LOUISIANA TRAVELS!!! PART II

Heidy-Ho, Blogging Pals!

I have heard from a few of you so I know the Avery Island post was liked.  Thank you for your emails!

So... let's move on to the Sunday following Avery Island when my friend, Charlotte B., and I made our way a short distance to Jefferson Island and the Rip Van Winkle Gardens thereon.  This was a very different environment.  Avery Island was very natural with no real "plantings."  It was just as you would find leaving the island... native landscape.  Jefferson Island has been molded, shaped, and planted for some very spectacular viewing as well as having some native landscape areas.  It is also home to the Joseph Jefferson Mansion which can be toured (we chose to not take that tour) and a B&B consisting of three cottages available for rental.  The web site link earlier in this paragraph can point you to information on those.

We were the first to arrive early Sunday morning.  We entered into the gift shop where tickets were sold for the mansion tours as well as for the ability to wander the gardens at leisure.  We obtained our gardens tickets and headed out.  Wow!!!  What a beautiful sight!  As done previously, I am going to just post some of the best shots with captions, when appropriate.  I hope you enjoy the trip!  :)

Wow!  Beautiful views right off the bat!

Old Rip's Oak planted by Joseph Jefferson 1870

And here is Old Rip's Oak... Magnificent, isn't it?

There were some interesting "yard art" pieces there.

Beautiful settings and plants.

These are Crinum plants.  A flower detail is below this.

Charlotte caught this fellow preening himself on one of the railings.  We were told there are 83 peacocks (and I'm guessing that includes peahens) on the property!!

There were other "surprises" to be found throughout the property.

Charlotte worked very hard to get this great close-up of the water lily flower!!

At the base of an oak tree (and the remaining trunk of another) I found a stone with a small plaque explaining what the two oak trees had provided!

The LaFitte Oaks - In 1923, 3 pots of buried treasure were discovered here

We had a lovely lunch at the cafe which was 3-sides glass providing a view from every table.  Absolutely beautiful... and the food was pretty darned tasty, too!

Charlotte's favorite bird is the roseate spoonbill which resides all over south Louisiana but is not easily spotted.  On our way out, we stopped at the rookery area where Charlotte risked life & limb (and her shoes!) to cross a field of grasses and a ditch full of water to get as close as possible in order to capture the following shot using her camera's zoom feature.  You will notice the spoonbill at the upper left section of the tree and, I believe, another one nearly hidden below and slightly to the right of that one.

If you like interesting facts, check out the info on the 1980 disaster when an oil rig punctured the salt dome beneath Jefferson Island.  It is fascinating and some of you may remember it from national news reports!

I do hope you have enjoyed our little road trip.  Charlotte and I had a wonderful time discovering a little more of this state where we were both raised.

Oops!  Sorry.  As I was finishing and proofing this post, the spousal-unit called me to look at the back patio and check out the bird activity.  There were two or three Brown Thrashers and a plain ol' Blue Jay out back hopping about and clearly unhappy.  The spousal-unit pointed out the snake hiding up underneath the bench against the back wall.  Hmmmm.  Dark snake.  About two feet long.  So we tag-teamed it.  He got a piece of bamboo split at one end.  I got the shovel.  We had seen it disappear behind a bag of garden soil against the wall.  The spousal-unit slowly removed items until he uncovered the snake.  I got as close as I could comfortably to attempt an ID.  Black & grey topside.  Uh-oh.  Triangular head.  We may have a poisonous one... looks like a water moccasin.  Yeppir.  That's my opinion.  The spousal-unit deftly caught its head in the forked end of the bamboo and rolled it up like a piece of spaghetti!!  Poor little snake didn't know if it was coming or going.  He took it out to an area with a tree stump handy and very deftly dispatched it.  He buried the head and tossed the remains over the back fence.  Done.  I won't kill a snake unless it is 1) poisonous, and 2) too close to where I'm living!!  This seemed to be both.  I hope it wasn't just a frightened water snake since they are not poisonous and I would have preferred to leave it alone.  Oh well.  That close, you have to make a choice.

Until next post...