Saturday September 16th 2023

For most of the day the weather was consistent with the past few days. As the afternoon progressed the threatened thunderstorms started to materialize. At first the storms remained at a distance, but as darkness approached a few rain drops started to fall on the roof. Although there was plenty of thunder and more wind than earlier in the day, it only rained enough to dampen the ground. It was over in less than five minutes.

My big adventure for the day was a trip to Tom Bennett County Park. This is an urban style park with a playground, sports fields, disk golf and other organized sports. It also has trails around ponds and marsh land with plenty of bird life to entertain. All of the bird pictures in this blog entry are from today’s visit to Tom Bennett Park.

In addition to my trip to the county park, I got in two walk around the state park. While near the beach area today, I started to ponder the meaning of signs. The remainder of this paragraph and the next one are a rhetorical soapbox rant. There are three signs that say Swimming Area, No Fishing, Pets Prohibited. Do people miss these rather large and numerous signs, or do they just chose to ignore them?

Earlier in the week I saw people walking their dogs along the beach area. Granted there was no one using the beach, but why do they think someone made the rule? Today there was a man and boy fishing along the beach. All of there equipment was on the bench right beside the sign. I would think that fish hooks left on the beach or in the water in front of the beach from broken lines would be rather dangerous. Not to mention fishing seems to attract alligators which are bad for the pets violating the rule and any future swimmers. Once again I wonder how these folks justify ignoring the signs. I am not in a particularly confrontational mood, so I don’t consider it my job to enforce the rules. It is even possible they have permission to break the rule or some kind of special knowledge. Still the signs were put up for a reason and I shouldn’t have to know why they were put up to decide if I am going to follow the rule or not. End of rant and I’m off my soapbox. Please enjoy the bird pictures.