Community Life at the Park

(Apologies in advance for the quality of these cell phone photos!)
On Thursday evenings in Oriental, wherever you are in town you're likely to hear drums. Deep, constant drums. It's the Oriental Drummers! They gather at Lou Mac Park weekly in the fair weather with all kinds of drums.

And they pound away.

We call these folks the Senior Sitters. During summer they gather in the early evenings and sit here by the water at the foot of the Lou Mac pier. They generally bike here, with their chairs folded and somehow attached or held. This is a thoroughly informal group, but friendly, and I was told they make all kinds of important town decisions. But nobody ever listens to them! Haha :)

Here are the darling girls. I see them around town a lot.

The third group at Lou Mac Park last night was the most serious group of all:  the fishermen. My cell camera doesn't zoom, or I'd get closer. They all wore white shirts. They're very faithful to their sport, but I rarely see anybody catch anything of any size here -- a few weeks ago, one fellow landed a huge stingray, but it got away with his hook and weight, unfortunately.

This beauty was lashed to the town dock yesterday. I love the deep green paint and plenteous woodwork.

And, for one final random photo, this is a recently- harvested wheat field near us. The fire was really impressive. We saw the smoke (this was last Friday) all the way from the river, when we were crossing on the ferry!  I was glad to drive right next to it so I could find out what the fire was about.

I knew some farmers burn their fields after harvest, but I'd never seen it done. Very smoky!