Every day is Earth Day!

Because I treat pretty much every day like Earth Day, I decided to treat April 22 like a holiday. I didn't work from home, I didn't take my work to another place, I didn't work in the evening... I just took a whole day to enjoy the beautiful world around me.


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I drove east on Highway 90 until I found a beach. That took me through some wetlands, pine forests, and small towns. I also saw one of the best signs of all time, that I regret not stopping to take a picture of: "Scenic Bypass to Space". It's referring to the NASA Stennis Space Center, but I still thought it was funny.


I drove into Mississippi and discovered Pass Christian, a small beach town. There was hardly anyone on the beach, so I parked, and I planted myself by the warm, shallow, quiet water of the Gulf of Mexico. I explored a little further in the afternoon to check out Gulfport and Biloxi, but Pass Christian wins. I'll go back.

The next, I got back to celebrating Earth Day Every Day with a grass planting with NRCS. We planted cord grass in several badly eroded areas in St. Louis Canal in the Pointe-au-Chenes Wildlife Management Area. This was the thickest, sickest mud I've been in so far. Smells varied from methane (farts) to sulfur (rotten eggs), and the bottom was so soft that I spent most of the day wading around waist deep in swirling, dark, murky boue pourrie.

It was awesome.

This project is especially exciting because there's a good chance that I'll have the opportunity to go back and check on its progress in July, before I'm done here.

The funny part about spending the entire day in the water and being totally soaked in mud, is that I had a presentation to give back in New Orleans East, and had no time to stop and change, much less shower. The good news was that it was a fairly informal talk about the wetlands, so the group was pretty amused that I was wearing the very environment that I was teaching them about. Thank goodness the talk was outside, so no one had to smell me too much.

I just love the world around me, and I'm glad I get to enjoy it in so many different places and ways.

(These were the first 350ish or so miles of 900+ that I would drive in the past week, but more on my Lafayette adventures next time!)

burning rage: stop throwing cigarettes out the window!

I worked from home today, which meant I gave more attention to news. I have a feed set up to receive headlines from a variety of sources in a variety of places, including but hardly limited to home in New Jersey. 

What kept coming up was disconcerting:
Berkeley residents watch as firefighters battle to save their homes
Downe Township brush blaze upgraded to forest fire, affecting 1,500 acres

plus countless updates from Jersey Shore Hurricane News and friends on facebook who are seeing and smelling brush fires. 

 
Photo courtesy Frank Hennessey, via Mike

While causes haven't been mentioned as of yet, every time I hear about fires in New Jersey, I think about a particular experience I had during my commute back to Toms River when I was teaching at William Paterson. It had been a dry string of weeks, and it was a sunny, breezy day. While sitting in traffic just before getting to Silverton, I watched firefighters respond to a brush fire in the stretch of pine trees along Brick Blvd. After traffic let up less than half a mile down the road, I watched as the driver in front of me tossed a cigarette out the window. 

and I was enraged.

Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the fire ecology of the Pine Barrens. We as humans are not doing ourselves any favors by letting the biomass pile up until a stray flare or something results in disaster (and it's my worst nightmare that the Pine Barrens will burn down for one reason or another and bracken fern will take over). Here we are, trying to save communities from destruction today. But I cannot believe how ignorant so many people seem to be about how incredibly risky it is to throw cigarettes out the window.

Cigarette butts going out windows of cars is not just a New Jersey problem. The annual cleanup of Bayou Lafourche, which I recently paddled, counted 3726 butts in 2012 and 1302 in 2013, picked up along the 100 or so mile stretch of the bayou that the crews focus on (source: BTNEP). That's just the ones they found and picked up. You know you see tons of them in high traffic areas (especially areas of high auto traffic, where jerks are throwing them out their windows). 

It's not just a fire risk, either. Cigarette filters are not biodegradable (source: Longwood University). Seriously. They're not made of paper, or cotton-- they're made of a kind of plastic. They will not break down for a very, very long time.

And what about the water? Perhaps there's only trace amounts of chemicals left at the end of a cigarette, but that adds up, just like everything else we pollute our waterways with. I think it's pretty common knowledge these days that nicotine and other carcinogens in cigarettes aren't good for us. It doesn't matter if you're consuming it via inhalation or your drinking water. And don't even try to tell me that you can just get bottled water, because it's in there too. These chemicals can kill small animals and sicken children who eat them, too.

