Just cute

Just another father and son photo I had to post!

Our extended stay...

 

And what's this?!  My poor little girl's tooth!  :(    One night, I discovered that Zou's upper left canine was broken.  She was drinking funny, I could hear it.  This is what I found when I looked...  It was bad.  You can see the pulp is exposed.  I've had enough experience with bad teeth and root canals to know how painful this probably was for her!!!  You can also see that the tooth behind it was also damaged.  Don't know if she got it from playing with Hayes (they were going at it pretty hard and non-stop in those early days, and VERY mouthy!!) or chewing on their dog bones.  But that meant trying to find proper vets to deal with the situation.  We found a great general vet right in Mandeville to help direct us.  He not only verified our concerns and recommended a veterinary dental specialist in Baton Rouge (there aren't that many, so we were glad to get a referral to someone good not that far away!), but he also ended up convincing us to do more research on the fast vs. slow kill methods for heartworm treatment for Hayes.  He was a strong proponent for the slow kill, and after a lot of internet reading, so were we!  That vet spared Hayes and us A LOT of pain and suffering!!!!!!!!!  (not to mention the 5% mortality rate we discovered with the Immiticide shots!!!)

On our way back from Baton Rouge, after picking up our girl.  She's still pretty dozey...  Good to have Daddy's shoulder for times like these!!!  We ended up having a partial root canal done, in the hopes of saving the tooth.  At this point (about 3 months later), I'm not 100% sure we shouldn't have done the full root canal.  Sure wish we spoke DOG better!!  She's definitely better, but I can't tell if she's cured.  She still drinks sort of funny...but that could just be me being a worried mom over-interpreting the situation...!

Walking in the wilderness, or feeding the mosquitoes...!?!

I took the dogs to the Big Branch Marsh NWR

and fed the mosquitoes...

We took the dogs to the Northlake Nature Center

and fed the mosquitoes.

Lakeshore Drive

Time to take you for a drive along a pretty street skirting Lake Ponchartrain, and see how some of the sad folks - living in such horrible conditions - are gettin' on...

 Public space.  Nice park!

 Hmm, I thought I got this shot straightened, but somehow it looks a little cockeyed yet.  Too bad!  I'm too lazy to go back and fix it and reload it!  Just turn your head a little!

This home isn't lakeshore, but they had such a pretty yard, and the light was hitting things just right...

Fairview-Riverside State Park

The other state park in the area.  Also beautiful!

And more incredible trees!

Some more azaleas going off.

Historic house on the property, but it was closed, and we had the dogs with us anyways, so...

Bill graciously does dog duty, while I run around with my camera...

The waterway in the background is the Tchefuncte River (cool name, eh?!).

Spiderwort.  I've seen these in San Diego nurseries, but here they are just normal parts of the wildscape.  Their Latin name is Tradescantia (I read this translates to "cow slobber!!"  Nice, hugh?!), and they are apparently found all over the US, and from southern Canada to northern Argentina!

Just another gorgeous park...

Madisonville

One day, while in Mandeville, we went to Madisonville.  I know, confusing, ain't it?  Madisonville didn't have the lakefront, but it did have a few nice riverfront properties!

 Check out these little mansions and matching boats...

 This crawfish was really getting in the spirit!

 Just one of many nice houses in town.

 I did a doubletake when we drove over this beautiful bayou!!  Had to put it in reverse!  

 Bayou de Zaire.

 And the other side of Zaire...

 Another little batch of azaleas.

Honey, I'm in the Swamp!

...in the Honey Swamp, that is.  Or more technically, in the Pearl River.  Anyways, it's a swamp tour!  Always good, although I have to say that, based on gator sightings, this one was disappointing compared to the Champagne one out of Breaux Bridge/Lafayette... (I also liked the "driver" on the Champagne one better too - he was convincingly full of it and made us all laugh!  It was just more fun with more sightings!)

 An interesting little fish that got scooped out of the river and placed in an aquarium for us all to ogle.  Hope he made it and got put back in...?!

 I think this was THE ONE really good gator sighting of the whole trip...  He's a beauty, but...only one?!!!  Poo!

 Same guy, handsome profile...

 A different outfit chums for their gators.  And while I was disappointed not to see more of my favorite friends, I rejected that company for that very reason.  As I've said before, I think the same saying applies to the gators that applies to the bears back home (and everywhere!):  A fed ____ is a dead _____!!!!!!  When you alter wild animals' behaviors regarding humans and food by feeding them, you are basically training them to ultimately attack FOR food!!!  It doesn't happen with the first mouthful, so the perpetrators usually get away with their destructive feedings scot-free!  It's the innocent person boating or hiking by that gets mauled, molested, and possibly killed because of the "training" over time!!  And of course, the animal will be hunted down at that point and killed as well.

 I love my gators, and I'm taking pictures of this bad practice, but don't for a second think I condone it!!!

 Other folks on a boat like ours.  Our driver also hurried us along the river - to get us to the swampier part, where we toodled along, sight-seeing slowly.

 A few houses lined the river (and yes, they were prepared to either float or were raised way high up in the air already, just in case!).

 Alligator #2 (and as I recall, that was it!  TWO gators!  What?!  I want my money back!  But wait, that's probably why the other outfit baited the gators with marshmallows...  Never mind!  It was a pretty outing.  And sometimes the gators show, and sometimes I guess they don't...).  This guy was pretty little - maybe a 3-footer or so.  The first one was more like 7 or 8 feet, I think.

 A couple guys gutting dinner or something.  

 And some amazing person on the boat actually spotted this snake in the branches on the side of the swamp!!!!  Our driver scooted us over to see better.  Still too many branches in the way but a cool spotting nonetheless!  Looks non-venomous to me, probably some kind of water snake.

See?  I'm not the ONLY one taking pictures as we enter the swamp part!!!

 Love the swamp trees (cypress) and wild iris.

 Just different swamp scenes...

 oooo, we're not alone...!!

 Nope!  Definitely not alone!!  So that's our boat driver, but who's that behind the tree???

 Here Piggy, Piggy, Piggy!  Apparently EVERYone likes marshmallows!!

So, it's kind of crazy that this supposedly more eco-aware company is feeding the wild boars...   I know they're already hunted, already considered potentially dangerous, and heck, they're already pigs, so...!?!  I dunno...

OINK!!!  (ie, hand over the marshmallows and no one gets hurt...?!)  

 Almost back to the start.  We pass under a cool bridge.  I asked Bill what kind it was - it's called a lift bridge.  On some, one end will lift up the whole span at an angle.  On others, like this one, the center piece gets lifted by supports on both sides of the water.  This particular model looks to have been around awhile...

 Ironically, the prettiest views I found on this adventure were on the road, near the swamp tour company.  This was the awesome scene from one side of the bridge.

And here's the other...