the frozen tundra of South Louisiana

I hope wherever you are reading this from, you are keeping warm.


(from here)

This weather feels like January to me. I don't mind wearing a sweater and a scarf. That being said, I realize South Louisiana is absolutely not built for this.

We have been running our faucets as per our landlord's instructions for 30+ hours as of my writing this (the temperature never broke freezing here today). It's not even the sound of the running water that gets to me... you can imagine how this conservationist feels about it, especially in a region where salt water intrusion is such a threat to the water supply! But these homes were built with exposed pipes and very little insulation, and there have been reports of burst pipes all over New Orleans today.

The bayou is in the midst of citrus season, but likely lost the vast majority of their grapefruits, oranges and lemons in these two days of deep freeze. Folks were encouraged to pick fruit on Sunday, but you can only eat and share so much fruit at a time, and not everyone is able to pick too much themselves. This month's YAV service project was to glean in Bayou Blue on the 18th, to share with the community and local food  banks. Instead, it's looking like we'll be picking rotten fruit to keep the trees in production for next year.


As I drove across town to give a presentation last night, I saw a few people on some of the neutral grounds (the grassy median in the middle of most major streets), curled up under modest blankets. I heard there were several emergency cold weather shelters around the city, but clearly some of them didn't get the message. I hope they found out before too long and were able to get there.

I know South Louisiana doesn't have it that bad with lows in the upper 20s. I have my sweet winter coat and a Saints hat that I got for Mike when he was here for Thanksgiving (he didn't think he'd need it in the desert!). But thinking about the local context, the upper 20s are just as bad here as the single digits are at home in New Jersey and the sub-zero temperatures are elsewhere.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's predicted high of 48 and finally turning off the water in this house!

out of the fog

It's hard to remember that it's December when it's still pretty consistently warm enough for t-shirts. I mean, it only just became fall, like yesterday, when a cold front dropped the temperature by 40 degrees and dropped about 1/4 of the cypress leaves:


At home, I usually have my Christmas concert to snap me out of November mode (I love Thanksgiving!), but the weather and the fact that my work has been quiet for the past week or so has really kept me in this foggy bubble with little regard for the upcoming holidays.

Then it was actually really foggy this morning out in bayou land. Visibility approximately 50 feet:


And this at 11:30 or so was a vast improvement over the conditions when I drove out to Bayou Blue before 8AM. 

I decided to combat this oblivious aloofness by listening to Christmas music all day. I'm not usually one for songs about Santa, but this one added a little boogie to my ride home from the bayou and a little Advent into my heart:



Wishing you and your loved ones peace and joy this Christmas season.

Sandy/Katrina

One year ago today, I woke up to a New Jersey that had changed abruptly, drastically.


When I woke up today, I did not anticipate that my experiences in the past year post-Sandy would intertwine so intimately with my experiences today, visiting east Plaquemines Parish with a guest from Liberia (a man named Jefferson Knight, a self described "social worker fast turning environmentalist").

Jefferson is currently on a whirlwind US tour, discussing environmental issues-- degradation, conservation, justice, policy, especially pertaining to wetlands as well as the oil industry. He is hopeful that he will be able to take some lessons and connections home with him to help mitigate some of the problems that are likely to build up as his home country develops its new, major oil industry. As multinational corporations force people off their land, they are cutting down mangrove swamps along the coast and filling them in to build new housing. So, deforestation/wetlands destruction, and inevitable oil industry related pollution... plus climate change, plus miscellaneous other related human-environment issues... he's trying to learn from our mistakes.

Jefferson and I took an hour drive to the very peaceful, pretty southeastern edges of Louisiana, just a little bit beyond where I planted trees on Monday to visit with Zion Travelers Cooperative Center, a community development group on the east bank of Plaquemines (plack-mean) Parish (which I just learned means persimmon in French). We met with several pastors, a councilman and ZTCC's administrative assistant to talk about some of the efforts to mitigate the environmental problems. What was intended to be a conversation about wetlands and the oil industry eventually turned to the same topic that lurks in the background of every story in southern Louisiana: Katrina.

I still think it was an incredibly productive conversation for all parties. I learned a lot today, and Jefferson seemed satisfied with the visit. Rev. Tyronne, the executive director (and also the pastor of a Baptist church also called Zion Travelers) took us on a tour of the very southeastern parts of LA. The name Isaac came up a few times, but what was more amazing to me was how many places were still lying damaged and vacant since Katrina in 2005.