Obviously, it would be best if people stopped smoking all together, but the least we can do is spread a little knowledge. Please, please, please stop throwing cigarettes out windows. Would you throw them on the floor in your home? I do not live in your ash tray, people.


Hang in there, my beloved pitch pines. Hang in there, Jersey.

Happy (Earth Day)

Happy Earth Day! Today also sort of marks a few other things:

• Three years ago, I successfully defended my Masters thesis. (Earth Day was Good Friday in 2011.)
• Two Good Fridays ago in 2012, I had my first day volunteering with NRCS, which has been one of the most awesome and formative parts of my journey in vocational discernment.
• Today leaves 100 days left in New Orleans.

My, it's been a busy few years.


I'm not really sure what to say. It hasn't been easy. Not over the course of the past six years since finishing college and not finding full time work, not in the past three since finishing grad school and still not finding full time work, not this past year volunteering my service. Living in community is hard. Knowing I can't fix the coast is hard. Planning a wedding is hard (mostly, being apart from the groom is hard). Being far from my family and friends and home is hard.

To celebrate my final 100 days serving in South Louisiana, I'm jumping on the 100 Happy Days bandwagon. I'm not much of one for bandwagons but I love being happy. I tend to be a pretty optimistic person (how many times have you heard me sincerely say "best day ever"?) and I love noticing the little things that make this world a wonderful place. Despite the challenges of my job, my community, my geography, my future, I'd really like to stay focused on the many, many beautiful things I get to see and be part of each day.

To celebrate Earth Day, I've decided to take a day trip to the beach in Mississippi somewhere. I'll decide where when I find it.

To celebrate life in general, I will keep you updated on my 100 days of happy, and encourage you to be intentional about your own happiness.

Ten things I love about New Jersey RIGHT NOW

1. License plates. Every time I've been away for a while, coming back to NJ and getting on the road for the first time and seeing tons of yellow license plates. It takes a moment for my brain to catch up and realize I'm not just surrounded by Jersey people in Louisiana or Arizona or Virginia, but it's a little bit exciting every time.

2. Pitch pines. Never in a hundred thousand million billion trillion years am I going to get sick of those scraggly, crooked, scrub pines all over south Jersey.

3. My parents' kitchen. They redid it a few years ago and it's glorious and there's tons of counter space and the oven is huge and I love it as soon as I remember where everything is.

4. Mental maps. Yesterday I drove from downtown Toms River to an office in Freehold that I've been to many times before , but could not actually remember how to get there. But I knew I needed to take the Parkway to 195 and then the exit... I'll remember it when I see it, and then oh I remember that farm! and I turn at that one willow tree, and go by this Wawa, and I know this road on the left even though that housing development wasn't here last time...I might not remember the names or numbers of any of these roads, but it is very hard for me to get completely lost in New Jersey, and that is awesome.

5. Volunteering with NRCS in NJ. Yesterday, I got to visit with four different staff members who I've volunteered with in the past two years since I started with the agency. I am in constant awe of how fortunate I am to receive great training and a wee bit of mentorship from these people. I obviously made sure I had time to go out and survey some soil, too! Glauconitic soils for the win.

6. Context. This goes along with the last one, mostly because when I do fieldwork, it's really helpful and empowering to have a clue what's going on around you and why. I've learned a lot about Louisiana this year, and I'm really enjoying my time there, but I would say that I know slightly more about NJ. You know, that whole time I taught Geography of New Jersey and all. I learned a lot of stuff for that, on top of the perpetual learning that went on for the first 18 years of my life that I lived here, and the many other times in the past decade that I've spent extended periods of time here.

7. Springtime. One of my favorite things about NJ is that it has four distinct seasons. I love them all, but I especially love the transitions from one to the next. This year I got to experience the transition to spring in south Louisiana, in Washington, DC and now in NJ. My allergies are pretty sad about it, but I am loving all of the trees with pretty little buds and new leaves, and the sunshine and fresh air.

8. My mom's cat. If I'm upstairs in my parents' home, chances are highly likely that I have a cute, furry, purring friend attached to my side. Like right now.

9.  Pizza that is good. Also bagels that are good.

10. Knowing that I have entirely too many people and places that I love and want to see in the short whirlwind that I am home. It's impossible when I only come home for a weekend at a time, but it's really reassuring and wonderful to know that it's all here when I do come back.

taking flight

I want to tell you about my flight in a Cessna at the end of March. Bayou Blue hosted a group from the Presbyterian Hunger Program to talk about some of the environmental and food issues faced by South Louisiana. We had a great visit with some really wonderful national staff of PC(USA). They came to my little bayou church, and then we were off to the local airport in Houma for a tour of the wetlands by air.

