Riches in the Ditches

Beauty is truly found in unsuspecting places.  All you gotta do is have your eyes open to see it and appreciate it. I think I've already told this story, but every year I see it and it reminds me.  About 24 years ago I was farming rice on our family farm.  I distinctly remember driving my truck down a gravel road between Carrier Road and Cotton Gin Road.  I was on my way to check the irrigation well we called the "big well."  It pumped cool, clear water from 180 feet below the flat, hot surface above.  

The well, powered by a big engine with straight pipes, was loud.  It roared.  The horsepower of that engine was impressive, lifting columns of water from the underground aquifer to the rice field where the fields were kept with a good flood of 6 inches of water for months.  Rice likes its feet wet.  When you got out of the truck, the noise of the engine would hurt your ears.  If you went at night time to check the oil in the engine or make sure that the dripper was still dripping hydraulic oil to lubricate the bearings, the manifold would glow cherry red. 

On this particular day, it was around noon.  It was a sultry summer day.  The air heavy with humidity, the mosquitoes buzzing, hungry for a feast of blood from some unsuspecting beast or man.  The sun beat down in punishing fashion.  As I was about to turn in, I noticed it in the ditch.  It was a clump of beautiful flowers.  Now, I'm not a flower guy, not a bit.  But it was hard not to admire this flower.

The Louisiana Iris.  It's the state wildflower of Louisiana.  The state flower of Louisiana is the magnolia flower.  It's flower is pure white, with a fresh, clean fragrance that you can't stop sniffing to get just one more scent in your nostrils.  The downside is that if you cut it off the tree to bring it inside, it turns brown very quickly, as if to communicate that it's better to leave it on the tree and admire its beauty in the outdoors.  The Louisiana iris is a vibrant purplish blue color, the color of royalty.  It has hints of deep gold that accent its beauty.  

How could something so beautiful be in a ditch and not in a manicured garden?  Because, like rice, the Louisiana iris likes its feet wet and what needs beauty more than a roadside ditch?  A couple decades ago, every rice farmer worth his salt had a Pony #2 shovel with an ash handle in the bed of his pickup truck sharpened to a razor edge to cut through levees and the tough leathery bodies of the cottonmouth moccasin, our arch enemy in the rice fields.

I pulled my shovel out of the back of the truck and walked to the ditch, pushing the ubiquitous empty beer can floating in the muddy water out of the way.  I dug deep into the soft mud and scooped out a big scoop of mud, making sure I had all the roots of the iris.  I had to rescue it and bring it to our new home 30 miles north.  I did leave some behind, though, as that roadside ditch needed beautification as well.

I planted it in a low area where a ditch on our property carries rainwater.  It always stays sort of wet and I figured it would be a good home for the Louisiana Iris, bringing beauty to our home.  And it has.  Each year, I look on it and smile and remember finding it.  The iris has thrived, multiplying and filling the ditch.  It blooms each April, never disappointing.  The wife and I always look for its blooms and announce to each other when the first bloom appears.

We even used a shovel to move some of it near the sidewalk on our back patio.  It announced its happiness to be in that location by spreading quickly to fill that bed.  Now we can enjoy it in two locations - the back patio and the ditch that runs through the grove.

We enjoy their blooms while they last.  Soon their beauty fades, however.

But we're left with the anticipation of the blooms next April, signaling spring and bringing back remembrances of finding riches in the ditches.

Lovely Louisiana Iris

About twenty four years ago, I was in my pickup truck at the farm in Oberlin.  I was driving down a gravel road that is between Cottongin Road and Carrier Road.  Our family farm has land the borders the southern part of that road.  There's a rice irrigation well there that we called the "big well."  It was a 12" well that had a big engine powering it.  I can remember as a kid riding along with my dad as he checked the oil in that well engine.  It would run for 24 hours a day for weeks on end flooding the rice fields.  The sound the engine would put out was excruciatingly loud.  When we would check the engine at night, the exhaust manifold would be so hot, it would glow 'cherry-red.'

Back to that day 24 years ago.  I was driving my truck with the windows rolled down listening to some country music, I'm sure.  I had my elbow resting on the door as I observed my surroundings.  Then I spotted it.  There in the roadside ditch in front of what was an old home-place, was a big clump of Louisiana Iris growing in the muddy water.  They were blooming.  I'm not even a flower guy, but I couldn't help but admire the beauty.

