I did it! I'm current! (with the blog, I mean, otherwise, I'm so NOT current ;-)) Yeah!

It's odd, to 'only' have to write about what happened just this last week.

Also, what to write about? Let's see ... the weather is always a good standby ... and it's been cold over here! We even had a couple of frosty mornings this week with temperatures just around freezing (30-32F).

As you can see in the pictures, the Bayou behind us was steaming while warming up in the morning sun ...

Overall the weather has been pretty good here, November was of course unseasonably warm, and even the first half of December was still quite warm and beautiful. 
From around Christmas on, it has been much cooler, with rather grey and rainy days, but fortunately it has been nice enough in between to be able to keep on golfing!

Which is a good thing, because for Christmas, instead of presents, we'd bought ourselves a 'Golf Crescent City' discount Card, which affords us to be able to play  a few different courses than just the little par-3 course in Hammond we call 'home'.

It's a Membership Card that gets you a free green fee at twelve New Orleans-area golf courses.
You have to book 24 hours or less in advance ahead and you must pay the course cart fee, even if you walk but it's valid anytime during the week and after 1pm on the weekends, and it saves you a ton of money!

For our first round, we picked the Oak Knoll Country Club, which is literary around the corner from us, just 5 minutes down the road, but since the fees are way beyond our budget we'd not golfed there yet.

Instead of their normal rate, $53 on weekends and $37 during the week, we now only payed $18 pp, and enjoyed the luxury of having a cart too!

It is a beautiful course, nicely landscaped with beautiful mature oaks, tall pine trees and (flowering) camellias ...



(I don't know what's with the weird colors in these pics, I must have had the little 'scene'-dial turned to the wrong setting ...)




One of the holes used a mirror to let you see if the fairway had cleared, since you had a 'blind' over-the-hill approach shot from the Tee-box ...

... yeah, you're good to go!

Some of the overhanging branches of the enormous oaks came down so low that the cart would only just clear it ...

Unfortunately, it had rained a lot prior to us getting out there, and the course was very wet, in some areas it was basically under water.
We weren't allowed to drive the cart off the paths, and it was almost more of a burden to have to walk back and forth to it, than when we would have walked the course.

I played terrible (I wish I could blame the course condition but that wouldn't be fair) but was very excited, and surprised, to come upon these beautiful Big Cypress Fox Squirrels, also known as Racoon Squirrel, Stump-eared Squirrel, or Monkey Faced Squirrel.

They are larger and more colorful than the regular squirrels that sometimes share its habitat, with a strikingly-patterned dark brown with black body, an orange belly and black and white bands on the face and tail.
Their hind legs are very powerful, allowing for huge leaps and easy running and they spend more time on the ground than their smaller cousins. 

    Talking about a tail, this was the only shot I got of that!

What made this encounter really interesting is the fact that they're found most commonly around the Everglades of Florida, and even there are considered rare in their natural habitat.
They're on the near threatened list, due to deforestation and mange mite!

Beats me what they are doing here?!

Huge American Elm trees

Back home, I'm trying to faithfully go on my morning and afternoon walks,  mostly to get some exercise and enjoy the always beautiful grounds ...

... but also to compensate for that darned, fried and sugared, southern food!
Not that it seems to help very much since I've gained around 8 pounds since we got here. Yikes!
My biggest problem is that I'll start to snack somewhere around 2 or 3 pm and than can't seem to stop ... I just have to kick myself in the butt and break the cycle, because this is getting ridiculous! 

I've tried to find something flowering around the park and came upon these pretty winter-blooming camellias in the 'permanents' area ...

And some colorful azaleas, that are still hanging in there, despite the frosty weather ...

     

The birds are keeping a low profile, like I mentioned in the previous post, but this Northern Mockingbird is a tough little guy ...

This Great Blue Heron lives in the Bayou behind us. 
He's still not quite sure about me, and flies up whenever he sees only just a glimpse of me, but every now and then I manage to sneak up on him ...

He does look really cold to me though, standing barefoot and all bunched up in that freezing cold water!?

Last, but not least, I totally forgot to mention that James had another Birthday on the 17th! Sorry Hon', I won't mention that you're 57 now (oops, slip of the pen)!
We were all set to celebrate (after a round of golf) with a nice meal at Whites, the local fish restaurant which came highly recommended, but when we got there (at 5pm!) it was already completely full and there was an estimated 1 1/2 hour wait to get in!
Hmm, maybe not! We'll save that for another time, thank-you-very-much ...

See you next week!