Today, I fell through the flotant marsh.

My week of flora fieldwork continued today, with vegetation monitoring along Bayou Segnette in the Jean Lafitte Barataria Preserve (my favorite park I've found).


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We were measuring bald cypress trees that were planted 1-3 years ago, and assessing their health. For the most part, they're looking good! This involved hiking through a spoil bank (basically the sides of the waterway that are built up with the stuff that gets dredged to keep the waterway clear), which was very dense with brambles and trees, and into the marsh, which had several inches of standing water.

I usually try to find out the landscape before I go out to do fieldwork, so I can make well-informed choices about my footwear. Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm not the kind of person who has a million pairs of shoes, but I do have several kinds of boots and outdoor/work footwear. With me in Louisiana, I have an old pair of awesome trail running shoes that serve as my water planting shoes; I have my yellow knee boots; I have my epic hiking boots; and a pair of cleaner, newer sneakers mostly reserved for doing active things that don't involve the wetlands.

Last time I planted in the Barataria Preserve, the ground was fairly high and dry, but after some thought about the recent rains and high water, I decided on knee boots. I was thankful that I did. Once past the spoil bank, there was several inches of standing water in the marsh.



Just before lunch, I discovered the hard way that it was a floating marsh, which is called flotant here. How did I discover this, you might ask?

I fell through it.

One misstep, and down I went. I was stuck in the mud up to my chest, with water up to my shoulders. I had an instantaneous moment in which I thought that I should be claustrophobic or scared or something, but it passed immediately and I focused on getting my legs out WITH my boots. I was certain I had lost one, but I managed to get myself and my wellies out. I had noticed all morning that the ground was shaking beneath our feet whenever a big, loud boat went by. I mean, they do call it trembling prairie.



I have entertained the idea of acquiring hip waders for some time, but most of the field work I do here is shallow enough for knee boots or in water so high that hip waders can't help me. I guess today it didn't really matter what footwear I chose anyway.