in the millions, as if I cram my shamrock socks with carrots and don stylishly-leafy celery stalks behind my ears as a nice accent to my Timothy hay wig…

I wobbled after the rabbit. The air was like still water.

A lettuce-lover

In complete darkness, amidst some kind of inky-black copse of tangled bramble and twisted trees, I was compelled to kneel down for a moment to brood about how to gather up the creature. My hand found itself lightly alighting right upon the head of the long-eared creature.

“Ooofffeee!” I muttered and the rabbit dissipated.

I puttered about and decided that I could decipher just where the lagomorph would emerge, out of this great patch of weald. I swirled all the way around to the very back of the deep patch, where I knew there was a quiet spread of grass, quite secluded.

Astoundingly, my pathetic bit of rabbit psychology proved correct as I came beetling up to the creature gently grazing and barking off more rambunctious cats. One cat, I noticed, had just assembled himself into a wobbly pouncing position.

Some felines fear rabbits, like this one here

The mouse-lovers sprayed away as I appeared, but the lettuce-lover seemed shocked and merely gawped at me. I had done it. I could see it in that glazed look hovering in her wide doe-eyes. The rabbit-charm never fails. Twelve seconds later she was in my arms, purring, whiskers tickling the neck.

See, these cats are fleeing some bully bunnies in the other room

Having never held a rabbit before, I carried my new rabbit-roomie off into the darkness, to soon take up residence with some wee-woodland-creature-fearing cats and greens-flinging, hay bequeathing humans.

Needless to say, aye, the rabbit was most content.

In need of a dear ol’ chum

After some months, however, a depression overtook the cilantro-and-carrot-gobbling being. She was in need of a fellow long-eared companion, it was concluded.

I was off to the park again, this time with Sir, to muse over where to obtain this new chum for the rabbit that had strangely become known to us as Gandhi-Poe Lassie.  Would there be a rabbit at the shelter, perchance? Perhaps we should check the online ads.

We were not haunting the park more than three seconds when Sir spotted a white-blazed, pink-nosed, black pet rabbit huddled against a yellow parking curb. Oh my.

Rabbit Musings

It seemed our musing was over.

He bleated to me, I got out to attend to the rabbit, and Sir sped off to go get a cage and a net from the house just down the way. Hmph. Who needs those things?

I began to radiate rabbit-charm when a human being approached from behind, yet again, and the wee woodland creature darted underneath a parked car. Oh dear.

The approacher was an octogenarian woman looking to vacate the park. Her instant assumption was that the rabbit now crouched beneath her pale Lincoln car was mine, and that I was of in the habit of stowing pet rabbits under whatever cars I liked, whenever I felt like it, regardless of consequences and who I might hurt.

Too cute to stow and leave under cars

Well, I am not one to sway about and attempting to explain things. I am one of action. I decided I would get right to work gathering up the creature.

A nervous first-meeting

I was nervous, however, and my radiating rabbit-charm was askew as the woman stamped impatient feet and huffed to the heavens about the oh so grueling oppression of the Impetuous Youth, of which she readily decided I was most assuredly a member of.

My crawling about and cooing beneath her car seemed to exacerbate her aggravation, and did nothing to entice the rabbit to scoot elsewhere. I attempted to snag, and he would shuffle out of reach every time.

Just a thought

The Lincoln-owner decided starting the car might help. The rabbit seemed to find the gentle bombilation of the engine relaxing.

At last, I decided to bellow and have convulsions underneath the car, to the automobile-owner’s audible dismay, and the rabbit slipped out of the shadows and pranced across the way in order to perch on some coquina-limestone outcroppings. Obviously, he did not find it prudent to while away the hours under cars with humans having fits.

I oozed sheepishly out from underneath the vehicle and the grey-haired woman sputtered a rapid, “THANK YOU!” at me as she speedily evacuated.

Some onlookers smiled as I wobbled over to the limestone. A grin had manifested itself on my face as I recognised the look the lagomorph was beaming at me. Yes, I knew that look- “Right-ho, pick me up, all ready to go now.”

Bunion Claude

There was a hazy film hovering in the rabbit’s auburn eyes. He was charmed. He was almost smiling as I scooped him up and hoofed it home, as at last, the heat was quelled by the commencement of a gentle, sluicing rain. The rabbit, named Bunion Claude, seemed to like the soft shower, and purred in my arms.

