If you happen to be down on the Alabama Gulf coast, anywhere near Fairhope or Foley, there is a wonderful side trip you might want to take. Weeks Bay Bog is part of The Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, located on County Road 17, a short hop off U S Hiway 98, the main drag between Foley and Fairhope. You park across the road from the bog, there’s plenty of room there. You might want to take a picnic lunch, there is room for that also and you are going to want to stay awhile.

My great good friend Norma Elkins and I visited the bog last September. There is so much to see taking a walk on the wide Kurt G. Wintermeyer Boardwalk built over the bog. No muddy feet, no fear of critters, although we did see the sign about snakes loving bogs, I guess that is because frogs also love bogs and snakes love frogs alfresco.

Even late in September there were plenty of blooming pitcher plants to see. Beautiful examples of White-Topped Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia leucophylla in shades of green, red Gulf Purple Pitcher Plant( Sarracenia rosea ) living just where they can be happiest. As you stroll the long boardwalk there are super placards explaining what you may be seeing, all the different plants, how they work and what to look for. There are other plants to be seen, wonderful cornflower blue spiky balls on stems that stand 3 inches above their greenery. Cinnamon ferns( Os-munda cinnomomea ) , Slash Pine trees, and many different kinds of grasses that wave in the breeze, and the occasional frog and tiny buzzing fliers ready to be dinner for a lucky pitcher plant or snake.

Go to their web site :http://www.outdooralabama.com/weeks-bay-pitcher-plant-bog. There you can read much more about the bog and all the things you can see at The Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. I am going back, as soon as I can, and plan to spend more time seeing the wonders of this place. Hope you enjoy these pictures Norma and I took, we certainly enjoyed taking them.

I very much enjoy writing articles for you to read.  What you take away is important to me. My hope is that you learn something of the subject at hand and are entertained in the process. Not necessarily entertained in the ha-ha but kept interested enough to read the whole piece. Of course, I can never resist a cheap ha-ha along the way.

For me there is always an under-story, some not very deep, others hopefully make you think long after you finish reading. I mostly write about things that interest me. Sometimes someone will say “write something about this or that” and those are fun too because they are things I might not have thought of on my own, or fill a need for getting the word out about a given subject.

Fact is we all like to share what we think and what we are interested in.  Whether we do it well or not, we want to tell others all about it. From gardening to cooking to shopping, our craftiness, our successes,  and sometimes our failures.  We want to share it all. Sharing takes our successes higher and makes our failures smaller when we hear someone else has had the same experience.

Share a success and you teach someone else to succeed; share a failure and someone will teach you to succeed next time.

The Webster Dictionary defines NEW as follows:

Margaret Goolsby’s family surprised her Saturday afternoon with a birthday party at Hidden Meadows Vineyard and Winery in Jemison, and the family graciously invited CCMGA members. There was wonderful  food, lots of presents, and lot of laughter! HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY, Margaret!