Land of Rice and Crawfish

After four days in Cajun Country, I have emerged from it in the larger town of DeRidder near the Texas line.  I have to wonder how Cajun Country is different.  I heard no French spoken, was not offered crawfish etouffee, and finally asked a country storekeeper, “Does anyone salt their English with French?”

He answered in what could pass for Californian: “My parents raised me on a mix French, English, and some local words of neither.  Sometimes you still hear old folks or swamp people from back on some bayou talk it, but most of us gave it up.”

I answered, “You sound like a Californian,” then knew I’d made a mistake.  If you are visiting Louisiana, it’s best not to let on you’re from California.

“I don’t know about that,” he said. 

The towns in Cajun Country have old closed-up stores on their main streets, a water tower, a gas station/store, and railroad tracks right down the middle.  Sometimes they have a motel, and about half of them have a huge Walmart.

I rode through crawfish farms and rice fields yesterday.  Those little cans you see sticking up in the pond are crawfish traps. 

A man harvesting crawfish from his boat.  He lifts traps from the pond and pours the “mud bugs” into a can.  He keeps them alive until cooked at some restaurant or packing house.

He raises crawfish for about half of the year, then drains the pond, plants rice and floods it for a cash crop of rice.

This farmer uses a different technique.  He plants rice in the pond with his crawfish.  The crawfish eat the rice.

Red-winged blackbirds swirl in flocks of thousands like currents in a river of air. 

I met Hans from Germany pedaling east.  He camps every night someplace in the woods—a real Davy Crocket.