Cajun Spell

 

CAJUN SPELL

Coeur de cèdre

Feuille de pin

Le cri d'Amédé Ardoin

Eye of round

Sans d'oseille

Bayou Noir 

la 'tite jambe caille

Can de Rotel

Burn it down

Make three rips 

Around my town

Les idées dans ma cervelle 

Mêle dans une choquelle

Ca c’est ton Cajun spell

From the Train

Evangeline Parish Rice Dryer at Ville Platte

Bayou Marron

Pirate Gold

Les Blues de Mars Rice Road

A la bouche de Mars Rice Road

On s'est balladé

Debaillon Plantation à l'anse Cavalier

On a fait les quatres coins à la Prairie Ronde

Et les quatres cents coups jusqu'au Bayou Marron

When I look out over the Pdf

Tournoi 2015

Straight Outta

Had to get these out of my system!

Chateau Mes Deux Filles Apartments

Queen Evelyna of the Chateau Pecan Sololiquy

We was crossed up dat time! How y'all doin?
Y'all looked at dem pecan trees? I just been talkin 'bout em, I got a lot of trees at my house, dey hadn't been bearin, neither, too much, now maybe ma son when he go out dere to where ma house at, I'm at the Chateau, you know, but out there they have a lot of pecan trees that haven't been bearin for several years, there, too good. They useta make a lot but they told me there's a certain time... I tell you, if you treat em, they got a way you put that.. uh, whatcha call dat stuff around da tree... lime! And dey said it would make but you put dat around dere, don't put it right at it, the tree, but you gotta treat em, but I think they round in October I believe.. or January 1, whatever it is, but I mean, das what they put around em to make em bear! But lately my trees ain't been makin many and I got a lot of trees around out there.. round where I stayed out there... Bayou Chicot...Where the Wittington store was there, I got a grey trailerhouse ova dere, right dere, across the road on the right, dey was on the left I was on the right, that's where I lived right dere, ma family's still dere. But anyway dat pecan tree, dey say some years dey don't make good! Every other year, das what dey say! So I said dey got a way to treat em! Even I see the man talkin with Gary Arnold, got em talkin 'bout dem trees, you put dat lime around em, but you put it so many inches from da tree, and you make a lil' round hole, you know you make a lil hole and den put dat down in dere and den cover it up, den, if it's dry you water it. But if it rain, you know, that'll make it go down into the ground but nowaday, mine don't make hardly nothin no mo'. I beem needin some pecans, but my son dere, he ain't tole me nothin' dis year but he probably go out dere in a few days. And then some of the trees are too old, when dey get too old I don't think they bear too good no mo'. Yeah, it's like us old, when you get arthritis, you know, that makes it difficult! Y'all have a good day I'mma let y'all go! Take care now.

The Enchanted Prairie des Femmes

And have you seen the dragon who guards the bridge at Frozard?

I knew the Prairie des Femmes was enchanted because she was so unassuming, and so one day we set out across Monsieur Vacheur's  back pastures and then on to the other side, where there is a little grove of trees in a small l'anse of the prairie. There we found all kinds of evidence of fairy activity: acorn caps fashioned into hats and piles of hickory nuts like pyramids, the abandoned wings of the demoiselle fly, their forlorn iridescence catching my eye. There were spider webs along the ground (the tiny elves like to take their morning drink from the dew that gathers in droplets) and mossy green couches where they reclined in the roots of a cypress tree. There were new leaves freshly impaled on twigs scattered about (fairy flags) champignons of red and grey, and even green rings where they had danced the new moon before. But to be sure, I saw no fairies or elves or nains or even lutins, only their evidence. I knew that they were there, though, because after my journey to the l'anse, at dusk I could see the thin plumes of smoke rising like grey threads above the treeline; at night, the candle-flicker of their fires in the wood. Sometimes, I could hear the Indian drums and knew they danced to them in fairy rung:

In the spring, we went onto the ancient Bayou Bourbeau that borders the enchanted prairie. Up to the Grand Chemin halfway to Opelousas we went to put the canoes in the bayou. We came all the way down, behind the Academy of the Sacred Heart, we rested at the old wooden bridge covered in white blackberry flowers, and stopped to pick a few of the early dewberries.  Down the Bourbeau's green banks at narrow spots there were so many adolescent black moccasins, that they struck at the paddles and at the boat from the water and banks alike, until we made a game of bopping their hissing heads with our paddles. We floated along under a stripped umbrella and found white spider lilies and picked one for the mast of the ship. Further down where the brown water widened, there were white mulberry trees lining both banks of the muddy Bourbeau, and we picked and shook the trees until the berries fell like fat pink and white drops of rain.

 

Then one day in a rush I chanced upon a curious fellow, a centaur on the Prairie des Femmes road! He was all in brown and bareback'd with no identifying qualities that would place him in this century or the last. I had to stop to speak to him, to make sure he was not an apparition (as they are as likely on the Prairie des Femmes road as a centaur)  and though I spoke, he gave a sheepish smile but never replied except for a neighing sigh I heard as I turned. As he rounded the third curve, I snapped this photograph, and surely if I had not, you would believe my story or that the Prairie des Femmes was truly enchanted and maybe neither would I.

But then on the morning of the winter solstice, I received the biggest conformation of all! I happened to pass the Queen of the Prairie des Femmes in her grand Chariot en Paille, led by her entourage of black curs. She was wearing her magenta mantle, trimmed in brown furs! She did not stop, but gave me a gentle nod, for she was working to move the hay, for queens of this prairie must tend the herds, even on the darkest day! 

Je M'Endors

Rue Royale on Pont des Mouton

One of the Hamlets of Pont des Mouton: Rue Royale

Royal Road

La Bonne Vie Apartments

The Bois of France are Enchanted

lutin et champignon!

In France, you understand why this is a kingdom where fairy tales come from...  there are castles from afar and every tree in the woods takes a form: a woman, or a dragon or a wizard. They grow eyes and ears and hands that reach over to snatch you up by the head. The evidence of lutins, gnomes, fairys, and trolls are quite evident, also, in the woods of France.

Bois de Bretagne

The Troll who guards Impasse Gerbole

Fairy castle in the bois

Merlin l'Enchanteur!

Some lutin lost his shoes among the glans