Cajun country: ashrimping we will go!

If crawfish are a local specialty, shrimp are the universal specialty of Cajun country. The closer I got to the coast on outings with Sson and family, the more shrimp boats we saw. Reminded me of my youth, it did. When I was growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, any seafood restaurant worth its salt had its own fishing vessel or perhaps two or three.

I remember seeing the high masts at a distance out at the edge of the word as the boats returned to dock at the end of the day. A line of vessels. Of course, they caught fish as well as shrimp.

Local Jacksonville folk back in the aught-30s & 40s had their own shrimp nets. At that time, the inland waters hadn't been shrimped out, so it was quite possible to get a good evening's meal with an hour of so of swirling the net out from the river bank. My dad and I used shrimp as bait when we fished -- either shrimp pieces or, for a classier catch, live shrimp.

I presume that these Louisiana boats are shrimping in the Gulf of Mexico or possibly the inland waterways.

There were no signs so I couldn't figure out whether these huge nets were drying or whether they were for sale. Probably the latter.

The big business of shrimping.

And the roadside business.

Buying the shrimp for the etouffee made by the Sson the evening of this particular outing. Yum! It's especially yummy when the young folk do all that hard work of shelling and cleaning the tasty little critters.

My Second Anniversary: Today, May 27, begins my third year of blogging. If you're curious, here's a link to my first post, The Pleasures of Strolling. It's been a grand two years. I've leaned a lot about digital photography and PhotoShop. I've enjoyed sharing my small adventures. But most important of all are the friends that I have made along the way. It's wonderful to read your comments and enter into a dialog with people from far and near.

I had to return home to collect tower pictures!

Isn't it curious. There I was, visiting in the South, which is country with a lot more history than the West. Well, maybe not that much more, but certainly it preceded the Civil War. Yet as I peered at the various older houses while exploring Cajun country and Memphis, I saw few towers! Even as a little girl, I wanted a tower room of my very own. Which is why my search pattern is in good working order. If there's a tower, I see it!
And so I had to return to Prescott to collect pictures of wonderful old houses with towers. Nor was this a matter of just hitting Mt. Vernon Street. Actually, the beautiful blue above and the hard to see big round corner below were the only examples from our famous street of period Victorians.

Cortez Street examples are equally cool. The blue above and the white below sit cheek by jowl just down the street from Cupper's. In the past, the blue house served as a B&B, while its handsome companion houses a business, I believe. Aren't the mullioned windows on the white building especially lovely?

Yes, there is a Victorian special on Grove Street and, below, on Marina, if I'm not mistaken.

You'll find two of the most outstanding houses with towers on Union Street, that short mid-block street climbing the hill up from the Courthouse.

Over on/near Coronado is a small cluster of old-style homes dating from the 90s. The 1990s, to be exact. They were a pet project of a contractor who had a yen to create new Victorians from the old Sears house plans he had the good luck to locate. He managed to sell seven at the Coronado site and a handful elsewhere, but unfortunately, the local market for new housing was more attuned to McMansions.

Another of the new old houses. The tower cap sits atop what we called an octagon front in Chicago. One of my friends there threatened to buy a new modern-style row house built as part of Hyde Park urban renewal; her idea was to improve it by adding an octagon front.

This particular house was built for a woman who had a fancy Georgian doll house with a central square tower. Another of the new-old structures.

Not every Victorian in town has been gentrified! I believe that this house was still renting out rooms when I took the picture a couple of years ago.

Nor is every tower sprouted from the second or third story. Sitting over on McCormick is the restored house that had belonged to a famous madam in Prescott's earlier days. As for the Leroux Street building below, my daughter-in-law's Aunt T., a delightful little woman who moved to Prescott for 2-3 years, lived briefly in a old converted apartment which included the dormer window. It was while driving the city with Patty on Thursday that I discovered gentrification was well underway. No idea whether its future is as housing or as a business location.


As a final note, this post is dedicated to Mari-Nanci who photographs the wonderful mansions in New York's fashionable Saratoga Springs. I thought she would be interested in some of our historic houses.

Linkage: If you like to eat out, you should read the current post by Lemegeton, who recently moved to town and has been sampling downtown eateries. Prescott Arts Beat is currently posting three podcasts, interviews with Tsunami-on-the-Square honchos; the event is coming very soon (June 10).

More family blogging

In case you've revisited recent posts, you may have noted a new visitor -- Tall Nephew. He truly is, by the way, as you can see from pictures of TN with his mom (above, The Other Niece from Memphis) and me, in my Elvis finery and Mother's Day orchid (below).

However, the important news is that after several comment exchanges, the Tall Nephew logged on to Blogger and opened up himself a blog. In case you'd like to welcome TN, the site is Points of Interest.

And while I'm introducing family members, here is TN's bro and basketball champ Z.; he has traveled widely playing in the Special Olympics.

Two discarded shoes

Among the flotsam (or is it jetsam?) I found along the Gulf shore on my epic journey to America's South was this single walking shoe, although that looks like it might be a small child's sneaker immediately above and to the left. Needless to say, I neither noticed nor investigated the little shoe. I can certainly understand the urge to kick off one's shoes to walk barefoot on a nice sandy beach -- river sandals are for waters that hide unpleasant surprises where you least expect them. Which still doesn't explain why only one of each.

