We're only about 35 miles from beautiful Lake D'Arbonne State Park in Farmersville at the moment, so last Sunday we went for a nice ride through the countryside to end up at the lake.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous ...
The large lake, 15,250-acres, is the centerpiece of the park and has lots of fishing piers and boat docks.
Recreation on Lake D'Arbonne is tremendously popular among locals and
visitors, and record catches of bass, crappie, catfish and bream make
Lake D'Arbonne a fishing haven.
We just missed the State Crappie-fishing championship that went on the day before but there were still a lot of fishermen out there.
The rolling, foresty hills of this area make for a pretty rural landscape, but unfortunately it's very hard to make a picture off and so I didn't make any ... sjeez ...
All along the roads the cheerful yellow of daffodils is popping up and I even came upon some late clumps of snow drops on my walk around our own park:
Did you know snowdrop collectors and enthusiasts are called ‘Galanthophiles’ and there are 75 different species and varieties of snowdrops?
I didn't.
Also, apparently snowdrops contain their own anti-freeze. They were harvested during the First World War to make anti-freeze for tanks!
Moving on, or actually not 'moving', as you can see, but relaxing and reading in the sun, on our little deck ...
Although the area farther south in Louisiana suffered through some very bad weather with numerous tornadoes on the ground (one actually going through a campground we'd considered staying at), we got very lucky, and escaped without any wind at all, just some heavy downpours.
Afterwards the weather was beautiful for almost the whole week and it got really warm during the day, which for some reason made the fish in the pond behind me all swim to the surface?
I've been thinking of fishing but the thought of having to kill and clean them afterwards in order to eat them, has held me back so far.
I'm just so not a killer, I have problems killing flies in the house ... I know, it's a little weird ...
Any-hoo, I think these are perch and bass?
There's a tree-trunk floating in the pond, and on sunny days I'll find our resident turtle(s) on top to warm themselves after a cool night ..
Talking about turtles, last week while on the golf course, we came upon this whole row of them on the boards edging the pond.
So cute!
In that same pond swims this weird looking Mallard.
He's
being bullied be the 2 other (male) ducks that are in the same pond and
I think it's because his strange 'hairdo'. Poor guy!
Fortunately he does not seem to be
suffering, nutrition-wise but
I did some google-ing (of course), and found out that he is actually suffering from a genetic defect.
The 'crest' is essentially a mutation
associated with skull deformities and known for hundreds of years.
Selective breeding has
increased the numbers of birds with the same characteristic, they come in all colors and are quite popular.
James is still working hard to bring home the bacon:
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The sign is up! |
There's been a lot of dry-walling and patching and painting ...
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Before ... | | | | | | |
... and after | |
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It's starting to look like it's coming together quite nicely and they're also pretty much on schedule ...
Which means, that probably in about 2 or 3 more weeks we'll be on our way back to Hammond.
I sure hope this time we'll have a few days to do some sightseeing on the way. I've already made a list of things to see!
I can't wait!