Being from New Jersey, living in Louisiana has been quite an adventure in seeing a community a few years past a hurricane with a now-retired name. While Sandy was a completely different storm than Katrina, it was devastating and the effects are still very noticeable. When our discussion turned to hurricane experiences, there was some discussion of how Sandy stole Isaac's thunder. Louisiana has had so many storms in the past eight years that they aren't really getting the same attention as say, the New York Metropolitan Area experiencing its first sizable hurricane (that had just diminished from hurricane status very shortly before making landfall in northern Atlantic County, NJ).

At the same time, Sandy's devastation and the following twelve months of constant discussion about flood mapping and insurance has helped southern Louisiana, these folks believe. Because of course concessions need to be made to manage such an important, densely populated region, even though people suffering from similar structural, economic, environmental and emotional damages in Louisiana were accused of being foolish for building in such an unsafe place (never mind that it was a safe place when they first settled here, with expansive wetlands to act as massive speed bumps to storms and never having seen a storm like Katrina before her). So because of the attention that NY-NJ are getting post-Sandy, perhaps some changes will be made that will benefit southern LA, too.

These people were not celebrating our devastation in NJ. In fact, they took time to mourn my home on this first anniversary of the storm. It's not fun to think about the politics involved in storm recovery when people are clearly suffering in very immediate and visible ways, but these connections are very real.


This boat has rested on this levee since Katrina because its owner cannot afford to get it moved. Imagine what that did to his work as a fisherman. This made me think of this in my hometown one year ago today--


(source)

I am constantly amazed at how southern Louisiana feels worlds apart from home in New Jersey, and yet in many ways, it's not really so different. I'm glad I kept busy with productive conversations about conservation today instead of dwelling on this first full year after Sandy.

Tropical Storm Karen

Ready!




I want to be clear: I am not being flippant. I know these storms are serious, especially in a place like Louisiana, where the effects are serious and the memories of Betsy, Katrina, Rita, Isaac are all very present and real every day. I just also wanted to be clear that the sensationalism of the Weather Channel is uncalled for, as Karen drifts eastward with slower winds than the average nor'easter.



We did a little bit of storm prep-- bought candles, filled the freezer with extra containers of water to freeze, to help insulate our food if we should lose power, filled extra jugs and bottles of water, stocked up on peanut butter, jelly, bread, and canned veggies. I was determined not to lose my head though. As my dad says about football players who make it to their end zone, "Act like you've been there before." Be cool.

I have been there before, twice in the past three years. First was Irene, who ruined what might have been the best day of my life, with Josh Ritter and Dispatch playing nearly back to back at a music festival on Governor's Island. That *!@#%.

I was at camp. Irene passed through overnight, knocking out the power well in advance of knocking down quite a few trees and flooding a few lower spots on site.



The skies were nearly clear when I woke up the next morning, and was promptly invited out to play football by the few international staff members who were still around for camp's post season.

 

We were without power for a week, with limited water, food and phone service. There wasn't much work we could do in the dark buildings, so we cleared fallen trees and tried to clean up the pool. It was an interesting way to bond, enjoying eclectic feasts together before everything went bad. All in all, could have been way worse.







Sandy was another story, exacerbated by a wicked nor'easter the following week. My family fared well in Toms River, being the only house for what seemed like forever with power. We welcomed quite a few people who didn't have power, as well as quite a few animals...



It was actually really hard to have electricity, and to see the mess on the news. We couldn't look away. And then I took care of the 11 year old daughter of some friends for a week, which was good because I was paying less attention to the news in favor of making sure she wasn't being traumatized by anything aside from trick-or-treating being cancelled nearly everywhere in the state. It was bad because it made me bottle up a lot of angst. But we made it through just fine. Jersey strong and whatnot.


I was still working part time at camp, which lost power for two weeks. I went to visit my friends there with the 11 year old, and borrow a couple of their kids to go explore some of the trees thrown by the storm (we did a soil lab together for my class!).







So here we are, sitting in New Orleans, which was a little bit breezier than usual today, but otherwise pretty unfazed. I try to be realistic about this stuff-- I hate the hype. But I'm also very thankful for the sake of the entire east and gulf coasts that it's been a pretty calm year for this stuff (knocking furiously on wood with less than a month to go in hurricane season).

French, s'il vous plait

On this lovely 90 degree, 90% humidity Labor Day, two of my housemates and I wandered about the French Quarter for a few hours. It was nice to see a little more of the city and enjoy our last day before we all start our jobs.

