It's a dirty job . . .
but somebody’s gotta do it and I love taking them to do it!
We meet early in the morning at the landing . . .
Load up all the volunteer planters and all the plants and chests of water
During the hour-long journey, we see some interesting sights–especially if you’ve never been to coastal Louisiana before. Sights like this camp out in the middle of the nowhere marsh! It has a very fitting name . . .
Isn’t that hilarious? Camp Bayou Self!!!!
Once at the sight, we get brief instructions about how to pair up, dig the holes, and insert the plants. It goes quickly and each pair should be able to plant 100 plants.
This is only one containment area of newly dredged sediment. This area has washed out and sediment is being sucked from a nearby lake
and pumped through these huge pipes into the area being built up.
Our job is to expedite the settling of these containment areas by planting spartina patens and spartina alterniflora, two types of marsh grass.
In coordination with Terrebonne Parish, BTNEP, and Bayou Grace, we hope to be doing more and more of these plantings as part of Wetland Tours. If you can’t come down for a planting, consider making a donation and earmarking it for marsh grass plantings. That is a substantial way you can help the bayou people.
Okay, I’m first. Your random generator has picked number 1 twice! Odds are in my favor, no?
I hope the marsh grass planting takes off! Once you have all the details of how it’s going to work, let me know!
Yes, please let me know if there is a schedule. I can’t tromp through the marsh anymore but maybe I can help in another way.
The purpose of this project is to push out salt water allowing fresh water to regenerate and replentish the marsh. Bayou Racourcci is ‘sweeter’ than I’ve seen it in a long time. Sooo, it must be working.
Nice! Grassroots, baby, grassroots.
Nicely done….Rain here ….naptime.
So, how exactly does this random integer generator thing work anyway? Like, if I
just keep leaving comments does
that increase my odds of
winning?
LOL!!!!!!!To diane huhn, I’m pretty sure, like the Lottery, it only takes 1 ticket . If BW comes back with a different answer
I’m sure she will
be having record
setting replies!
Sorry Bw, couldn’t resist! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
You girls are cracking me up! Making my Friday worthwhile!!!! Keep ’em coming folks!!!!! BW
Ha!
LOL!
Very funny!
Hope I win!
That’s all I have
to say about that!
Meant to post this yesterday, but forgot. Anyway…Tarbaby’s photo was in the B.R. paper yesterday. Photographic proof he’s doing his part in passing on a wonderful pastime to another generation. He was pictured with his granddaughter at a children’s fishing rodeo.
I loved the photos BW. And the BayouSelf camp is priceless! LOL
I was wondering about the plantings. The why, etc. but, I read the answer to my question above. I know that I have read articles about how the swamp has literally taken over what once was rambling estates with acres and acres of land and beautiful manors. I always wondered if LA was sinking and thus allowing this to happen.
Did the low areas that are being refilled with silt occur during hurricanes or is it something that occurs over time? Does the newly built up areas act as a levee in keeping the salt water out and the marsh grass help to keep it from washing away again?
I admire the work all of you are doing in protecting and replinishing your beautiful bayous.
Relatively speaking, the wetland where I live is new land laid down by the flooding of the Miss. river over thousands of years. Once it was leveed and dammed in the late 1920’s, it could no longer flood and replenish the sediment here. But all the bayous where we live have high ridges of land on each bank and that is where our ancestors settled. We did not settle in a “flood zone”. This has become a flood zone because coastal Louisiana is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. There are 7 major causes of this, but the easiest to understand is subsidence, which is the natural compacting of the wetland/marsh over time. That process has been sped up by the taking of petroleum products out from under the wetland/marsh. The thousands of canals that were dug for oil field production chopped the marsh into segments, and all those canals are conduits for saltwater intrusion into fresher wetland areas. Once those freshwater plants are killed, the land subsides more rapidly because the dead plants cannot hold the soil in place. What TE-44 will do is restore a crucial mass of marshland that has been destroyed over a long period of time by saltwater intrusion. The restoring of the north shore of Lake Mechant (saltwater) and the marshland above the shoreline will slow down the saltwater intrusion and protect the freshwater areas further north, like Bayou Decade, L’eau Deuce, Lake Decade, and on up. One of my readers here, Cynthia, has a camp right out at the sight of this project, and she is saying the water is already fresher than she has seen it in years, and that is a GOOD THING! What we are doing is helping the soil by planting the marsh grass rather than waiting for it to seed on its own, which it will eventually do. We’re just giving Mother Nature a helping hand!!! Thanks so much for your interest, and remember that this area is just one of MANY that needs to be restored across our coastline. We are subsiding at the rate of a football field every half hour. Just let that soak in. We lose about 25 square miles of wetland every year—-so that our nation can have petroleum . . . . . so if anybody is inclined to show their appreciation by making a donation for marsh plants or by coming down to do a planting, PLEASE DO SO!!!!! BW
Folks, it’s my pleasure to help kids enjoy fishing. I know it’s a little long, but if you’ll copy & paste the link you can read my column about the historr of the East Ascension Sportsman’s League Kids Rodeo. Thanks Steffi. http://www.weeklycitizen.com/sports/x1558729243/OUTDOOR-CORNER-EASL-Kids-Fishing-Rodeo-hasn-t-changed-much-after-nearly-a-half-of-a-century
Good work, all. Your bayou is a lovely place and I am glad there are people working to keep it that way.