I got the shovel out of the bed of my pickup and scooped up one bunch of the iris out of the ditch along with the mud and set it in back of my truck.  I had a plan.  We had just bought the land where we were going to build our home.  I figured it would be neat to start something so beautiful at my home that was originally in front of an old, old homeplace.  Why, generations of people could enjoy the beauty of the Louisiana Iris.  I would plant it in the lowest, wettest part of our yard.  It would be the gift that would keep on giving.  If I could keep it alive...

Twenty four years later...

That shovel-ful of iris has expanded around the water oak that I planted it near and fills the ditch.  I think it is happy there.  And the blooms!  Have you ever seen something so beautiful?  Every spring, they brighten the yard with royal purple and yellow blooms.

We have a back patio and a couple of years ago, Tricia moved a few of the iris in the bed that borders the patio and the house.  That was a great idea.  They thrive there.  Rain falls off the roof, fills the water catchment tub we have for the honeybees and then spills over.  The soil stays moist there, making it an ideal spot for the iris.  It gives us a good chance to admire the blooms as we sit on the patio.

Plants tend to bring back memories.  You can look at trees or shrubs or plants in the yard and remember...  Oh, that's the Confederate Jasmine that's from my grandmother's house.  Or, that's the Formosa Azalea from my other grandmother's house.  Every time I look at the Louisiana Iris, I think about seeing them growing in the ditch on that gravel road at the farm as I slowly drove by that day.  I'm glad I had my shovel and thought to bring one home. The lovely Louisiana iris is still going strong after all those years.

Up By the Road Ditch

Up by the road ditch in the front yard is a huge azalea bush.  In recent years, we've planted a baby's breath bush beside it for the white color to contrast against the hot pink.  It's in full bloom right now.  Actually, it's a good thing I got a photo of it when I did because we had a 2 inch downpour of rain today and most of the flowers are faded and torn up.  Glad I got a photo of the azalea in all its glory.  This azalea is one that we moved from my grandmother's house in Kinder.  I like planting things that have a story or some history.  That way when we walk around the yard, the sights spur fond memories.  The azalea is happy and is flourishing.  We planted in to anchor the western side of our yard.  It's doing a nice job.

Something that is not doing a nice job is the parish crew that is in charge of the ditches.  They pass by in a truck and spray Round-up in the ditch.  This variety of roundup kills everything buy Bermuda grass.  I can see why they do it.  It keeps the ditches clean so that water flows easily through it.  It also reduces the amount of time that they have to pass by with a tractor and cut the grass.

There's one problem, however.  They consistently over-shoot the ditch and spray Round-up 3 feet onto my property.  I'll show why that's a problem in a minute.  To combat this, I ordered some plastic corrugated signs and made some homemade placards to kindly and diplomatically request no spray on the ditch in front of our yard/pasture.  I have the similar message on the back side in the event they spray coming from the other direction.

Here's the issue and my grievance with the herbicide.  Roundup kills the grass down to the dirt.  This makes their job easier, BUT barren soil with no grass and no root structure holding it together creates an erosion problem.  You can see below how my topsoil on my property is eroding into the ditch.  Topsoil that should be growing grass now is slowly filling the ditch.  At some point the ditch will have so much of my soil in it that it won't properly drain.  Then they'll come with a track-hoe and a dump truck and scoop up my top soil and carry it away.

Erosion!

The downside of "No Spray" is that I'll have to take responsibility for keeping the ditch clean.  You can see in the photo below that I used a string trimmer to weed-eat the entire ditch.  It is not a terrible job to do this, but it's not a job I prefer doing.  The thing I thought about is the job will become a terrible job in August when the temperature approaches 100 and the humidity level approaches 100% as well!

I don't know.  We'll discuss this again in August.  It may make me re-think my position on "No Spray."

Son of a Gun, We're Gonna Have Big Fun on the Bayou...

On Tuesday we had some mean thunderstorms blow through.  Strong wind.  Torrential rain.  Thunder and Lightning.  After a rain, I like to do what I've done since I was a kid - walk around and observe the changes.  You can smell the ozone in the air.  The grass seems greener.  You can hear the frogs croaking.  The rainwater is rushing through the ditch.

Our live oak trees are casting off the old growth leaves and are replacing with new growth and tassels.  The leaves were blocking the ditch, holding back lots of water.  I had my rubber boots on, so I started on the easternmost side of the property and proceeded to kick the leaves out of the ditch.  This relieved the back pressure and the one and a half inches of rainfall began to evacuate the property.

As I looked down, I spotted a pair.  The one on the left is a male crawfish and the one on the right is a female.  They were not happy to see me.

I picked them both up to observe them.  The old-timers always say that the thunder and lightning get the crawfish out of their burrows in the ground and bring them to the surface.  They're right!