I've had an interesting time observing French from the moment I crossed the state line from Mississippi on I-59. I'm fairly confident in my complete inability to pronounce anything even vaguely French. I had my spelling corrected approximately 23957 times in the meeting last Friday (ok, just twice, after I wrote down my fifth iteration of the town "Thibodaux"-- Tibido, Tibideaux, Tibideau, Tibidaux, Tibi~~~ (squiggly lines ensued), and after I noticed a specific local forestry term written down on one of the papers being passed around the room). Thankfully, one of the good things that came out of the infamous Peace Corps debacle was plenty of free online French language lessons and resources. Also, I hear there are lessons at my local library. One of my goals for the year: learn enough French that I can at least write things down correctly, or closer to correctly. I'll know I have truly succeeded in this if I can also pronounce street names and business names without the preface, "I know I'm about to embarrass myself..."

I heard a lot more French being spoken in the French Quarter than I expected, oddly enough. People have reassured me over and over that I'll be fine without a background in French or Romance languages (nine years of German and a year of Mandarin? Surprisingly not useful!), but I'm pretty sure I've heard it every day so far. I definitely heard it more on my trips outside of the city, weaving its way into and out of conversations between people whose families have lived in the area for generations.

I guess I was vaguely aware that the French here are related to the French in eastern Canada and northern Maine. This weekend, while down in Bayou Blue, it was pointed out that "Cajun" is a sort of bastardization of "Acadian". It all kind of clicked and I started to think about all of the beautiful things I saw last summer when I drove across eastern Canada with Jamie, Amanda and Katie. The stop signs may not say Arête, but the language is still very present here.

Cajuns were exiled from eastern Canada for failure to pledge allegiance to Britain. They kind of wandered south until they were left alone, settling on the bayou and adapting their culture to the local environment. (This is as opposed to Creole, which are people of France French heritage and sometimes Spanish and Italian.) They invented all sorts of wonderful foods and Zydeco music.

So anyway, French Quarter. It's very touristy, so my lack of French skills was not actually a hindrance. Hannah, Jess and I wandered around the market, checking out local crafts and the myriad of masks, beads and voo doo dolls. We had lunch at Mothers, a legendary po'boy shop where even the cabbage had meat visible in it, so I ordered buttered grits and was plenty happy. Another goal for the year that I am not sure should actually be a goal but am considering anyway: building up to eating food that was cooked with meat in it, but probably not actually eating the meat. So the rice and beans that's cooked with a hunk of ham in it, potatoes and corn cooked in the same pot with the crawfish or shrimp... I'm still really not interested in eating meat, and I'm pretty sure my digestive system isn't either after nearly ten years of vegetarianism, but I really do want to experience the culture as best I can, and I really don't want to turn down the incredible hospitality offered to me here.

I drove, and was happy to do so, to start getting my bearings on the area. The whole Crescent City thing is confusing-- there are streets that go from one side of the city to the other, but they don't exactly run due east-west. Still, we had a pleasant drive, ultimately down Canal Street and Magazine Street back over to our neighborhood, Carrollton. It was a good day.

There are planets you don't know and there are moons that you don't see

While we probably all well know that I am a big, big fan of Mr. Ritter's, this is not a song I am usually drawn to. It was in my head during this morning's pre-dawn commute under a very full moon...

Last month's full moon coincided with a rather big storm that we're only beginning to truly understand the scale of. A full moon high tide is responsible for minor flooding on a regular basis, even without winds and rain. I remember thinking about this going into the storm. Sitting down to lunch with the state climatologist a couple of weeks after the storm, he argued that the first high tide as Sandy and the full moon approached probably saved a lot of lives, scaring people off the islands as the water rose quickly well in advance of the actual storm. We all know that the various unprecedented factors of Sandy-- her size, her record breaking low pressure, her exceptional path, her combination with the second major storm front, her making landfall in the most densely populated part of the country, and of course that full moon-- made a serious impact on our landscape and our lives in the region.

New Jersey (and New York) won't be the same. The damages in NJ are almost as costly as the state's operating budget for the next year*. Trying to wrap one's mind around how much has changed is its own challenge. Trying to stay positive in light of many complicated questions about the rebuilding process is its own challenge. Trying to focus on other aspects of life and not be totally overwhelmed mourning the places and memories of my childhood is its own challenge. This has not been easy.

But then, there's this month's full moon. Many towns are still struggling with the aftermath and destruction of what happened under the last full moon, but the one I saw this morning on my drive to William Paterson was stunning and bright, and under this month's full moon, there was some joy. Julie and Matt welcomed baby Ryan to the world. Babies are neat, because they come without a care for things like hurricane damage or how the world around his has changed drastically since his childhood, because his childhood is ahead of him. He just gets to hang out and be loved. How peaceful and wonderful is that?

So, this morning, I'm thinking about the month between these full moons, and taking comfort in the little things, the good things, that come out of times like these. Life moves on, and today, that's a pretty reassuring thought. Welcome to the world, little one!



Edited to add--
*of course this has already been updated. After weeks of keeping numbers quiet, the initial cost of damages was released as being over $29 billion, which is nearly the $31.4ish billion budget for NJ for the next fiscal year. A revised number was released today: $36.8 billion.

Right, so my last post was abrupt and lacking details...

After Hurricane Irene, I was at camp without power, phones and occasionally water for a week. During that time I spent a great deal of time with the international staff who hadn't yet gone home. They talked me into a roadtrip they'd been planning. My bosses gave me the time off, so here I am, now 1000 miles into a 2600 sojourn around Kentucky. Seriously, that's about the only state we're not going to pass through in the next week and a half. Maciej (Poland), Jozef (Slovakia), Jakub (Czech Republic), Michael (England), Timi (Hungary) and I are on a pretty excellent adventure.

Day one, Tuesday 6 September: Arlington, VA/Washington, DC. Due to torrential downpour and a late start, we didn't arrive to the area till mid afternoon, at which point the rain held off long enough to wander the National Mall and all of the good monuments and memorials around it. We saw the White House and the Capitol. I love DC and it was a joy to show my friends around. We stayed with my friend Becky and her sweet baby boy Arlo.

Day two, Wednesday 7 September: After a walk through Arlington National Cemetery and spending some time in a few of the Smithsonian Museums, we drove to Harrisonburg via Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. It was a pretty overcast day so we spend a lot of time driving through clouds and wondering what the views looked like. Late in the drive we broke through and enjoyed some lovely vistas and an incredible sunset. We arrived in Harrisonburg in time to have dinner with our friend, Gordo, who was hosting us for the night, and really just spent the night hanging out in his apartment with his roommates and Brendan, another camp friend.

The tree of the day would have been this incredible Post Oak found near the Eternal Flame in Arlington Cemetery, but it was taken out by Hurricane Irene. Thankfully Becky and I visited it earlier in the summer.

Day three, Thursday 8 September: Long drive from Harrisonburg to Knoxville, Tennessee, via the Blue Ridge Parkway and Roanoke. We were hesitant to take the Blue Ridge Parkway because it was once again overcast, but we took the chance and were thrilled by the views. It was a very peaceful, winding drive. We stopped in Salem, VA at Roanoke College and had a lovely peanut butter and jelly picnic lunch with our friend Sarah Gillette. Beautiful little campus and a very pleasant stop before several more hours of driving.

Tree of the day: the American Basswood we ate lunch under.

We arrived in Knoxville and promptly enjoyed some Waffle House for dinner. It was really awesome trying to explain a southern drawl to my friends and then having some really great examples for them to hear. It was a really great dinner, and our waitress had some ideas as to what to do in downtown Knoxville. We ended up walking all over down, finding it to be pretty empty but nice. It was a beautiful evening.

Day four, Friday 9 September (in progress): This morning we drove to Nashville and walked all over the place. We started at a Visitors Center and walked up 5th Avenue past some beautiful churches and historic buildings. We spent some time in the Tennessee State Museum, which was mostly interesting to me because the Civil War was explained with a slightly different perspective than I was raised learning in the northeast. We walked up to the Capitol Building and then adventured along Broadway, which is dotted with music shops and restaurants and pubs with music being played. The music changed every 20 feet. We came to our hotel to rest for a while and are now heading back out to enjoy the music scene here in Music City...

inundable!

I will try not to inundable you with information about my last two days, but come on, the title is "inundable" (Spanish for inundated, or flooded... one of my many forestry/conservation vocab words)!

Yesterday was the last transect for Karen and me (the 19th of 20 in real life, though). We went out with a bang, literally! Around 75 meters out of 100 of assessing forest damage, the thunder that we'd been hearing rumble all morning decided it would be a good time to arrive over our heads and start raining, after 18 transects without any rain, in the rainy season. Ludicrous. It was a tough transect, too-- selva baja inundable (lowland inundated forest, lots of young trees, lots of brush, very wet, and lots and lots of bugs). Thankfully, we're equipt with waterproof field notebooks, which actually work! You can write on the pages in the rain. Nothing smears. Nothing runs, except the water. Incredible. Bracken was bracken, but it was really rainy for the rest of the day. I somehow came home more caked in mud than everyone else, despite all walking and working in the same places.