Now this cast-off saguaro shoe (or boot) is a different matter entirely. I found it in my patch of ice plant several days ago, courtesy of a neighbor, a professional who periodically combs the desert (and the uplands) for archaeological sites. Explanation per the Colossal Cave web page: Gila Woodpeckers and Gilded Flickers hollow out holes in [saguaro] stems. These they use for a year and leave for lizards, insects, and other birds. To counteract what could be devastating moisture loss, the saguaro secretes a substance that hardens to form a callus lining the damaged area, creating a water barrier and a nice nest hole. Eventually, when the saguaro dies and the flesh decays away, what remains are the ribs and the saguaro "shoes" or "boots." My understanding is that the holes are especially popular nesting sites among cactus wrens. Needless to say, I'm pleased to have this cactus relic.

Memphis in bloom

Warning: I'll be hopping back and forth across the USA probably for another month, as I continue to share my recent trip with you while, at the same time, recentering myself on Prescott (before I embark on yet another excursion, this to the OmegaMom family up in Alaska.) Today, I'm back in my sister-in-law's garden (we've been divorced, as she puts it, for many, many years but are still best of buddies.)

Nothing could be more Deep South than the magnolia grandiflora, a sometimes huge tree that bears lovely white blossoms with a heady scent. It's the state flower of Mississippi and Louisiana. Wikipedia offers this fascinating tidbit: Magnolia is an ancient genus. Having evolved before bees appeared, the flowers developed to encourage pollination by beetles. As a result, the carpels of Magnolia flowers are tough, to avoid damage by eating and crawling beetles. Fossilised specimens of M. acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae dating back to 95 million years ago. Another primitive aspect of Magnolias is their lack of distinct sepals or petals. The term tepal has been coined to refer to the intermediate element that Magnolia has instead. Magnolias are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Giant Leopard Moth.

Yet another blossom symbolic of the Deep South -- the honeysuckle. Again, Wikipedia fills in the blanks. It turns out that North America and Europe each claim 10 different native species, but some 100 (count 'em--100!) are native to China; there's even an Asian variety for the cats (it contains the same ingredient, nepetalactone, as catnip). When you were a kid, did you carefully pull out the nectar from honeysuckle? I did and now discover that the Crooks Corner Restaurant in Chapel Hill NC features a honeysuckle sorbet on its desert menu. Oh, the wondrous information The Google serves up!

Having lived in Florida long ago, both magnolia and honeysuckle are very familiar to me. Not to mention that my mother lived on Magnolia Street in Riverside CA when she was growing up. However, here's a tree I really knew little about -- the tulip poplar. This guy, with beautiful tulip-like blossoms, was growing tall and full in the yard of the Famous Niece from Memphis.

Had to get close-ups of the flowers. Yet another state tree -- in Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. I can see why. BTW, did I mention that everywhere except in the newest subdivisions, the trees in and around Memphis were HUGE!

Foolishly, I did not write down the name of this curious flower from a shrub at the sister-in-law's.

A brilliant red maple, given to the SIL by my mother. It's named Marguerite in mom's honor and has grown mightily, but can't keep up with the natives!

And, just because of the enthusiasm my recent iris picture enjoyed, here are a couple more iris shots. It is indeed a voluptuous subject.


Oops -- what is this pink evening primrose doing in a Memphis post? Isn't it what we call Mexican primrose here in Arizona? Very well and good but the fact is that I saw this same plant growing wild all over Louisiana and Tennessee. So there! Below, as a finale, is one of the SIL's excellent specimen-quality poison ivies.

Cruising South Prescott

The idea hadn't been to explore neighborhoods -- it was simply to locate the blue Victorian with a fine tower for my collection for a future post. However, friend Patty had time after our Thursday breakfast group to travel a bit. Thus, we took a hint from the RV mural above, on a very small (and local) scale. A few of our findings follow.

First, another muralesque sight, this on the north wall of the florist at Montezuma and Leroux. A real northern AZ subject, too: a mountain man up near Bill Williams Mountain (left) and the Peaks (right), even a bear in the lower right hand corner.

The old Adult Center has been thoroughly face lifted for its new role as the Boys & Girls Club. Looking at those stairs makes one wonder how our senior citizens managed all those years, though the location is certainly superior to the new center which is far from downtown or the little bus route (and an expensive taxi ride away).

This "boat" is a hard one to figure out (or to picture). We couldn't decide whether it is a trailer to be pulled in a parade of art cars or if the "bridge" actually holds a driver's compartment. In any event, it sits in a front yard, awaiting the right event.

On the other hand, the idea of a VW bug serving as a wrecker is certainly an idea whose time is ahead of us, what with soaring gasoline prices & automotive down-sizing. Another potential use is very, very Prescott: attach the hoist to a stout tree at the edge of a small canyon to lower your ride to a lower level. One way to explore the upper Verde, for example.

A surprise, really ready for gentrification, that we found at the south end of town. Somehow this property got overlooked in the midst of our recent housing boom.

This cute little playhouse matched the accompanying home in color scheme, if not in architectural style.

Quite different from most local houses was this house, shingled all over. Comfortable looking, in any event.

Perhaps the greatest experience from the hilly south end of town was the wonderful view! The Pioneers' Home above left, with Little Granite and Two Rock Mountains in the background to the right, and Granite Mountain looming over town below.

We finished our adventure near the Sal, where this willow caught the wind that presumably is bringing a storm and our snow level down to 6000 ft. tonight. In Prescott, we will always accept any moisture, with many thanks.

Linkages, Etc: Speaking of that storm, it chased the Artful RV folks out of the Nevada mountains over in the Basin & Range country. I've often wondered about what those hills were about and now I have an idea; they've got some wonderful pix, including small wildlife. If you've ever wondered about life in the G.O.D. (Good Old Days), take a look at Prescott Style's list of headlines about accidents from old Arizona newspapers. World Pictures & More captured a neat batch of bee photos the other day, while Warren down in Tucson features a picture of el hombre, a gent you wouldn't like to meet up with on any dark and stormy night.