Big Branch Marsh - Days 4-5 by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Big Branch Marsh - Days 4-5

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Friday, October 1, 2010 11:48
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Friday, October 1, 2010 11:48 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Thanx Chris, Mal4, Pizmo, Magons; you're very kind. We may go into the City tonight, we'll see.

First off, I realized I didn't put the photo up of the tents at the site...I wrote the sentence but apparently forgot to upload the photo:

That was Wednesday, when the press and High Mucky-Mucks visited.

The birds are so tame, I guess they're used to people and are protected. There are egrets standing around just feet from the cars, maybe looking for throwaway bait or something...they only fly off if you get too close or the airboats come in:

These are our airboats--the Fish & Wildlife guys run them and ferry us to and from the site itself. Each day they also haul all the food, tents, plants, etc., out to whatever site we're working on and then back in. We obviously couldn't do all this without their help.

Okay:

I took off early today...yesterday I got back to the hotel and just CRASHED for three hours, missed dinner, went to bed early and slept to this morning. After about two rows of planting this morning I came back to camp...I usually grab a bag of plants and stay out until lunch, then go out again and don't come back until we're packing up. But I got hungry around 10:30 and after I came in and ate a sandwich, I realized I'm POOPED, so knocked off early. Gonna knock off tomorrow, too...they have periodic "Work Play Days" at the refuge...you work 9-noon, they provide lunch, then if you want you go canoeing on the bayou! Ken mentioned it when I said I was determined to see the bayou while here; I said "yeah, but we work Saturday", he said no problem, just switch this for that.

As it is, we seem to run out of grasses before 3pm--they weren't prepared for how hard we'd work! Since people have flights, hotel reservations, etc., to come down here, they don't want us to use up all the grass any one day, an leave nothing for them. We won't have another delivery of grass until Monday, and they're planting tomorrow, too. So I figure let some of the new people have all the "fun", and I'll get a free bayou tour for three hours of work! It's gorgeous out there. I still want to take an "official" tour, Ken says that's a good thing to do 'cuz you get the history, etc., but this sounds like fun.

Got some new pix...not very exciting, but once you've seen all this, it's pretty much duplication. From the last batch I've learned some thing...the video of those stilt houses; where they are was 8-10 feet underwater during Katrina! Some of them have been rebuilt, some of them survived. The refuge headquarters is 23 feet above sea level, so it was okay. These folks: not so much.

The land we're planting on is created by what's left of dredging the Mississippi. They have to dredge on a regular basis to keep the shipping channels open. They used to dump it outside in the Gulf, but now everything dredged is dumped alongside the wetlands, and then the Coalition plants it. Open water is bad, it lets the tidal surge in. Wetlands are good, they cut the tidal surge as it comes inland. Ergo, what we're doing.

Today someone got bitten by a crab...even drew a teeny bit of blood. Someone said they saw a tiny gator yesterday, and a few have found bones of...damn, I'll have to ask Bonnie. She brought one home. There are things that live out there, but not much...LOTS of dragonflies everywhere and some gorgeous Monarch butterflies, but neither will hold still to be photographed! Lots of fish, and where we board the airboats, there's always fishermen and crabbers. The crabs are plentiful, I've watched them just toss bait in and haul crabs out...they're BLUE! Don't ask me what kind, I'll try to remember to ask Monday.

This is Jennifer Kaylee (as I call her) giving her "safety speech". She has to give it for every bunch of newcomers when we board the airboats...you know, "hang on", "don't put your hands outside the boat", stuff like that. She is really a kick in the pants, we planted rows together yesteday and she keeps us in stitches.

Everyone planting out in the water eventually hits a mud hole. You're walking along, and suddenly the next step, you're up to your knee, thigh or ass. Really. Soft mud under the crusty stuff. You can always tell, because the person hollers in surprise. Kat did yesterday and it was a riot...Bonnie was working partnered with her and started laughing her head off. We teased Bonnie about being "some partner you are!"...Kat struggled herself free, and thirty seconds later Bonnie hit one! Served her right.

We've decided getting stuck with one leg in is worth ten points; leg and arm 30 points, and if you disappear completely, 50 points. It's not that easy getting out, and funnier than hell to see people try to use their dibbles as crutches to hoist themselves out. The dibble sinks just as deep, of course, and they usually fall forward. Someone can give you a hand and haul you out, or you can push yourself out on your knees, but it's always a bit of a struggle, that mud "Sucks" in more ways than one!

The camraderie and good humor out there is amazing...or maybe it shouldn't be, I dunno, but I have yet to hear a single person grouse about ANYTHING, and these are conditions that are, to say the least, primitive! We're caked with grey mud when we leave, and I have to rinse and rinse and rinse to get my swimsuit bottom to stop coming out with black water. Some days, like today, it's quite hot by afternoon and always windy; it's hard work (especially for the land guys!), but never a word of complaint, and CONSTANT joking and laughing. It's an amazing experience.

Someone told me about a Lutheran church that provides food and lodging for $25 a night. I've joined the Coalition so will be informed of future events, I may come back some time. This time of year they plant grasses; just after we leave they start planting cypress trees. I could do this a LOT!

This is the Fish and Wildlife headquarters and visitor's center:

It was originally an estate, owned by a Governor, and prior to that part of it was a girls' school.

