Another year for this blog

I haven't forgotten about this blog, even tho it may seem so since I haven't posted in a long time.  Today is the 6th year anniversary for this blog (started Oct 5. 2010).  I have wanted to do so much more than I have recently on this blog.  I have some good images to share and have started some posts but haven't had the time to finish things to the point of wanting to post them.  
     My life has been hectic lately.  My mom got very sick and I was helping care for her.  She died at the age of 93. Then shortly after she died and was buried I had to have some surgery which put me out of commission for awhile too.  I haven't been close to computers and thus unable to work on things. I'm hoping once things settle down I'll be back blogging again soon.  Till then I hope all is well with you and your love ones.  Take Care.

Alligators of University of Louisisana - Lafayette

My child is interested in going to college.   So this spring break we decided to check out a few of them, one of which was the University of Louisiana Lafayette  http://louisiana.edu/ .   While there we saw the campus student union and in front of it was Cypress Lake.  In the lake there were alligators, fish and turtles which we were able to feed.
Here are the images I was able to capture.
This is the quadrangle.

 I just thought this was a pretty building and got its picture.  I think its Stephens Hall.

 Cypress lake.  As soon as there were people near the wall the gators got interested and started to head towards it.  If you look at the bottom center there looks like a log but it really is an alligator.

 I zoomed in on it and was able to get this picture of it.

Cypress Lake alligator at U of LA Lafayette 4-1-2016

 With this one, you could tell he was checking us out.  Before we started to tour the campus they had 'fish food' if we wanted to get some.  I did pick up a container of it and knew it was more for the alligators than the fish.

 Someone started to throw the food and the gator went to get it.

 When the food stopped  it was like this one was saying 'come on is that all you got?'

 Then he and his buddy stated to swim away and it sure did seem like the two of them were talking about the potential new students.

Cypress Lake alligators at U of LA- Lafayette

 They came over to me hoping I would give them something but I didn't have anything for them.

 So it was turn around and check someone else.

 While the one was turning away I couldn't believe a turtle would be so bold as to climb on top of that alligator.

I went ahead and cropped another image so you could see this better.

And of course it wouldn't be the south without one of the magnificent live oaks that they have.

 

I was impressed with the University and I wouldn't be surprised if my child doesn't choose to go here. 

2016 Good Friday visit to Norton Art Gallery - Azaleas

Every year I loved to visit Norton Art Gallery and the park that they have there during the Easter season to see the azaleas in bloom.  This year I went on Good Friday- March 25th, since my family had the day off and I had the free time.  It seemed like it was the perfect day.  The skies were blue and the temperature was in the low 70's. We got there in the late afternoon and the way the sunlight was hitting the trees seemed just perfect to really bring out the colors and contrasts. When I went there it felt like I was getting a taste of heaven - it was so incredibly beautiful.  It seemed like we had gotten there on the perfect day.  Most of the azaleas were in full bloom and there hadn't been a major storm to knock them to the grown so the bushes were magnificent.
   I knew I shouldn't have taken the pictures but I couldn't help it along with many others- they were just to pretty and words just couldn't describe them.  We were using our cellphones and that seemed acceptable.  It is posted not photography but by that I think they were referring to professional photographers.  The thing with these pictures is I took a whole lot more than I thought I did.  I was only going to post a few of them but when I tried to select I had trouble deciding which ones to use.  They all seemed so nice.  I settled for 15 but they kept on changing.  Finally I settled on these 18.  Enough writing here are the images I walked away with-

azaleas at Norton Art Gallery 3-25-2016

pink azaleas at Norton Art Gallery 3-25-2016

 I just had to get this image of this rock.  Its a sandstone but I really liked the weathering on it.  It was obvious someone else liked it too and had it brought into the area. I could tell it had been position to where it was and wasn't a natural outcrop.  Along with those flowing water features - I can remember a time when they didn't exist.  And I know the person who has put them in.

