At the southern most point of Louisiana, we stopped by a dying Cypress Forest. At the farthest point in the Mississippi, the salt water is seeping into the land, due to subsidence, which is causing the Cypress to die. We also noticed a lot of oil refineries and Oil Business in this part of Louisiana.
Our Saturday started the way all good Saturday’s start–with a six course meal.
We arrived at the New Orleans School of Cooking early in the morning and walked to the local farmers market. On our walk, our guide and head chef Michael, told us about the importance of food and culture in any city’s history. We learned the true meaning of creole. We were split up into groups and each group made a portion of the meal.
After our amazing meal, we were let loose in the French Quarter for the rest of the day.
Even though it was a bit rainy and wet, the French Quarter was one of the best days I’ve ever had. In New Orleans they have something called a second line, that is basically a parade in the street that is led by a marching band. They do a second line for weddings, births, holidays, even funerals. After about an hour of all of us going our separate ways adventuring through the French Quarter, a second line was marching with their band through the middle of the street.
After this day, I thought there wouldn’t be much more excitement. There couldn’t possibly be more excitement, right?
Maybe excitement isn’t the right word, but I fell mildly in love with John Boutte.
Here is a link to him performing one of his songs at Jazz Fest, that actually is the theme song for an HBO series Treme that, of course, takes place in New Orleans.
‘Twas a day well spent, dousing myself in culture. A great transition into how we will be spending the rest of our time here–doing fieldwork!
Stay tuned…
Yesterday we made a garden from scratch. We tilled the land and planted the seeds to help a food desert in Louisiana. The field after we finished below.
The field before we started.
Heute haben wir den ganzen Tag im Garten gearbeitet. Ich bin so so müde und ich hab seltsame Sonnenlinien. Wir haben Kürbisse, Melone, Gurke, Paprika, Tomaten, Mais, Wassermelone in fünf Reihen und ein Blumenbeet gepflanzt. Wir haben nur den Garten für diesen Mann namens Carol, aber er ist sehr nett und verletzt und ein Freund zu meinem Professor.
Vor:
Mitte:
Nach:
Das Land befindet sich zwischen dem Golf von Mexiko und dem Fluss Mississipi so wir waren auf der mississippi Levee Seite stehen
Und dann sind wir eine Louisiana Schilden und den sterbende Zypern Wald gesehen
Danach sind wir nach Woodland Plantation gegangen und haben wir ein “Crawfish Boil” gemacht. Es war sehr interessant und ich mag es.
Wir sind in der alten Plantagenhaus bleiben und es ist sehr schön 
Heute haben wir den ganzen Tag im Garten gearbeitet. Ich bin so so müde und ich hab seltsame Sonnenlinien. Wir haben Kürbisse, Melone, Gurke, Paprika, Tomaten, Mais, Wassermelone in fünf Reihen und ein Blumenbeet gepflanzt. Wir haben nur den Garten für diesen Mann namens Carol, aber er ist sehr nett und verletzt und ein Freund zu meinem Professor.
Vor:
Mitte:
Nach:
Das Land befindet sich zwischen dem Golf von Mexiko und dem Fluss Mississipi so wir waren auf der mississippi Levee Seite stehen
Und dann sind wir eine Louisiana Schilden und den sterbende Zypern Wald gesehen
Danach sind wir nach Woodland Plantation gegangen und haben wir ein “Crawfish Boil” gemacht. Es war sehr interessant und ich mag es.
Wir sind in der alten Plantagenhaus bleiben und es ist sehr schön
Today we helped with another community food garden planting. We then ended our day by visiting the southern most point of Louisiana and eating some crawfish.
Tonight we are sleeping at an old plantation which appearntly is one of the top ten most haunted places in the state of Lousiana. Should be interesting.
Today marked our last day at the Mustard Seed House, as our group was on to new adventures in the southern region of the state. The group got on the road early, and we were off to Buras, Louisiana!
We spent the majority of the day helping a gentleman near the town plant a large garden on his property. We started out by tilling and clearing five rows to prepare for planting. We planted watermelon, onion, pumpkin, pepper, cucumber and some flowers.
We finished up around 5 o’clock and headed to the southern most point in Louisiana. Tonight we’re staying at the Woodland Plantation and will be heading back to the Woodlands Preserve to continue vegetation transects tomorrow.
Awsome day helping out at the Capstone Community Garden ! We helped do a bunch of random activities such as prepping the house for paint, weeding, gardening, and help build the aquaculture. The aquaculture uses catfish tank which feeds into the plant tank that takes out all the nutrients and cleans the water; this is brought back into the catfish tank. The food produced goes to the local community that is mostly in poverty.
We also met up with local env lawyers and news reporters that talked about the events surrounding the hurricane.
We had a long day of helping the Capstone community through various different activities. I helped first by de-weeding a small plot and planted a few small plants like kale and lettuce. Afterwards we helped with clearing out a plot of land from all of the vegetation that had overgrown. This was challenging because of how thick the weeds had grown in. It took quite a while to complete this task. Once finished we also helped with the cleaning of clay rocks that the the man in charge of the organization would use for his aquaculture system that he had set up the the side of his building. Once we left Capstone, we went to talk to a lawyer about the pending lawsuit that was filed against the oil and gas business for their part in the damage that they played through their actions. Afterwards, we went to discuss the flooding with an environmental editor to discuss his involvement and experience of hurricane Katrina. It’s very interesting to see and hear how different people’s opinions are of the ‘who, what, when, where, why, and how things happened during that time.
Today we spent most of our day at the lower ninth ward volunteering for an organization by the name of Capstone. New Orleans is a food desert, making it very much difficult for low income communities to have access to healthy food. Due to this issue Capstone has adopted several plots in the lower ninth ward and have used them to establish community food gardens that help feed the local community.
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