When I picked up the female, I realized she was full of babies.  Her little ones stay secured under her tail.

Here's a little closer look.  There are dozens and dozens tucked beneath her tail.  She was very protective of her babies and was itching to pinch me, but I wasn't going to allow that to happen.  I set her back down in the ditch so that she could raise her babies.

Sure does make me hungry for some boiled crawfish with potatoes and corn.  Now that the price has dropped off a little, we'll have to go get some platters.  C'est bon!

Running in The Ditch

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.   Galatians 6:9 (KJV)

Late Thursday afternoon I drove in from work.  It always feels good to be home after a hard day, but on this particular day, it appeared that we had unexpected company.  I like visiting and like company, but I didn't recognize the vehicle in the driveway.  It was an older model, four wheel drive pickup truck, jacked up with big mud grips and it was parked partially blocking the driveway.  I drove around it and pulled into the garage.

I noticed at that point that neither Benjamin or Russ was home - just Tricia, and I got a little concerned.  I went through the back door and there was a young man standing there talking to my wife in the kitchen with a work short with a patch embroidered on it bearing his name.  I read it and looked at the guy's face.  A young face, but one with a beard and yet vaguely familiar.  He reached out his hand to shake hands and smiled and I recognized him.  He is the neighbor kid that lives adjacent to our property in the back.  We hadn't seen the young man in years.  He and Benjamin would get together and play when they were younger.

After shaking hands, the young man said, "Did you see the ditch?  That's why I stopped in.  I wanted to apologize." 

"What ditch?" I said.

"The one in your front yard."  He said.  He continued and told us that because it is rice harvest season, a big combine and a tractor and rice cart were coming down the road.  The combine had a big cutter bar/header that took up the entire road, forcing the neighbor kid's truck into the ditch.  "I didn't realize the ditch was wet and when I pulled out, I realized that I rutted up your yard."  "I am sorry."

I told him that it was not his fault and that the ditch is actually on the other side of the road from our property, next to our mailbox, and that finally, it was no big deal.  We visited for a while and caught up with what was going on in Matt's life.  I told him "thank you" for having the honesty and integrity for stopping by and telling us.  When he left, I told Tricia that Tommy and Dana had certainly raised him right.  Listening to all the division and arguing and vitriol that is in the news every day in our country, has a way of making you feel that people are looking out for themselves only.  Political shenanigans, dishonesty, cheating, lying, and mean-spirited back and forth, gives you the sense that people who are moral and upright, people who have character and integrity, people who are humble and honest are rare, if not extinct.

It was refreshing to see that this is not the case.  In the year 2019, a man who feels he's done something wrong can still pull in the driveway and apologize, man to man, for a mis-deed, even if he was guilty of no intentional wrong-doing.  It gave me hope for the future.

As I thought about this, it reminded me of an event that took place forty-something years ago, but it always stuck with me.  I was riding in the passenger seat of my dad's truck to the farm.  We turned off the main road and were driving down a two lane blacktop road right in front of a neighbor's house near a set of rice bins next to the highway.

All of a sudden out of nowhere a chicken darted out of the ditch and into the road.  Chickens are notorious around the farm for eating the rice that falls onto the road and this answers the question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" at least around Oberlin, Louisiana.  The chicken was intent on eating and didn't see my dad's truck.  We felt that familiar thump underneath the truck's tires as we flattened the hen out.

Image Credit

Although that isn't the actual photo, that is sort of what she might have looked like if I had a camera on me 40-something years ago.  My dad put the truck in reverse and drove into the driveway of the farm house.  "What are you doing?"  I asked.  "I'm going to pay for the chicken," Dad said.  I remember thinking, "It wasn't Dad's fault.  Why was he going to pay for a dumb bird that should have stayed in the yard?"

It was a lesson that didn't need to be explained.  It was being lived out.  It was doing the right thing.  I've often heard it said that character is doing the right thing when no one is watching.  The neighbor kid that rutted up our ditch could have driven on down the road and no one would have ever seen.  Forty years ago, my dad could have kept on going and we would have been around the corner before the feathers stopped flying and no one would have known what happened. 

Doing the right thing isn't always easy.  When we run off in the ditch or flatten out a chicken, we have a choice.  What we do with that choice, even if no one ever sees, defines us as men.  Even if no one sees, God sees. 

2 Chronicles 16:9  For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

A Very Lucky Snapping Turtle

Someone at work asked me if I ate snapping turtles last week.  I said, "sure."  He told me there was a big one in the ditch right outside the shop.  It has been raining non-stop for two weeks now, so all the ditches are flooded with water.  I walked outside and grabbed a big stick and walked to the ditch.  There was the old snapping turtle on the bottom of the ditch.  The clear rainwater made the snapper easy to see.