 Just look at how they look like a river of flowers.

Azaleas at Norton Art Gallery 3-25-2016

 I really liked this water feature they have put in.  Its so peaceful and relaxing to be by.

 All good things must come to an end and the area was closing at 5:30 and had to exit the fenced in area.  At least they had some across the street that we could still look at and get some parting images.

 aren't they magnificent?? could you be there and not want to have taken an image?

2016-March 14, Lake Bistineau flooding

On March 9th, 2016 the area where I live got about 20 inches in 30 hours.  Some places nearby got more and some places got less but where we were that's what we had to deal with.  I live on a bayou and because of that I was greatly concern.  I kept a close eye on the bayou and the weather.  The thing that concerned me was with all that rain in such a short period time is the fact it didn't have time to soak into the ground and thus it was run off which lead to a lot of flash flooding in the area.  I knew it was really bad when I heard they had to close down I-20 in Bossier and Webster parishes due to water coming onto the roads.  All that water had to go some where and its ended up in our lakes and reservoirs.
     My spouse and I also have some property on Lake Bistineau and had heard about all the flooding there.  Our neighbors were telling us they had never seen the lake so high. We were concerned and on March 14th the roads had been open again in areas and due to daylight savings time we figured we had enough time to get down to the lake and back during daylight hours.
    We knew from the news we couldn't go our normal way since those road were still closed.  That didn't really surprise us since last June they got closed to flooding too.  Here's a link to that post.
http://rockhoundingaround.blogspot.com/2015/06/6-14-2015-camp-and-lake-bistineau.html

Here's the one image I wanted to share with you from that period of time.

water over the Lake Bistineau dam June 14, 2015

You can see the water clearly over the dam.  At that time everyone was amazed at how high the water had gotten.  We were impressed too and thought that was the maximum it would get.  But we wrong about that.
(Here's an image of the same area with the flooding during that period of time. )

This is taken from the same area as the very first one, and you can see how much higher the water is now.
We had marveled over June flood because 7 months earlier the lake was at a low. After this things went back to normal and I really regret not getting pictures of that like I had in March when things were at a normal stage for the lake, so you can see how much things have gone up.  But I do have images of when its at a normal level..  http://rockhoundingaround.blogspot.com/2015/03/lake-bisteneau-on-3-28-2015.html

And I have the images of when it was dry last Nov 2014.http://rockhoundingaround.blogspot.com/2015/05/lake-bisteneau-nov-28-2014.html

Now we can't get over it's even higher than it was last June and back then everyone was surprised by the height of that. It's just so amazing - UNBELIEVABLE!
I'm going to show some pictures of the flooding compared to the drought just so you can get an idea of the magnitude of the water we're dealing with.

First off when we drove up to the house we couldn't even get to the house due to the inlet being so high.

But our neighbor has a road to his place that is on the other side of our house that we knew we could probably take to get to our place since we could see it above the water when we looked over at it.
So we tried it and was able to finally get onto our property.  By using a stairway that connects our places. 

Here's another view of the inlet being so full. 

 This is what it looks like when it was dry

 

But what we were mostly concern with was to see if the house had flooded and so far it hasn't.

 Here's the image we're usually looking at when we sit on the porch.
In  this one you can't even see the water. but look at the tree that has the branches close to the ground and the bush.

 Here's the same tree and water up to the bush.

 The house is dry but I couldn't say the same about the boat house.  We've had it flooded before but never like this.
Here's some of the images when it was high and dry.
 

 These are the trees that are to the left of the boathouse.

 And here's what it looks like now.  This I had to take from the neighbors road.

Here it is again, cropped and enlarged.

Here's how my neighbors boathouses look.
When it was dry you can't see the boat house but you can see the dock.

Now here's how it is zoomed in through cropping

And here's my other neighbors boat house that shows how bad things really are.
 Look how dry it was in November

and now.

For my own sake I did take a 32 second video of this area.

Like I said its unbelievable...