|
JUNE 2023
Welcome to the official Okefenokee Joe Enterprise newsletter June edition. The Celebration of Life for Dick Flood/Okefenokee Joe was held on Edisto Island, SC at Edisto Island Serpentarium. Thank you all who join us in celebrating our father, granddaddy, singer/songwriter, author, storyteller, musician, environmentalist, Dick Flood aka Okefenokee Joe, on Earth Day!
In celebration of life for Okefenokee Joe, ALL OKEFENOKEE JOE's - BOOKS, AUDIO CD's, AUDIO download's, AUDIO Book's, DVD's and SWAMP MERCH. are on SALE at 50% OFF! Visit the SWAMP STORE SALE to get GREAT DEALS on EVERTHING while supplies last!
This is a transcript from Okefenokee Joe's series of recordings “Swampwise Secrets, Songs, And Stories From The Land of the Trembling Earth”. This is an excerpt from Volume ONE:
THE WINTERTIME TRUCE
In the Okefenokee Swamp I was being shown over and over again just how intricately fine tuned, and yet surprisingly simple God's plan for life on earth really is!
For example, during the colder months of the year with less rain, the Okefenokee Swamp often dries up a great deal. As the water level drops, the fish, the frogs, the turtles, and other aquatic life begin to suffer. They must have water to survive! And God has chosen such an unlikely source to come to the rescue!
Believe it or not it is actually the one wild animal they all fear the most. It is their worst inherent predator in the swampland! The American Alligator!
By the time an alligator is thee feet long, it will have dug it's own private winter quarters. Sometimes it will wallow out the muck at the bottom, and make a deep enough hole to submerge into during dry or cold times. Or it could be a hole dug into a bank somewhere, at the edge of the water, just wide enough for the gator to enter. Local folks call them “gator holes”. Similiar to the Gopher Tortoise's burrow, it widens at the end, so the gator can turn around. On warm days in the winter, it spends a great deal of it's time lying in the entrance to it's hole, with just it's head outside.
The metabolic rate of all reptiles slows down in the cold weather. Because the winter nights are so chilly, the temperature never stays high enough long enough for the alligator to feel hunger. All of its normal tasty and delicious food items such as fish, frogs and turtles are quite safe right there in the same hole with it! And that is where they go in times of drought! It's like an unwritten, and unsigned treaty. It is in effect, a “Truce”.
Everyone knows that most snakes eat rats and mice. During the winter, Just like alligators snakes are not often hungry. That gives all the rodents a chance to multiply, so that during the spring and summer the snakes have plenty to fill their bellies.
We are shown “The Wintertime truce” in so many ways! When winter arrives each year, although it can be mighty chilly, a feeling of peace and quiet seems to cover the swamp land. The hardwood trees have lost their leaves. The flowers and the grasses have turned brown, and gone back into the earth. The forest has taken on that wintery, hungry and lonesome shade of brown. Sometimes, early in the morning there is a thin sheet of ice on the surface of the black mirrored water, and it glistens in the morning sun. And without the music of the crickets and the frogs, with the exception of the voice of an occasional owl, the nights are silent, and still. It has become so quiet. All of life seems to have withdrawn. And all things wait patiently, and quietly all through the winter for spring to come.
Purchase "Swampwise Secret, Songs, And Stories from the Land of the Trembling Earth" and other really awesome stuff at the SWAMP STORE SALE.
Okefenokee Joe 1932 - 2023
Richard "Dick" Flood also known as Okefenokee Joe, 90, passed away on Monday, January 9, 2023, at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta, GA. Family and friends paid tribute to him at a Celebration of Life and ceremony, on April 22, 2023, 'Earth Day', at Edisto Island Serpentarium, on Edisto Island, SC. Rest in nature's peace!
|
