Of Birds and Dogs

NEW IBERIA ON THE BAYOU TECHE, LOUISIANA – Now, over half way, we should begin today with some general reflections.

Knock on wood!

It has been unseasonably hot and humid for most of our trip (90° yesterday) but we have had very few bugs. Sure, the occasional mosquito, but what’s a few of them. Even the dogs seem unaffected. A blessing, so far!

We are holding up well. We have learned a lot, seen a lot, and had not a dull moment or a bad argument. The opposite of boredom or even routine has been the case, so we are exhausted every night. The morning coffee in our cabin here on the Teche is percolating away now. Thank goodness.

Cabin on the Teche

But most important, now let us praise famous dogs. During our human self-indulgencies, they have stayed happy, healthy, loyal, and amusing, whether riding in the car, endlessly hopping in and out of its “wayback,” eating at odd hours, left with dog boarding operations, taken to many strange environments, which, if stressful, are nevertheless full of exciting new smells. Really, nothing is settled for them except Cece and Gus and playing ball every morning. Yet when we find a couch (about weekly) and Gus stretches out like he does in Strafford and at the beach house, the dogs head for their same, established positions—Weezie against the couch on the floor and Capers up on it and wrapped around Gus in various ways. They are a joy, and a new yellow lab puppy awaits us in Vermont, eight weeks old in mid-June.

Enough reflecting. Yesterday, Thursday, we drove from New Iberia over to Abbeville, a lovely small town, sleepy, artsy, proud—like several of the places we’ve stayed. We had a great lunch at Black’s Oyster House. Cece had a Caesar salad with fried oysters, and for the first time in her life in one of her favorite ways to eat oysters, she had more oysters than she could handle! You did not have to go looking for them; they were piled high over the salad (you had to look for the salad instead).

Visit to Abbeville

On the way to Abbeville we stopped off at Jefferson Island. Like Avery Island, it is actually a salt dome. It became the beautiful garden estate of a 19^th century American actor, Joseph Jefferson, famous for playing Rip Van Winkle, and the gardens and home are lovely. The property sits on the shores of Lake Peigneur, which was a nice place to be until 1980 when an oil or gas drilling operation working near the lake punctured the salt dome under the lake and the lake’s water disappeared down the hole, forming a giant whirlpool—like pulling the plug on a huge bathtub—that sucked in barges, fishing and pleasure boats, trees and even a house. Now 35 years later the lake and grounds around it look quite normal.

Rip Van Winkle Gardens

When the lake came back, it did so with a vengeance, flooding the original shoreline.

In the Gardens

However, our big event of the day was the staggeringly beautiful Rip’s Rookery on the road to the gardens, formed around several treed islands in a small lake. We saw many of the expected birds—cormorants, anhinga, snowy egrets, American egrets, tri-color herons, but the rookery’s main inhabitants were the striking roseate spoonbills with their strange bills, bright red and orange markings and overall pink rose color. There were hundreds of them just beginning to nest. The other main inhabitants were, of all things, cattle egrets. We have never thought much of the lowly cattle egret but can now attest that in their breeding plumage they are quite lovely both in appearance and behavior!

We were so smitten by Rip’s Rookery that we returned for a second extended visit on the way back from Abbeville.

At Rip's Rookery

Spoonbills and Egrets Galore