Please let me sit and play…

Before you make me Etouffee!   Crawfish Etouffee is very popular in this neck of the woods.  I’m not crazy about it, but JB had left me a comment about Suire’s Grocery Store and Restaurant, so I decided to head there today for lunch.

What an interesting place this is!  Half of the building is a small grocery store, and the other half houses the eating place.  The menu items for this Cajun cooking restaurant can be found painted on the outside of the building along with caricatures of alligators and turtles.  The grocery side sells popular local items like Cajun pickled quail eggs.  Each of the tables on the eatery side has a checkers board on it.  I ordered my first shrimp Poboy, and sat at a table to wait for my name to be called.  For a place out in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn’t believe how busy it was.  Many working men, clad in rubber boots and covered with mud, either ate inside or just stopped by to pick up their lunch to go.  Today’s special was shrimp etouffee.  It must be good because it was selling like hot cakes!

 

It may have been unusual for a solo “northern” female to stop in for lunch because the lady taking the orders immediately wanted to know about me.  I told her that my friends, John and Brenda, had recommended this place to me as they had been here while they were traveling.  Her response to me was, “Are you one of those RV people?  I just recently heard about people living in their RVs and traveling around the country.  Do you do this alone?”  I told her I traveled with my dog.  :)  She was a little surprised.  The Poboy was excellent, and I enjoyed my lunch stop.

Before I got to Suire’s for lunch, I stopped in the town of Rayne, the Frog Capitol of the World!  I didn’t see any frogs; must be the wrong season, but I did see all the murals with a frog theme painted on the buildings.  The one pictured here is on the police station.  I also stopped to see St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and Cemetery.  As you may know, people are buried above ground in this area of Louisiana.  You can click to enlarge to read the plaque about the skinless frog.

After lunch, I continued down the scenic byway I was driving down.  I can’t say that this scenic byway can compare with the byways of Idaho, but I have to remember that there aren’t any mountains in Louisiana.  :)  I did find a couple of roseate spoonbills and black-necked stilts feeding along the bayous.

This bird used to be called the Louisiana heron; how appropriate!  However, the powers that be in the bird world have decided that it should now be called the tri-colored heron.  Since I’m finally in Louisiana, I’m going to defy convention and call it a Louisiana heron while I’m in this state.  Just call me a wild and crazy gal!  :)

In my travels today, I drove past many flooded fields.  I had a real debate with myself whether these were rice fields or crawfish ponds.  When I got back to the repair place, I asked Helen Thibodaux about them.  She told me they are both.  During the growing season, they are planted with rice.  Then in the winter, they are used to raise crawfish.  Aha!  It made me feel good to have figured out both uses.  I just didn’t know the same fields were used both ways.

                                                                    THE END!!   

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

A scary experience!

This afternoon, I headed for the main part of the refuge to patrol the roads for litter. Some volunteers don't like picking up litter, but I do. The reason I like it is because I'm outside and can enjoy the wildlife while I'm working. I was driving my official refuge vehicle and decided to start with the route around Shoveler Pond. I had noticed quite a bit of litter there last week, but apparently someone else had picked it all up. I headed down the road to the boat launch on the bay. This is where many fisherman go. There is never a lack of beer cans, bait containers, and other junk that has been tossed along the road. I don't understand why fishermen (and women) can't take their trash with them. Anyway, I stopped numerous times to get out to gather the trash. As I tried to slow for more garbage, a light started flashing on the dash and an alarm was sounding. I couldn't stop...NO BRAKES! Thank goodness this happened on a refuge road and not on FM1985! I don't even want to think about the possibilities of what could have happened on that road where the truckers go about 80 mph.

I turned around and cautiously headed back to the shop only to find that the gate was closed and locked. I have a key to get in, but the problem was that a closed gate meant no one was is the temporary office area or the shop. I had noticed that Chuck, the staff that takes care of all the vehicles, had left the refuge around noon. Now what do I do? I didn't want to try driving the ten miles back to the rigs on FM 1985. I had passed John, the refuge assistant manager, on the road, but was unable to stop to flag him down. Thank goodness, I carry an emergency phone list for the refuge in my fanny pack. I called John, and he was able to return to the shop and get a different vehicle for me so I could get back home. Now I'm driving a ten passenger van around. That's really overkill for what I need, but at least the brakes work.

Before the brakes gave out, I was able to get a few shots around Shoveler Pond. One of the few survivors of the hurricane was out sunning himself. This big boy or girl was about eight feet long.
You can estimate the length of an alligator by looking at its head. The distance between the nostrils and eyes, in inches, converts to how many feet long the gator is.

I also spotted a Roseate Spoonbill quite a distance out in the fresh water marsh. This one wasn't very rosy, so I guess it hasn't been eating too many shrimp, which produce the reddish color.

Loosing the brakes was enough excitement for me for today. By the way, the body count is up to seven so far. After a suggestion from a reader, Jack, to fix them for Christmas dinner, I'm thinking of keeping them in the freezer so I can share the wealth with him in case he visits next month. ;)

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy

The Sunday Blast from the Past

Fast forward, or fast backward, to Feb.-May, 2007.........


I began my first volunteer assignment at a National Wildlife Refuge. There are over 550 National Wildlife Refuges in the country, and Anahuac (pronounced anna-whack) is located southeast of Houston, Texas. It is on the Gulf of Mexico coast and consists of mostly marsh lands. The difference between a marsh and a swamp is that swamps have trees, and marshes do not. Both have abundant mosquitoes. ;)
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I spent three months there and worked 32 hours/week. Living in a spot surrounded by marsh was a new experience for me. My duties included working in the Visitor's Information Station (VIS), light maintenance, elementary school education programs, and waterfowl studies. Being an experienced birder was an advantage at this refuge and I enjoyed helping the biologist with a waterfowl study.



There were plenty of other critters there besides birds....like this alligator,

and small lizards (I think they were called anuoles).


I even found a little green tree frog clinging to my awning brace.
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Of course, my main interest was birds, and I was not disappointed. Thousands of snow geese winter on the refuge, and it is a major migration stopping point for thousands of neo-tropical migrants in the spring.


In nearby High Island, Texas, was a rookery (breeding location) for great egrets, neotropic cormorants, and roseate spoonbills. The pinkness of the spoonbills is determined by the amount of shrimp they eat. These spoonbills, obviously, had a good supply of shrimp in their diet.



Scattered across much of the land in the refuge were these mud mounds that measured about ten inches tall. They are constructed by crawdads (or crawfish, or crayfish, depending on where you are from). It's amazing how these creatures build these mud tunnels from marble like rounds of mud.


This was the visitor's center where I worked...outside...

and inside.........

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Last year, Anahuac received a direct hit from hurricane Ike, and the result was that this VIS was pretty much demolished. The water surged seven feet tall through the VIS and the office and maintenance buildings behind. The refuge was devastated, most alligators and other wildlife were drowned, and the volunteer building no longer exists. I have seen pictures of the destruction, and it is hard for me to wrap my mind around it. I will be spending about five weeks there this winter helping to rebuild the education program, so I'll be able to post the recovery efforts for this important refuge.

Last, but not least, is a view of the refuge that I experienced at the close of one of the waterfowl counts that I did. Views like this made me forget the mosquitoes for a while! ;)

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You know, I'm really enjoying these blasts from the past as I reminisce about my fulltiming experiences. I hope you enjoy them also.

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy