I Went to See the Biggest Tree East of the Sierra Nevada- October 12th (Patreon)

Yesterday we drove up to St Francisville, two hours away, to visit Cat Island State park, with the intention of seeing the oldest cypress easty of the Sierra Nevada. We've been planning this trip for years, but the conditions have been too hot or too rainy to head out into the swamp.

This gigantic bald cypress is 1500 years old, and it's really hard to get a sense of scale from the boardwalk built to protect its ancient roots from constant tourists.

Louisiana used to be covered in old-growth cypress forests, but logging 200 years ago clear-cut most of that old growth. This tree is one of the very few remaining ancients, and worthy of respect and protection. In fact, the town I'm from, Luling, is named after one of the families that cut down all the old-growth forests in our area. Honestly, I think that fact is kinda disgusting, and I'm sharing it because Louisiana needs to stop naming towns after plantation owners and industry that wipes out entire populations of people, animals, and plants.

Can you imagine going out into a swamp FULL of these ginormous root systems?

Because cypress is rot-resistant, some of those stumps remain, which you can see in the swamps or when you drive on the interstate.

Visiting this cypress is a religious experience for me, similar to when I went to visit the California redwoods. While I wish we could have gotten closer to the tree, I respect that the park is trying to keep this ancient giant alive and healthy. To avoid damaging the roots by walking on them or the bark with the oils in my hands, I stayed on the boardwalk. It would have been so cool to get closer to the roots and look up into the branches, though.

On the hike up, we passed other giants, slightly younger, but no less impressive, that we could approach.

This tree is much smaller than the one above, but this gives a sense of scale. Bald cypress generally don't get as tall as their redwood cousins, as they have to contend with hurricanes and tend to snap off, but that doesn't kill the tree, as you can see from this split example.

Is it any wonder that I love Lilliputian things, when I grew up surrounded by beautiful giants? Sometime, I'll share our Spanish Oaks with yall

Because bald cypress is rot-resistant, pirougues were historically made from hollowed-out trees, but as bald cypress is quite endangered, it's much harder to get the wood commercially.

Cypress pops up in my work from time to time- here are two cypress focused illustrations that are currently stretched and waiting for paint:

This one is just straight up bald cypress- cypress needles, cypress knees, and in the back, bald cypress.

This one is about the rougarou and Rougarou Fest, with Kara emulating the cover of Where the Wild Things Are, wearing a loup-garou costume and terrorizing the swamp under the full moon, with spooky moss-laden cypress trees on the horizon.

Cat Island is a very pretty, very rugged state park with lots of hunting, fishing, and hiking opportunities.

A little native frogfruit flowerette.

This beautiful butterfly kindly posed while I took my photo, then fluttered off.

That little river on our way out of the park as sunset approached.In Other News:

Lately, I've been so busy that I haven't been able to get any larger illustrations done, so I've been painting smaller magnolia cards.

WARNING: Cute PET rats ahead!

File and Chicory have been hanging out in this little satellite hide at the top of their cage, which makes for easy photos!

File also likes to hang out in this soft plush log (the "nutshack") to receive pepitos and banana chips. It's like a reverse drive through window.

But I did finish my illustration for Big Shot, a VERY local soft drink, this week.

And I'm currently working on an autumn Start to Finish printable and tutorial for yall!

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