2008 – WEEK #13 – MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST BLUE BIRD UPDATE – WITH PICS OF EMILY THE TREE-CLIMBING WONDER DOG & NATURALIST JOHN!

It’s Week #13 update time for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Blue Bird Program folks! So, here is what ‘Master Naturalist’ buddy John and I found today, May 30, 2008, walking around campus during our Friday afternoon Blue Bird Trail nesting survey: (sprinkled in among the findings are images of Master Naturalist Buddy John, his Tree-Climbing Wonder Dog Emily, his home and his magnificent view).

**John asked me to remind our readers this week that he is: still single, and eligible, has a great dog by the name of Emily – the Tree-Climbing Wonder Dog, a black manx cat named Haley, lives in a beautiful home with a magnificent view on a bayou north of Pass Christian , likes to hunt and fish, is interested in dating and possible marriage to woman who is: single, age 21-35, beautiful, educated, good sense of humor, loves dogs and cats, loves to fish and has a boat. If interested, please send picture of boat.

I don’t know, folks. That’s what he told me to write…

Here goes:

Image of Nesting Box #6 from last week’s survey.

Box #1- Empty box, no activity. – Last week: 5 Blue Bird babies flew.

Master Naturalist Buddy John, cooking fish at one of his famous bayou cookouts, is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, which is also Brett Favre’s alma mater.

Box #2- Full Blue Bird nest built, 1 Blue Bird egg. – Last week: More straw placed in box.

John’s dog, Emily, the Tree-Climbing Wonder Dog, in a 750-year old Live Oak, in Long Beach, Mississippi.

Box #3- Empty box, no activity. – Last week: Empty box, no activity.

Emily the Tree-Climbing Wonder Dog heads up a steep incline in the Live Oak.

Box #4- At least 2 Blue Bird babies. – Last week: At least 2 Blue Bird babies.

Emily is literally not afraid to go way out on a limb, in this second largest Live Oak tree in Mississippi, with a limb spread of 161 feet! Emily is not afraid to get up in the air in her pursuit of squirrels.

Box #5- Empty box, no activity. – Last week: Empty box, no activity.

Yep, she loves it up there.

Box #6- 3 Blue Bird babies. – Last week: 5 Blue Bird eggs.

You wouldn’t catch me up that high!

Box #7- 4 Blue Bird eggs. – Last week: 4 Blue Bird eggs.

She’s one amazing dog!

Box #8- Empty box, no activity. Last week: – Empty box, no activity.

John’s home is on the Bayou Portage, and has a beautiful view of the Wolf River Marsh, on the north side of the Bay of St. Louis, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, just north of Pass Christian. Try to picture a Katrina water storm surge level which reached a foot above the hand rail of the very top deck! That was 31 feet above sea level, folks! John;s home survived the surge, but had to be completely gutted inside.

Box #9- 4 Blue Bird eggs. – Last week: New nest built & 1 Blue Bird egg.

View from John’s dining/living room and back deck of the Wolf River Marsh.

Box #10- Empty box, no activity. – Empty box, no activity.

View from the top deck of John’s home, of the Bayou Portage and Wolf River Marsh. The little girl on the short deck, is Evy, and the fellow bending over on the right on the bayou dock is her father, and they are also the daughter and husband of none other than that Wizard of Words, MAGGIE, DAMMIT, who, with her family, were all on the Mississippi Gulf Coast last June as volunteers helping rebuild homes after Hurricane Katrina, her second such volunteer relief trip to the coast in the spring and summer of 2007.

Box #11- Empty box, no activity. – Last week: Empty box, no activity.

Emily the Tree-Climbing Wonder Dog.

Box #12- Empty box, no activity. – Last week: Empty box, no activity.

The boat/fishing deck at John’s home on the Bayou Portage at sunset, is an incredibly beautiful place to be. The fisherman on the right on the dock is the husband of Maggie, Dammit.