I used the stick to pry him off the bottom and slid him up and out of the water.  He was pretty mad and started snapping at the stick with his 'beak-like' mouth.  I was careful to keep my distance as old-timers say that if they bite you, they don't let go until it thunders or lightning strikes.  I wasn't going to test out that theory.

I remembered back when I was farming, I had lots of experience in catching snapping turtles.  Prior to planting rice we would water level all the rice fields.  The best way to describe this practice is to say that it involves dragging a big blade behind a big tractor in a flooded field.  The blade pulls the mud up and rolls it over, turning the mud into a slurry that is pulled round and round in the field.  You do your best to pull the high spots into the low.  Gravity levels the mud so that the portion of field you are in is level and would accept a flood with no high spots.  Kind of hard to explain.

Anyway, this would inevitably unearth big turtles.  You could see them swimming in the water and we would get out of the tractor, wade through the water and grab the turtles by the tail.  I'd bring them into the cab of the tractor and put them on the floor.  Man, would they stink!  Turtles have the ability to emit and nasty smell.  At the end of the day, we'd put them in the back of the truck and bring them to a cousin's house.  You could hear the turtles rustling underneath a bunch of Dr. Pepper cans.  We'd put them in an old freezer in the yard where they would wait until we had gathered enough turtles to eat.  A big turtle sauce piquante (turtle meat cooked in a spicy red gravy) would be cooked and we'd eat it for lunch.  Delicious!  It has been a while since I've eaten turtle sauce piquant.

I was thinking about bringing him home and cooking him, but this is no country turtle.  We work right near a bunch of big chemical plants and that is where this turtle was found.  These turtles can live to be 100 years old.  I have no idea what type of toxins are in his meat and didn't want to take the chance in eating him.  Besides, he's really stink up my car if I tried to take him home.  So, I used the stick to push the old fella back in the ditch instead of taking him home to eat.  He's a lucky turtle!

Food from the Ditch

Well that sounds disgusting, doesn’t it?  Not really.  The property just over the road that runs in front of our home is overgrown.  It hasn’t been planted in rice or soybeans in about five years (maybe more than that) and small trees are starting to grow up where agricultural crops once grew.  That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing edible in there, though.

Each year around this time, we keep a watchful eye for blooms in the ditch across the road that signal the soon arrival of dewberries.  Dewberries are a little bigger and juicier than blackberries.  They also ripen a little earlier than blackberries in our area.  They have runners that have a red tinge to them with thorns and they fill the levee and ditch across the road.

Ripe Dewberries

That’s when we get containers and spread out along the roadside ditch looking for berries.  In addition to looking out for dewberries, Tricia also looks out for snakes.

Mom & Son berry pickin'

We generally use quart-sized yogurt or sour cream containers and then have a larger bowl or colander that we dump into as we fill our cups.  With Tricia, Benjamin and I picking, it didn’t take long at all to harvest a gallon from the roadside.  What an easy crop!  You don’t have to plant it, weed it, water it, or tend to it.  The Good Lord takes care of all of that for you.

A quart of fresh berries

Since dewberries have thorns, we get scratched up when picking them, but that’s just part of it.  Usually the plumpest berry is in the hardest to reach place, and you must stick your hand deep into the bushes to get the best ones.  A lot of them will bust in your hand, leaving you with purple fingers.  And of course, you have to eat a few just right off the vine.  It doesn’t get any fresher than that!

A handful of dewberries

We’ll bring them in and wash them up as there are countless little critters like stink bugs and worms crawling on them.  You have to handle them carefully, though because you don’t want them to bust open and lose all the sweet juice that is within the purple-black berry. 

Cleaned up

Once they are completely dry, we’ll process them to separate the juice from the pulp and seeds.

Ready for processing

Then we’ll make dewberry jelly, dewberry pie or muffins, or Tricia will make a syrup by cooking down the juice with a little honey or sugar and we’ll pour that into homemade ice cream to make dewberry ice cream.  That has become a family favorite.  Lots of people buy their own blackberry or dewberry canes to grow and I’ve often thought about buying some and planting them in the yard, especially the thornless varieties, but as long as they grow on their own in the ditch across the road for free, well… I think I’ll just continue letting them grow on their own.

That reminds me.  I don’t think a gallon is near enough.  Benjamin spotted more dewberries growing a little farther down the ditch.  I think I’ll go pick them some more after work today.