I'll take more shots of it, it just seems like "well, it's a bulding, so...?" But it's beautiful; there were manicured grounds, lakes, and gardens of many different kinds of camelias. That's where I'll be working tomorrow; Bayou Gardens and some of the interpretive trails. It's so beautiful and peaceful there; I heard a lot of different bird sounds and saw some, and checked out the vistor's center this afternoon. Oh, by the way, there are Mockers EVERYWHERE. I hear them all the time and I'm jealous--we only get Mockingbirds seasonally, and I adore them.

Like I said, most of what they talk about here is still Katrina, we're inland enough from the gulf, so the "Spill" didn't affect them as much as Katrina did.

They originally had a baseball field, tennis court, pool and I forget what else at the headquarters of the Reserve. But Katrina took it all. It took down tons of cypress trees. Ken said FEMA is responsible for everything on private property, but since F&W is government, they didn't help. They said to haul the trees out to the road and they'd get rid of them, but the F&W guys decided to dig a big pit where the baseball field had been and burn them. Ken says they burned for literally MONTHS!!!

I took this at the Visitor's Center...it's a before and after picture of what Katrina did to one of the trails:

Pretty impressive!

This is Ben, I think his name is, with Kat in the airboat. Old fart who's been there all week. He's a kick. The first person in a swimsuit showed up yesterday...hot young chick in a two piece w/bellybutton ring. He was joking that his rows were nice and sraight until she came out, then they went all to hell. I don't know how old he is, but he's a game one, seems I always see him out there.

There was a couple on the message board, 72 and the husband recovering from surgery. I finally met them both today, as we got ferried back in the airboat. The guy had asked yesterday if anyone knew "Niki" (there are two of us, the other one is Nikki). "The one from California" he said. I raised my hand and he said I had really instigated people on the message board, that there were all kind of replies. I just posted "where are you from", "Wanna get together" and suchlike, and haven't been back since I found Bonnie and Kat. I'll have to check it out.

It's fantastic to meet people from all over the country...by now I've completely lost track of all the places they come from. Seems to be the main question: "So where're you from?", then "What days you working" and "Hi, I'm ___" I guess where we're from and what days we'll be together are first priority!

Someone else marveled and said I must stay out there all DAY, whenever they looked around they saw me. I guess I thought everyone did; until today I just grab a bag of plants and head out (since I don't have to listen to Jennifer Kaylee's spiel on how to plant stuff) and stay out until lunch, then go back out after lunch. I thought everyone was doing that, but apparently a lot of people take morning and afternoon breaks, etc. Why they need beaks I don't know, it's not exactly hard work! Well, it is for the land folks, their reeds are harder to plant, the ground being slightly harder (tho' not much!) and being out in the sun and all. But hell, I could stay out there forever, sitting on my butt, jamming the dibble in the ground, grab a plant, stick it down the hole, cover it up, and scrunch on my butt five feet away, and do it again. It's so peaceful (except for the roar of the airboats coming and going) and beautiful. Many may not think so, but it really is when you're surrounded by it, nothing as far as the eye can see but water and hillocks and reeds sticking out.

Okay, ‘nuff from me. I’ll try to get some more interesting stuff tomorrow, and maybe if we go into the City tonight. It’s 4:00 now and Kat just came back…she’s a free-lance journalist and has been working on a piece under deadline all week; it didn’t come back for revision tonight for the first time, so she actually may be able to enjoy herself some…yay! So we’ll see. At least tomorrow will be a change of pace, and we have Sunday off officially, so we’ll probably go into the City then. And am determined to plan an afternoon to do a proper bayou tour.

Oh, I got to talking to a couple of guys who’ve been there all week. They went down to Grand Isle on their way here, and said there’s still globs of oil on the beach. Said it gets cleaned up, then the next tide brings it back in again. I’d love to get down there, but Grand Isle is like 80 miles from New Orleans, and we’re 40 miles the other direction, so that’s a lot of driving. Sure wish I had more time here, dammmit! If I could talk her into it, I might get Bonnie to spend Sunday with me looking around and get that far; we could do New Orleans after work, since we’ve still got five days, and work a bayou tour too. So far we go to the visitor’s center and get shuttled out to the airboat dock, but I asked today and we can just drive out there, so whenever we feel like coming back in, we have our car and only need to grab an airboat to get back to it. We could cut out somewhat early a day or two that way and do something else. It’s not like we’d be depriving them...we are constantly going home early because there’s no grass left or what’s left they want to save for the group the next day. I didn’t realize when they said we’d be planting from “8am until 3pm, or when the grass is planted”...I assumed it meant we’d stay PAST 3pm if we didn’t have it all planted. Turns out the opposite, and we’re getting it in far faster than they anticipated, apparently. So we may have enough free time to get to see a bit of the area, which would be neat.

I’ve a feeling I’ll be back; I’ve made a fast friend in Jennifer Kaylee and a couple of the F&W guys, and this area is going to continue to need help for years and years to come. Given how little has been accomplished since Katrina, then adding in all the oil that will be coming ashore the next few years, AND simply the emergency situation of repairing all the lost wetlands which they were doing before either one, there will be work to do for a long, long time to come. If I can find a way to afford lodging, I can save money for the flight and come back. I hope so—this place is FAR too flat for a California girl like me, but to come here for a week or two is another matter; in its way, it’s pretty fantastic!

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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