Clint & Barnacle
Island Springing To Life
Greetings from the island everyone. Hope all of you are doing well, and remembered to get your taxes taken care of this past week. Oh the joys of taxes – of course living on a retired cops pension (I’m sure equal to or below the normal poverty level), the threat of paying a big tax penalty at the end of the year is never a concern for me. And for the first time, I went to see Cindy Alford at Tax Depot in Seadrift on a tax issue, and she will now forever be my tax consultant, as this lady is extremely tax savvy. . . not to mention easy on the eyes. Thank you, Cindy.
As I sit at the kitchen table, my 8th year on the island, this early Friday morning, April 11, drinking a cup of hot black coffee and watching three hummingbirds fighting each other as if only a single drop of sugar water remains in the feeder, I can sense that Spring has finally arrived. Of course the forecast in a few days calls for another cool norther blowing in, but it should be one of the last remaining ones. My dad always says that when the cool fronts start having a westerly wind direction to them, they are nearing the end. Well I certainly hope that the end is near.
I’m beginning to see the hummers, cardinals and various other migrating birds start to inhabit the island, using it as a stop-over to begin venturing their trek northward. The different island flowers are beginning to bloom, as well as the wild pea bushes, an excellent source of nitrogen for the first batch of Spring compost once the seaweed begins washing ashore.
The blue crabs are also coming out of their winter hibernation, making for some nice crab boils after catching them in traps tossed in the water around the island. My islander buddy from Louisiana, Joe Monroe, comes out in the Spring and Fall to stay at his camp, and he is the crab boil expert during our weekly blue and stone crab feasts.
Well, the tomato plants that I started from seed are now six weeks old and will go in the ground tomorrow. During the past week I have “hardened” them off, meaning I’ve placed them outside in a semi-protected spot, acclimating them to the sun and wind conditions prior to placing them in the ground. I’ve got an assortment of regular, cherry and large beefsteak varieties this year.
6-week old tomato plants from seeds and ready to go into the ground
Well Barnacle and I inherited two new additions to the Bennetsen island household last week, baby kittens. Some islanders discovered them as stowaways in the anchor compartment of their boat, only after they stopped to fish at the Big Jetty and tossed out the anchor rope. One of the 3-4 week old kittens became entangled in the rope and was pulled underwater by the anchor, but somehow managed to pop back up to the surface a few seconds later! I’m thinking that ordeal used up about 3 of that kittens 9 lives. Two more kittens were found in the anchor box, so I rescued two, and smartly named them Anchor & Jetty. Another islander and his girlfriend took the third kitten. Apparently a mother cat gave birth to the kittens as the boat sat in storage. So now every four hours I’m bottle feeding two kittens, hoping to start them on regular food pretty soon. In addition to those babies, in three days I’ll be receiving at the Post Office, 30 baby chicks to replace my older chickens I gave away last month. So I’m in Daddy Clint mode right now, hoping that Barnacle is gonna lend a much needed hand over the next several weeks. . . yea right!!
Well that’s it from the island for now, everyone take care and have a great day.
Clint Bennetsen lives full time on Matagorda Peninsula Island, and writes a monthly column for the Dolphin Talk, telling of his life and adventures. To contact Clint with comments or questions, you can email him at ccbennetsen@yahoo.com or dolphin1@tisd.net.
Rescued kittens, Anchor & Jetty
