Sunday, March 29, 2020

Driftwood Hunting on the Magnolia River

Just before sunrise is my favorite time to be out in nature. The air is crisp, the birds sing their morning songs, pastel colors paint the horizon of a new day. I breathe in the sweet smells of dew covered leaves, and my heart is full of gratitude.


If you don't already know, I'm a little obsessed with driftwood. I love finding interesting new pieces, taking them home, cleaning them up, and creating driftwood art. My husband also enjoys finding driftwood. I feel like there's a primitive pleasure of hunting and gathering that motivates him. There may also be a little bit of that in me, too -- my heart pitter-patters every time he finds a big chunk of briny, smelly, soppy driftwood and presents it to me.

We do most of our driftwood hunting on beaches and shorelines. Since our beaches have closed temporarily, due to the coronavirus, our hunting grounds have dwindled, so we've been putting a little bit of extra effort into finding driftwood while kayaking.


We went kayaking on the Magnolia River a few days ago, and discovered a big, beautiful piece of driftwood floating on the water. It was snagged between a few branches. We poked and tumbled it with our paddles before my husband fished it out of the water; though, I was nervous watching him grabbing for it with his hands. I would have preferred for him to use his grabber, but he assures me that he could see that there weren't any critters hanging around.

What a gorgeous piece of driftwood, but phew, it was stinky! We wrapped it up in my windshield protector and stuck it in the hatchback of my smallish SUV, but we had to keep the windows wide open the whole ride home. It smelled like a bunch of wet towels in a musty basement once confined in my car. It's currently airing out in our backyard. Later this week, I'm going to power wash and scrub all of the slime and muck off of it, then I'll give it a good soak in a tub of bleach (if we can find any). After it's bleached, I'll let it dry for a very long time, months probably, out on our back patio porch, before using it to create driftwood art.

Be well my friend, and until next time, carpe diem!

Melissa Anne

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." ~ Mother Julian

Video of the sunrise photo from the top of this post ---> @melissaannestudio