Swamp People

This weekend Tricia and Laura Lee headed to College Station, Texas to watch Texas A&M and LSU play football.  Russ and Benjamin had a Boy Scout Camporee at Camp Edgewood.  I was left all by my lonesome to handle the farm chores and get some serious weeding done in the garden.  A good buddy of mine invited me to do something that I'd never done before - go fishing in Henderson Swamp in the Atchafalya Basin.  I've always crossed over the the Swamp and wanted to go check it out.  Here was my chance!  Atchafalaya is a Choctaw word that means long river.

I woke up at 4:30, milked Daisy, fed all of the animals and my buddy picked me up.  After about an hour drive, we drove over the levee and launched right as the sun was breaking over the horizon.  It was a spectacular sight, seeing the sun coming through the fog amidst the cypress trees.


Atchafalaya Sunrise

The Atchafalaya basin is about 20 miles wide and 150 miles long and is the largest swamp in the United States.  It is full of wildlife.  We watched as a heron similar to the one below snatched up a big crawfish and flew off with it.  The water in some areas, like below, was the color and consistency of chocolate milk.


A bird's eye view

In other areas, the water was clear.  It was chilly at first, but once the sun came out, it was the most gorgeous day ever. 

There were new sights at every turn.  We saw some really nice houseboats that people actually live on.  We also saw some that were less aesthetically pleasing!


Beautiful bald cypress trees draped in Spanish Moss

Some of the water was just a couple of feet deep, whereas we were in some places where it was 15 feet deep.  The deeper channels were cut by the Army Corps of Engineers to get dirt to build the massive levee system that surrounds the Atchafalaya Basin.  This was built to protect the neighboring farmland and houses from floods that devastated the area prior to the levees being constructed.
 

Reflections on the swamp

The swamp is filled with Bald Cypress trees.  This is the State tree of Louisiana and is valued for its timber.  The lumber is known for its ability to repel water and insects and was used extensively in building homes for this reason by the early Cajuns that settled this area. 


Pretty Bald Cypress Tree

Some of the water had water hyacinth and other aquatic plants growing on top of it.  There are times in the summer where these plants completely cover the water.  The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries tries to control this as they make the waterways impassable by boat traffic and deplete the oxygen content in the water, causing fish kills.  There is a lot of crawfish production harvested out of the Atchafalaya Basin.  In fact, neighboring Breaux Bridge, Louisiana bills itself as the Crawfish Capital of the World. 
 

Aquatic plants growing on top of the water

Although he is almost impossible to see in this picture, a huge alligator lounged in the sun waiting for something to eat to pass by - a fisherman, perhaps?
 

Alligator hiding in the reflections of the I-10 bridge

If you are ever en route from Lafayette to Baton Rouge, you've crossed over the Atchafalaya Freeway. This elevated bridge is 18.2 miles long and a marvel of engineering.  With the amount of traffic that crosses this bridge on any given day it is amazing to think about what happened prior to this stretch of I-10 being built.  The communities along Highway 90 and Highway 190 and the mom & pop stores within them, certainly miss the revenues that that traffic used to bring.


Atchafalaya Basin Bridge east and westbound

The Atchafalaya Basin Bridge is the 14th longest bridge in the world and opened in 1973. 

An interesting photo looking down through the pilings

If you look in the distance, you can see the I-10 bridge in the distance with 18 wheelers on it.  This is the opposite view as you're normally on that bridge looking out to this exact area.  It was at this point that a large Atchafalya Swamp Tours boat passed us loaded with tourists.  My buddy and I joked that the tour guide was probably pointing us out to the tourists saying, "If you look out there, you can see poor old Boudreaux and Thibodeaux fishing for supper.  They live out on the bayou and don't wear shoes or have any teeth.  If they don't catch anything, they'll likely eat a muskrat or a nutria."  We could have really done some things to feed the stereotype, but we just smiled and waved, proving that we do have a few teeth in our heads!  


 

I-10 in the distance

Now, it is painfully obvious that I haven't shown any fish.  We didn't catch any.  The weather was gorgeous with a High Pressure sitting over us and fish don't normally bite at these times so it looks like its muskrat for supper (the other white meat).  We enjoyed some great scenery and an awesome day nonetheless.

After I got home I weeded the garden and replanted some areas where the germination was poor.  I'll show you some shots of the garden this week.  Some of the items are ready for harvest.