We had a farewell dinner out with Karen. Marco and I dropped her off at the bus station late last night; by the time I woke up, Juan-Pablo had arrived from Colombia, been picked up, and had settled into our casa on Av. Bugambilias.

Today, Alex and Irene went to finish the last transect in Los Divorciados while Marco and I took my pair of interns west to train them to do my work for the next six months. What's that? You are also surprised, shocken even, that I have been given a pair of interns? I know, me too! But it's true. I have two interns: Angel, the tall outgoing one who speaks a slight amount of English, and Alberto, the shorter rounder shyer one who did not say a single word in English. They are clearly buddies, but they're required this internship in order to graduate from college, so it's a nice mix of hilarity and productivity. Also, did I mention, they are going to collect data for me for the next six months?

I had a great time in the field today. Most of what I did was troubleshoot the form Marco and I wrote for the interns to collect information with, questions about land use and fire history and all of the other things I won't bore you with that my thesis will be about. Ahem. Anyway. We were at an ejido called Nicolas Bravo, which my advisor worked at quite a lot for her Phd dissertation, so everyone there knows and loves her. In fact, our ejidotario named his daughter after her. So they were all excited that I, Laura's student, was there.

The coolest part might have started with our ejidotario saying, "Oh, there's an old Maya house." We just drove past this crumbled house sitting atop a mound (the Maya liked to build up the land they built their structures on). That house is more than twice as old as the country which I hail from! Just sitting there, in the middle of the ejido! I learned the words in Spanish to inform the interns that "I am a student AND a tourist" before I took that photo. At the next plot, what do you know? More ruins! Unguarded, un-roped-off... Marco mentioned casually that I could go up and see them if I want, so I clearly climbed on top of them and did my intern-supervising from there.

It rained on and off throughout the day. The rest of it was spent getting filthy by walking through burned helechals (plots inundable-d with the helecho, which is Spanish for fern) and standing around on Maya mounds surveying the awesome landscape. Don't worry, I was sure to leave my camera in the truck for the last plot, when we stood on a particularly high mound that offered a complete panoramic view of the landscape and horizon. (I'm so dumb.)

The day ended in an intense workout to prevent Marco, the interns, and my untimely deaths in the torrential downpour. I was behind the wheel in the Chevy truck, which is about 10 years old and only marginally better than The Monster. Shifting that thing was a pretty intense physical workout to begin with, but driving in that storm was a big workout for my brain. The streets in and around Chetumal were inundable-d. Also, the Chevy had crappy windshield wipers and the vent system did nothing to defog the windshield. I drove into town at about half the speed limit, and we clearly survived without incident, as I'm writing about it all now. The streets are still flooded here even though the rain has mostly stopped, but we're all home safely and planning on relaxing a bit tonight: tomorrow is an Ecosur day, Marco's last day, and Juan-Pablo's birthday!

hint: it's the ITCZ

My morning consisted of sitting in the bed of the pickup truck with Alex and an ejidotario and driving around some of Noh-Bec's better roads in search of bracken. We found and mapped some, but Alex and I also had a good talk about trees and climatology. (If you didn't already know what a huge nerd I am, I guess I just blew it.) I saw a 400 year old Pich tree! And yet, the tree of the day is going to be the Chicle tree, easily spotted due to the diamond shaped slashes in the bark for the purpose of harvesting the sap for chewing gum.

I'm sitting on the roof, watching a pretty awesome lightning storm in the distance. Don't worry, it's so far you can't even hear thunder yet, and there are lots of things around me that are taller than I am... and it's really pretty! As mentioned, in addition to being a tree nerd, I am admittedly a climate nerd. I can tell you all about why the rainy season is about to start in this region... but I'll spare you unless you want to have this conversation. It was pouring when we woke up this morning and it seems like it will rain again tonight. This should make fieldwork more interesting in the next few weeks.

We've finalized our plans for the next few days, so in case you're my parents who just got back from an internet-free weekend in D.C. and you wonder where your daughter is: she'll be in internet-free central Quintana Roo. On Sunday, we're travelling north to visit Maya ruins and the beach at Tulum before settling into the house we're renting for a few days in Laguna Kana. It's got two rooms. I'll be sleeping in a hammock and not posting here. I may have some things to say tomorrow, otherwise, catch you Wednesday or Thursday!