I had never been in a small plane before, much less had I taken an air tour of the disappearing wetlands. It was really difficult to see the coast in such rough shape. During Paddle Bayou Lafourche I learned that coastal erosion has slowed down, but only because the easiest land to erode is already gone.


Nature does not make straight lines. Those oil and gas exploration and pipeline canals invite salt water intrusion and quick erosion. Louisiana is terrible at enforcing environmental regulations. The companies are required to fill in or plug those canals when they are done. They don't.


You can see where the pipelines were, and what it did to the landscape. This used to all be wetlands, not open water. This was really hard to see.


We passed over some healthy swamp at the end, which was a little bit encouraging, but also really tough to see the incredible contrast between what is thriving and what is gone.

After we were all back on the ground, we traveled to Pointe-au-Chenes to see some of the problems from the water with my favorite wetlands hosts, Donald and Theresa of the Pointe-au-Chien tribe. We went out on their boat, not even too far from the little strip of town that's left. I've been meaning to share these two images with you for a while--





You can see the same tree from slightly different angles, but about a year and a half of erosion completely removed that tree from being on solid land. That's not high tide in the lower picture. That land is gone. It's open water.

Coastal erosion and wetlands degradation is frightening in South Louisiana. I'm really glad that I can be a small part of continuing to share that story.

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Walden and Blue Pastures and falling asleep at night

I love falling asleep when it's dark out, when I've worked hard all day and can just fall asleep as soon as the sun goes down. As Lindsey and I passed out about 8PM in my darling little two person tent at Madewood Plantation on Thursday evening, I thought about other times in my life that I've had the luxury of matching my sleep cycle to the natural order of day and night, like other canoe trips, or working pre-season at camp-- just absolutely tired at the end of the day, and totally ready to wake up with the sun and get back to it the next day.


When I lived alone in Lakeside in 2011 and was rewriting my thesis, I would read Walden at night. It was just a few pages at a time, but I had a great sense of peace connecting with those words while living on the edge of a lake in the middle of the woods. There was no TV or internet in my cabin, and I would just come home from working, work on my thesis a little, and read myself to sleep when it got dark. These were a few of my favorite quotes--

"If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-smelling herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal,-- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself." -Walden: or, Life in the woods by Henry David Thoreau

"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick, too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line." -Walden

"...whenever I looked out on the pond it impressed me like a tarn high up on the side of a mountain, its bottom far above the surface of other lakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing of mist... its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface was revealed, like ghosts, were stealthily withdrawing in every direction into the woods..." -Walden

"A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature" -Walden 

(I also read some Muir during that time. "This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls." –Muir)




I enjoyed that same sense of peace after paddling all day. I was so tired. The sun had gone down and the crickets and night birds were singing. It was a warm evening and I brought Mary Oliver's Blue Pastures in case I could stay awake for even a few minutes of reading. I marked a few small excerpts I liked--

"The sea surrounds us. It surrounds the houses and the two long, occasionally bending streets. It surrounds the idle conversation; it surrounds the mind diving down into what it hopes is original thought."

"Occasionally I lean forward and gaze into the water. The water of a pond is a mirror of roughness and honesty-- it gives back not only my own gaze, but the nimbus of the world trailing into the picture on all sides... If at this moment I heard a clock ticking, would I remember what it was, what it signified?"

"You must not ever stop being whimsical."

"And I am too informed, dazzled, refreshed-- no longer too busy, no longer weary. Is there another glacier, an ocean, a sun-baked countryside, a dark stream, an eighteen-mile walk in my immediate future? Surely there is, and in such choice company, and I'm ready."

I think I am ready.

Paddle Bayou Lafourche

I just got back from my first overnight canoe trip since 2007. OH MAN IT WAS AWESOME. My friend Lindsey joined me for a really great long weekend on the bayou. We paddled 52 miles over 4 days through people's back yards, enjoying local food, conversation, flora, fauna, and music. 

Paddle Bayou Lafourche is an annual event put on by the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, a great organization that I have enjoyed many good resources from this year as I learn and teach about wetlands issues in the region. National Estuary Programs came out of the EPA's Clean Water Act in the late 80s. At home in New Jersey is another one-- Barnegat Bay Partnership.

