My favorite blogger, Teresa Boardman, way up there in St. Paul Minnesota has a favorite saying on each of her Friday blogs...."Fridays are for fun"....So if I may steal her thunder for a day, lets get away from the doldrums of high gas prices, the whining of the negative Liberal press and "who shot who" today......and lets have some fun and talk about the antics of "drunk woodpeckers".
That's right, the crazy antiques of drunk woodpeckers better know in this particular scenario as 
"Dryocopus Pileatus" better know as the "Pileated Woodpecker". Now one must understand that Woody Woodpecker...the "all time" King/Queen of woodpeckers was "dreamed up" by some dude out there in bird land and was inspired to create Woody in particular. Now I have watched a lot of Woody Woodpecker cartoons in my life but I never did see one "tipsy". So what a "delight" I had this Friday morning when four (4)...yes I said four (4) of the third largest woodpeckers know to exist descended on my humongous Palmetto tree right next to Daufuskie Island's Historic Silver Dew Winery and devour every Palmetto berry in sight. Now this might come as a surprise to my Northern friends, but Palmetto trees do sprout berries....big old dark ones that are obviously a "rare treat" for my red pecker headed friends. And these berries obviously ferment just like the wine Papy Burn made in the Winery. And just like folks that drank Papy's wine they got a little goofy.
Now we all know how a "mortal being" acts when they drink a little to much wine. That's why the cops have this sobriety test and have you try and walk a straight line while looking straight ahead. Its impossible!!! But then consider the fact that these birds ain't walkin'.....they are flyin'....and they are flying between trees, big trees, old Carolina Lob-lolly pines and live oaks with their big old limbs spreading everywhere just waitin' to "catch a beak".
And beaks they did catch. Screachin' and chattering' feathers were flyin' as Woody's cousins had the time of their life. Like jets in an air show their daredevil antics found them goin' straight up.....sideways and in some cases straight down. The show went on for about an hour and had me in tears. They were simply having fun on Friday knowing the local Daufuskie Sheriff couldn't have caught them if he wanted to.
And soon they were gone, as fast as they arrived, into the hinterlands to find, I would expect a big old hole in a tree and nurse what would surely be a hurtin' red crested head. I was sad to see them go, because they brought intense humor to my life. Its been a while since I laughed that hard and made me realize why its so important to realize that "Fridays Are For Fun".
See ya on the high tide....
LowCountry Joe
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