Island Life… By Clint Bennetsen

Archived in the category: Featured Writers, General Info, Island Life
Posted by Joyce Rhyne on 14 May 15 - 0 Comments

May Winds and High Tides

Greetings from the island everyone. Hope all of you are doing well and spent a wonderful day with Mom on Mothers Day this past Sunday. As I sit writing this the Friday prior, my plans are to run in on Sunday for Mothers Day and go to church with Mom and the siblings in Victoria. We will then go out to eat at Baytown Seafood. . . yes, my siblings, living on an island, seafood is exactly what my first choice would have been. . . But it’s for Mom, so it’s all good. I love you, Mom.

The weather does look as though it will cooperate for my trek across the bay, maybe just a little windy, before the rain moves in on Monday for the week. Often times I simply cannot get in for family get-togethers because of inclement weather, but all is well this time.

The wind has really been blowing hard out of the southeast lately, and along with the full moon, has caused the tides to stay very high. The wind has also caused my melon plants to take a beating, to the point I’m not sure they will be able to bounce back. I sure hope they will though, not crazy about having to buy my melons from the market this summer.

I also had a little setback with my tomato plants, after tilling in some horse manure that appears to have been tainted with hay herbicides or weed killer. I had to pull and discard 18 plants, but still have a dozen more that were planted in clean soil and are doing just fine. I now know, as should all gardeners, to always make certain exactly where horse manure is taken from, and the history of herbicide and/or weed killer applied to the pastures where they are kept. Such is life, live and learn.

Other than the nuisance wind, the weather had been very nice the past few weeks. My fig trees are fully leafed out, and my older Brown Turkey fig is loaded down with small green fruit. I may have to persuade Mom into making me some fig preserves this summer.

Barnacle’s remembrance Magnolia is doing just fine, and had it’s first beautiful white blossom open up a few weeks ago. It had a nice citrus aroma, and there look to be several more blossoms that will be opening soon. I was also given a lovely Esperanza plant that I repotted into a large container and it is doing great. I believe all of the rain recently has jump started all of the plants and flowers on the island.

My two rescue kittens from last April, Anchor and Jetty, are doing just fine, catching lots of mice and rats, and the occasional bird. I wish they would leave the birds alone, but they are cats and instinct tells them to stalk and attack, so they certainly do.

Well that’s it from the island for now, everyone take care and have a great day.

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