Thursday, from Donaldsonville to Napoleonville: It was a tough first day. Paddling down the bayou on a windy day is much like paddling in a wind tunnel... in the wrong direction. We faced gusts up to 20mph. I hadn't been in a canoe in almost seven years, so my arms were a bit out of practice to begin with, but this was rough for everyone. We paddled almost 18 miles, about 11.5 of which were before lunch. We felt a little hopeless, but we did it, and enjoyed a good dinner and glorious night of camping at Madewood Plantation.

Friday, Napoleonville to Thibodaux: The wind died down, but the forecast remained questionable. We lucked out with only a little bit of rain on and off as we continued to explore the bayou. We landed at the Jean Lafitte museum in town, having done just shy of 16 miles.

Saturday, Thibodaux to Raceland: We launched from Nicholls State University, just below Jean Lafitte, because there's a weir in the bayou between the two and the BTNEP staff probably didn't want to deal with all of the idiots who would have tried to paddle down it. Lindsey and I finally got into a rhythm, finishing ahead of a lot of people who doubted we would survive the first day. We also finished just a few minutes ahead of torrential downpour and hail. Right before we landed after about 15.5 miles, Lindsey decided to follow through with a wild idea she came up with early in the day-- yoga on the bayou, or "bayoga" as we came to call it. She decided to do a headstand while I balanced the canoe:





Sunday, Raceland to Lockport: Just a short 5.5 miles to finish up. BTNEP's Water Quality Coordinator, Andrew, was without a paddling partner for the last day and asked to join us. Lindsey enjoyed sitting in a chair in the middle of the canoe asking lots of questions about the bayou. We had paddled beside him and his canoe partner Michael, BTNEP's Invasive Species Coordinator, the three days before, peppering them with questions about soil science and ecology, so it was cool to have him on board answering our environmental questions the entire time without worrying about keeping up with him.



The day started off very foggy, but we once again beat the rain after a late decision to follow through with the final stretch at all. The trip ends in Lockport, because any further south and we'd start running into enormous ships. Just before we landed, I had Andrew balance the canoe while Lindsey took a picture of my bayoga efforts (obviously going for a tree):




It was so nice to go out on an adventure for a few days. This was technically work-related for me, so I did spend some time contemplating Bayou Lafourche, which is the main source of drinking water for the region--

• A few weeks ago, BTNEP hosted a massive bayou cleanup, which usually involves hundreds of volunteers along 106 miles of Bayou Lafourche (we only paddled 52 miles). They pick up thousands of pieces of garbage ranging from cigarette butts (please please please stop throwing cigarette butts out the windows) to plastic bottles (please please please recycle those and/or stop drinking bottled water when it's totally unnecessary) to tires, toilets, and couches. Full frightening details from last year here. I will say it again: this is the main source of drinking water for the region, for tens of thousands of people.
• The first day, as we paddled straight into 20mph gusts, it was all too clear a picture of how easily salt water flows back up the bayous in nothing more than a stiff wind. When the wind wasn't blowing, the water was completely slack. No current. Tough to paddle, but also tough for it to remain fresh, flowing off the Mississippi at Donaldsonville.
• As we paddled under local bridges, cars drove over our heads. Some of the bridges were grates. As I felt the rainwater drip off one onto my legs and head, I shuddered at the thought of leaky cars just letting fluids straight into... the drinking water supply.
• We wound past countless signs warning of gas and oil pipeline crossings. Again... slow leaks into the drinking water, distinctly possible.

Plus, let's consider the greater watershed with the help of the Department of the Interior's Streamer Tool. Here's the portion of Bayou Lafourche that we paddled:


And here is the watershed of the Mississippi River, down to Bayou Lafourche:


That's 31 states, plus two Canadian provinces, full of agricultural runoff, fluids from leaky beat up cars, cigarette butts from careless people, and other awful things.

I would really encourage you to think about your relationship with your home watershed, whatever it may be. Water is so precious.

I did not spend the entire trip having nightmares, but the whole awareness angle that BTNEP is playing by hosting this event on this particular bayou definitely worked. The vast majority of it was relaxing and wonderful. There were at least six different kinds of bread pudding served over the course of the trip. There was a man sitting on his fishing dock playing his accordion for the paddlers. There was bayoga and shenanigans with Lindsey and other people around us. There were blooming black locust trees, and swaying cutgrass, ducks and geese and swallows and red winged blackbirds, and lots of people waving hello and speaking French and smiling and many, many other beautiful things.