Timothy-hay-muncher

And so, that was how I became rabbit-roomies with the two fine foot-slapping, white-cotton-tailed creatures. They adore chasing the trembling cats, gobbling red leaf lettuce, and munching hay from my wig as I pat them contentedly on the head in a sort of rabbit-loving haze.

Cheers,

Autumn Jade

A Briny Blunder

Tags

Al Green, Beach, Black and White, Blunder, Carpe Diem, Clumsy, Falling, Florida, Frank Sinatra, Humour, Hurricane Sandy, Inspiration, James Dean, Jocularity, Laughter, Misadventure, Nature, Nina Simone, Ocean, Pablo Neruda, Photography, Silly, Story, Writing

It had been an animated and tempestuous day. My brooding attire seemed to match the weather, jeans soaked to the knee, suit-vest fluttering in the grave wind, the sky above an infinite blanket of dreary blue cloud. We were on our way home and I had receded into happy brooding, the wild weather so fitting for it. And then it happened.

The sun suddenly dissolved through, and the cloud cover began to disperse into a fantastic mackerel sky. Radiant gold spilled out and illuminated the soggy city. Everything glittered. Already near the beach, we hurried along toward the ocean, keen on one last photo-shoot.

After parking, I catapulted from the car. Sir sort of loitered behind. I was soon hoofing along through the dank and rippled sands toward the seethe. The sky was aflame. Patches of cloud beamed a rose and orange sherbet. The waters were cast in a lambent champagne pink. Everything was glorious.

A great oooing and ahhing crowd had amassed behind me, clustered on the boardwalk. It seemed a mutual song was playing amongst them- Nina Simone’s version of “Feeling Good” perhaps. I found myself in the throes of a wee jig, myself, to that fabulous tune. The creamy moon that had vanished in the clouds was beginning to crown at the top, and cast lovely splinters of silver light onto the surf.

And then it happened. A wee little line of water began to wheeze toward me. I noticed it, but was snapping photos, and was half-deciding to let it swath my already dank track shoes. Yet, as the water slipped closer, I found I was also in motion. My body was moving back to escape the water, but my feet hesitated and stayed put. And so the center-of-balance was yanked out of place. Gravity languidly began to tug at my spine. I realised taking a tumble in the water was not extremely healthy for a camera, so I attempted to flail. Flailing, in theory, can help regain balance. I was unsuccessful, however, and discovered I was ever so slowly falling just like a great, cumbersome fir being felled by a smiling, spritely little beaver. Eventually, I landed on my back, completely flattened. The little coy dribble of water had expanded from one inch to seven inches, and managed to completely sluice my entire body, from toe to nose, and even crawled all the way up my erect arm dramatically holding the camera above the onslaught.

Some sanderlings squeaked and quickly scuttled by. Bubbles crackled in my ear. I had just been completely conquered and overthrown by a gentle flow of ocean bubble-bath…

This did not do a thing to my jubilant spirits, other than elevate them. I leaped up as the water quickly receded and I was back upon a glass surface of shimmering sand. I found myself doing another wee jig as I suddenly became conscious of a rather eerie wheezing sound. I turned. It was my audience, er, I mean, the sunset-gazing crowd. A great long gasp had erupted from them in elongated synchrony. All eyes were widely agog, mouths ajar.

It was a strange moment; it was as if Babe Ruth had swaggered up to the bedrabbled plate, and missed the first two pitches to build tension, but on the third pitch, he points and grins, swings, and then promptly falls down, as the ball tumbles somewhere behind him. The crowd’s reaction I imagine would have been very similar indeed.

This pained me. I never like to see an audience, crowd rather, swathed in sorrow. I began to plod along through the dimpled sands toward the stairs. Sir joined me stunned with few words. I noticed that I was in fits of laugher, a bit of an uvid camera poised in my right hand. I could hear voices now.

“His camera!” a woman bugled.

His camera?

“Oooohhhh my GAWD! He’s gonna be so mad about his camera! I bet it’s totally ruined!” a young lass squealed.

He’s gonna be so mad?

“Yep, his camera is definitely shot,” said an older gentleman with conviction.

