Last summer while visiting relatives in Mississippi, I got up early one morning and went out by myself to explore with the camera. With no destination in mind, I found myself on a narrow road through flat farmland on the southern tip of the Mississippi Delta. Recent flooding of the Yazoo River had left a patina of rich mud on the fields and on the gravel road that runs next to the river. An egret, upright and alert, searched for breakfast in a temporary wetland left in a low spot in the otherwise dry field. Along the line of trees in the distance, a tractor worked in a cloud of dust.
I drove away that morning in my own cloud of dust, carrying with me the silence, and the rising heat of the sun in a cloudless sky. It would be another hot day.
Believe it or not, but I think I know exactly where those 2 photos were taken. If I am correct, you were surely off the beaten path! I recognize that grove of cypress trees that cut through that (bean) field. there is a small lake, of sorts, that I would walk out to in the spring and cast for bass. It had fish in it and was also loaded with cottonmouths!!! The other pic was a low spot in the field and, if you caught it right, you could haul in a load of crawfish, and it would be enough to have a cookin'!!!
ReplyDeleteRight now with the Miss. river up, where you were when you took those pictures is about 5 feet under water!!! The river you saw by the side of the gravel road is the Yazoo river which flows right by the Vicksburg downtown waterfront. When the Miss. river rises, it creates the backwater and causes extensive flooding. If you had kept going on that road a few miles further, you would have seen that the people that live in that area have their houses built up on stilts.
All of that huge field and the gravel road is underwater right now, however, the river is starting a slow fall and should be out of there in a couple of weeks.