Box #13- 4 Blue Bird babies. – Last week: 5 Blue Bird eggs.

Totals This week: (may 30, 2008): 9 Blue Bird eggs, 9 Blue Bird babies, 7 empty nesting boxes.

Totals Last week: (May 23, 2008):15 Blue Bird eggs, 2 Blue Bird babies, 5 Blue Bird babies flew the nest, 5 empty nesting boxes.

Master Naturalist buddy John continues to be very enthused about the activity, and reports that so far, 19 Blue Bird babies and 6 Chickadee babies have flown from the nesting boxes during this first season of the new Blue Bird Trail. The weather today was partly cloudy, humid and about 88, with more of the same during the next seven days.

Another update will be along next weekend.

Happy Birding, and Thanks for stopping by!

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March Madness comes to the coast

“March Madness” is many things.

One is tournament basketball, on several levels.

March Madness can also be Spring Break in Florida, or Mexico, perhaps.

But another form of March Madness, since August 29, 2005, is what’s called “Alternative Spring Break.” ASB.

And it’s happening all through the Gulf Coast of Mexico, from Mobile, Alabama all the way west to New Orleans, Louisiana, as thousands of high school and college students, their advisers and other adults, swarm all along the Gulf Coast to help affected families there rebuild their homes and their lives after Hurricane Katrina.

Not too long after the huge storm came ashore and wrecked havoc with everyone and everything in its path, I was in New Orleans for a short visit, and happened to see a classic T-shirt for sale in one of the dozens of such stores in the French Quarter.

The lettering on this particular shirt said: “Katrina, you Bitch!”

After all the billions in property damages it caused, and more than a thousand people it killed, I guess the description on the shirt was appropriate. No, I didn’t buy the shirt.

In the aftermath, some two years and a half years later, people still care about what happened then, and about the incredible amount of rebuilding there still is to do before homeless families all get back in their homes again.

This weekend in the small, rural marsh-land territory of Pearlington, Mississippi, people from all over the United States are arriving to celebrate their own form of March Madness, reaching out for a week, or more, to help their southern brothers and sisters in their continuing battle to set things right again.

Saturday, students and adults from the University of Maryland, The University of Texas at Austin, and adults from Massachusetts, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado and several other states, arrived at the Pearlington Recovery Center (PRC) with their duffels and gloves in hand, ready to bring a week of hope, hard work and fellowship to area residents so long at wits end.

These early Saturday evening arrivals, some 75 strong, including 12 young adult volunteers in service to Americorp, are but first wave of this coming weeks’ group of some 250+ hurricane relief volunteers that are descending upon this grass roots recovery organization to try to make a difference in people’s lives these next six days.

These caring folks are full of energy, enthusiasm, faith and hope for the task ahead. Many are back for their fourth time as Hurricane relief volunteers, bound and determined to do their best for as long as it takes to undo Katrina’s powerful deeds.

The woods in Pearlington will reverberate loudly this week with the sounds of hammers, chain saws, nail guns, circular saws, battery drills and other tools making scores of noises, as their users move area families farther along the road towards hearth and home again.

At the weeks end, lots of hugs, and some tears, all around, from visitors and residents, as they recount what love, service, dedication and faith can accomplish, how lives of all involved continue to be moved and touched, a nail, a board, a shingle, a length of wire, a sink and bathtub, one at a time.

My part today in the drama during much of the day, was to help formulate plans for future wiring updates on the grounds of the PRC, physically update much of the wiring in many of the lodging facilities, prior to the first wave of volunteers arriving in the early evening, and later to repair old steps to the bunk houses.

Sunday will see me working on installing additional electrical wiring in several of the structures, with the goal of making them more efficient in hosting the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers that will pass through the volunteer camp during this month of March Madness.

What a privilege and blessing to be able to be a small part of the moment, in the lives of the movers and the moved.

This is what I consider, pretty close to heaven…

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