(An Aside: I could not help but notice all the male pronouns. It is true, I do slightly resemble James Dean, but still, I think it’s rather obvious I’m still a lass…oh right… I understand. Only a bloke would be so clumsy, eh? Well, I’ll have you know I’m the clumsiest lummox I know, and proud of it. And I am entirely lassie. HMPH!)

Well, I danced up the stairs, Sir following behind, and then soon vanishing to the car. I lingered a moment on the boardwalk, grinning amongst the luctual crowd. The song “Feeling Good” had definitely ceased, and was replaced with Al Green’s “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”. Or rather, “How Can You Mend a Broken Camera?”

I was wringing out the edges of my suit-vest, smiling to myself recollecting how I had purposely worn all cotton today, just in case…something damp and soggy was in store. Peculiar how one can sense these things, sometimes. I believe I was even laughing out loud when one kindly woman bravely stepped forward and spoke for all the haggard and grief-stricken onlookers, “I just wanted to say, I’m soooooo sorry about your camera. You must be devastated. It has to be ruined.”

I noticed her eyes were glistening. (My goodness…don’t tell me that is the shimmer of tears…great scott! What a serious lot this is!)

In my usual annoying custom, I chimed at her in a bit of an Irish brogue accompanied with a series of animated hops, “Oh nooooo lassie!! No fretting, no worrying yer heart out, there now! ‘Tis fine, I say, absolutely grand! This ol’ camera here will be just fine, indeed!”

It is true, the camera was definitely in a bit of a drizzly condition. But blast, I was determined to cheer this crowd that had clearly missed out on one grand chance for a chortle. I mean, you observe a squirrely lass take a spill after a great onslaught of a few inches of gentle water, and your first reaction is sorrow?! WHAT?! If it were a poor little girl pushed over by some picaresque and nefarious bully, I would understand, but come now! Well, I thought it was funny, and I was not going to suppress that.

I proceeded to chortle, immensely.

“So…” the lady began again, “your camera is going to be all right?”

“She’ll pull through!” I boomed.

A faintly, friable smile began to tremble upon her lips, “Oh, that’s wonderful!”

“Aye, arg, fabulous! Haw, haw, and how ridiculous that was, eh? Just think, of all the times I should have fallen, it had to happen when I least expected it. Such is life, eh?! I was wading IN Sandy’s surf, earlier today, wind roaring in my ears. No hint of gravity to take me down. After that, I decided to scrabble along some slimy rocks as torrents of water continuously slammed them. Not a slip. So, then I clambered right up a very slippery, dead mangrove tree that rocked violently right over the water, gust of hurricane winds slamming against me as I snapped away with the ol’ camera. No hint of slopping into the drink below. I even became grossly entangled in some ghastly thorny vine, and all the Fates should have dictated that I go tumbling right down the hill and into the brackish waters slapping the shore, but NO I managed to free myself unscathed! Even when I went skipping onto the world’s ricketiest, most water-slicked dock, sloshing in the water like a bath-toy, not a bit of it, not even the tiniest threat of falling. Then I come beetling over here, wander onto this seemingly tranquil and non-threatening beach, and I find myself, well, we found ourselves, rather, if you count briny camera here, completely flattened by a little trickle of harmless bubble-bath. Such moments, AYE they make me adore life indeed! TOO funny!!” I exclaimed.

Well, that did it. I noticed, at last, the lugubrious tone of the great, grieving crowd was ebbing away at last. Smiles began to creep out. Still in shock, a bit, but beginning to appreciate the humour, I could tell.

“Oh I hope someone got that on film!” I guffawed as I began to depart from my friends.

“Oh yeah I did,” I thought I heard someone mumble.

Yes, I left the crowd with a different tune, now. Frank Sinatra’s version of “That’s Life” was blasting away as we pulled out of the parking-lot and receded into the darkling antitwilight, on our way home.

A word to future onlookers- always laugh before you think. What a crime to take up worry when one could be laughing.

Mirth is important, aye! As our Pablo Neruda would likely say right now, possibly whilst puffing a wee stogie, a bit of a ludic smile playing at the edges of his lips ‘neath that pencil mustache (I think he had a pencil mustache…), “Laughter is the language of the Soul!”

Carpe Diem, and cheers,

Autumn Jade