Thank you for the info. It is very interesting and is something that should be taught early to children in every classroom in America!
I do what I can by recycling the items that we can in our area. Aluminum cans, plastic, newspaper, cardboard, etc. My husband works for a very large recycling company that turns old cardboard, paper, etc. into new cardboard and brown paper. They recently installed a new power source to run the plant. It uses old, worn out, chipped up pallets in a burner for energy. I have never seen it smoke so I don’t know exactly how it works but, the ashes are shipped someplace to be used for something. If the weather doesn’t change and cool off soon, I may need to get a bunch of the ashes and put around my yard to keep the snakes out!!
I also raise a lot of our food and use natural fertilizers and try to use only naturaly pesticides too. I also have a vehicle that gets over 30 mpg and only fill it once every 4-6 weeks. So that way, I will not be using up lots of petroleum.
Guess people don’t realize that if it can happen to LA, it can happen to all of the gulf states! Folks need to start thinking and working toward plugging that hole now and not later. You may have heard of the earth quakes that have been hitting west of Dallas/Ft. Worth area. The people were thrilled to allow drillers to put in wells and pump out natural gas for the royalties. But now, they are wondering if the frequent quakes are a result of that. Makes sense to me. Even a balloon filled with air or water goes flat and collapses if it is emptied. And the earth has a lot of weight sitting over those now empty holes.
This Diane is the sort of underhanded backdoor sly sneaky sort I like.
Coffee was in Cook’s Illustrated or Men’s Health this month. French press got the nod. I can’t even remember if rock hard abs were mentioned in either.
I did a bunch of wading today for few fishies.
Yep, she’s underhanded, all right.
Abs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
Few fishies down here too. Croaker. Rat red. Flounder. No big reds.
Bayou Self ~ hilarious!! Clint is also involved in costal restoration. He and his uncle own a coastal restoration business, and are in the process of starting some government funded projects. However, it has been a long, slow process….
Its hot and humid and icky here. Mostly lets get the number over 30 for that generator.
BW, Which organization do you work with when you do these plantings? Do they contact you? I may make a donation shortly, but I’d want the donation used for seedlings. Could you set me on the right path?
Steffi – hold that thought and I will be able to tell you exactly where to send your (possibly tax deductible) donation very soon! And I’m really glad to hear you’re interested in doing that! Of course, not surprised, though! BW
Folks, it’s my pleasure to help kids enjoy fishing. I know it’s a little long, but if you’ll copy & paste the link you can read my column about the historr of the East Ascension Sportsman’s League Kids Rodeo. Thanks Steffi. http://www.weeklycitizen.com/sports/x1558729243/OUTDOOR-CORNER-EASL-Kids-Fishing-Rodeo-hasn-t-changed-much-after-nearly-a-half-of-a-century
Reply
I wonder if Coach could get away with bringing a botany class down for a visit. I would, of course, volunteer to help chaperone. Hmm….I shall have to start putting this little bug in his ear.
Please do! We are working on future plantings right now!
Okay, here is the number the Random.org Generator came up with, and I don’t have time right now to go count and see who it was. It is the Captain’s 60th birthday and we are all going to have dinner, so when I return tonight, someone should have counted the comments, excluding mine, and see who this is:
Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:
14
Timestamp: 2009-08-12 21:34:43 UTC
The Prize is your choice of any coffee mug from this page, except the espresso cups! See ya later, alligators! BW
Good grief. I can’t figure the timestamp but Congrats anyway.
Yeah, I can’t figure that timestamp thing out either, but who cares, because I apparently won and will be sipping my community coffee out of a lovely retro 60s coummunity mug very soon! Woohoo, baby!
Congrats Dianehuhn on your new Community Mug! My granddaughter commandeered my espresso mug set for her hope chest! It is so hard to say no to a grandchild that tells you she really, really loves you and knows you want her to have nice things too. ^-^
Oh, I think giving them to her was a wonderful thing. I don’t hear of girls having hope chests any more these days! Tell her that BW is very, very happy for her and her commitment to the old ways!
Will Do!! She is using my old hump backed, steamer trunk that was my hope chest. She already has a home made quilt, some cast iron skillets and odds and ends in it and she is only 8.
She will get my good china eventually too. Mom started buying it a place setting at a time when I was about 8.