Things to do in Louisiana between depositions

I have some depositions in Louisiana at the end of the month. So I did a little web surfing and found some examples of what I have waiting for me down there in the Pelican State. This charming photograph was one of many I found when searching for things to do between depositions and while travelling between Baton Rogue and Lake Charles.

The dead rodents the hunter is holding up are called nutria. They were imported to the U.S. about a century ago from Argentina to raise for fur, but when the bottom fell out of the market for the fur, farmers released them into the wild. Since then they have taken over many of the swamps, bayous, and rivers of the southern states. They are destructive to native vegetation, and Louisiana has put a four-dollar-a-head bounty on them. I saw plenty of websites offering to get visiting hunters licensed and teaching them how to go looking for these critters and explaining how hunting nutria is good, clean, Ah-murc’n fun. Who knows, maybe this is becoming a trendy hobby for yuppie-types in New Orleans. (Somehow I doubt that.)

Now, according to some, nutria make good eats. Here we see the Lady of the Lodge (that would be the Lodge of Louisana) enjoying what appears to be a nutria etouffe after a successful day hunting. “You’ve got to eat what you kill,” or so the hunter’s saying goes.

So maybe I’ll just find a bar and watch a baseball game instead. I’ve already learned how to eat crawdads so I feel like I’ve done quite a bit of reaching out to Cajun culture. Since it appears likely I may only need to be there for one day right now, all this research may be for nothing (but you, my Loyal Readers, get to enjoy some first-rate photographs because of it).