Joys and Dangers of Island Spring Time
Greetings from the island everyone. Hope all of you are doing well and enjoying some of this recent Spring-like weather. Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead one hour Saturday night before going to bed. It will be nice having some extra gardening and beach time, and I look forward to the first day of Spring in a few weeks.
March begins a very enjoyable several months of weather here on the island, with things seeming to spring to life around me. The grasses are starting to turn green, including the wild pea bushes that I like to use for compost, an excellent source of organic nitrogen. Patches of flowers bring a little color throughout the salt grass, and the beautiful migrating birds, including Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Painted Buntings and Baltimore Orioles, make their short stop-over before continuing south.
The newborn calves have also started being born on the island, including a set of twins a few weeks ago, the first pair I’ve seen born out here. I love watching the young calves scamper about and play with each other during the evening, a refreshing display of innocence. I’m sure that the coyotes have snuffed out some of that innocence, but suffice to say that I’m gaining ground on that problem.
The sea grass also begins washing ashore on the beach during the Spring months, bringing in with it an assortment of seashells and sea-beans. All sorts of little sea creatures and miscellaneous items get entangled in the sorghasm grass as it floats across the gulf before landing on the beach. I benefit from the beach grass by gathering it by the baskets, rinsing it with fresh water, and composting it down to a soil consistency before using it in my raised bed gardens. Organic kelp (seaweed) fertilizer is an excellent, and expensive, soil supplement, and I pick it up by the hundreds of pounds for free on the beach. Gotta love that.
The fishing also starts picking up around the island this time of year. The Capalety crew and myself pulled in a nice mess of black drum and a few reds this past weekend, simply fishing on bottom using dead shrimp. Sitting in a lawn chair, drinking a foo-foo and catching fish. . . life doesn’t get much better.
But along with the joys and positives of Spring weather on the island, also comes the danger of rattlesnakes coming out of hiding and beginning their mating season. Almost like clock work, I’ll start seeing them the first week of March and will continue seeing them periodically until the end of June.
Last week was no exception, as I took out a 49” one near the house. I tell everyone that will listen, you simply have to be aware that the danger of one being where you step next is ALWAYS present in the Spring. Barnacle gets a snake vaccine shot every year, but even still, that is no guarantee that he wouldn’t be taken if a big enough rattler bit him in the right spot.
Nonetheless, for $27 a year I’ll get him that vaccine shot without giving it a second thought. On occasion, some idiot will make mention to me that the rattlesnakes should be left alone to prosper and multiply, whereupon I tell them they are welcome to venture out here and catch them and release them in their own yard on the mainland if they wish. . . but until that happens, I’ll take another box of .38 caliber snakeshot please.
The tomato plants started from seed are five weeks old now and doing great. In about three weeks I’ll plant thirty of them, to go along with the onions and potatoes already in the ground.
Well that’s it from the island for now, everyone take care and have a great day.
