Is That a Spider in your Kayak?

In our kitchen there’s a tea towel printed with the words “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” This aspirational nugget, which appears alongside a figure sitting under a tree with a book in its lap, is attributed to the Roman philosopher Cicero, who made a name for himself in pre-Christian Rome for spouting quotable but difficult-to-live-by advice. Never mind the irony that a quote extolling the virtues of reading and gardening should appear on a tea towel—a household linen that, while in use, presumably prevents the toweller from doing either. Cicero’s counsel certainly resonates with my wife, who is never happier than when in the garden avoiding the washing up. If Cicero had managed to work something into his garden-and-library quote about having a man Friday handy to carry the heavy pots around, she’d be his biggest fan. 

There’s never been a more devoted gardener this side of the Plebeian Council than Ashley Fox-Smith, a horticulturist of considerable ambition who greets spring with the kind of excitement normally exhibited by six-year-olds on Christmas morning. Ashley gets great satisfaction from the challenge of coaxing living things to flourish where and when she wants them to. So March in Louisiana, when all things floral go into a kind of botanical hyperdrive, is particularly fulfilling since it is when the hard-fought defensive campaign she wages against marauding deer through the gray days of December and January pays off as new plantings bud out and gaps in her border schemes fill in with tender new growth in a dozen shades of green. While I enjoy the fruits of Ashley’s labors and can be strongarmed into the role of pot-carrying man Friday once in awhile, the part of Cicero’s quote that really resonates with me is the sitting-under-a-tree-with-a-book bit, which is another thing you can’t do while washing dishes. 

On March weekends, my attention wanders out of the garden and down towards the Mississippi, where spring’s warmer air, teeming birdlife, and high water levels make exploring the upper reaches of Bayou Sara and flooded Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge especially rewarding. Anytime the Mississippi River level rises above thirty feet at the Baton Rouge gauge, Cat Island is inundated with river water, rendering it off-limits to terrestrial visitors but freeing paddlers to glide through the flooded forest, following the sloughs and channels into the heart of the refuge.

Last summer, with the river level unusually high, the kids and I took to our kayaks one Sunday afternoon and, after paddling up Bayou Sara for a couple of miles, struck out into the trees. With six feet of water in the woods, all kinds of creatures you might normally expect to be on the ground—raccoons, snakes, possums—had taken to the trees, which made paddling beneath the green canopy exciting since you never knew what might be gazing down at you. Following a fast-flowing current down a slough, we slalomed around hundreds of large spiderwebs—the work of banana spiders and huge, evil-looking (but essentially harmless) wolf spiders—that festooned the lower branches at water level. While gliding beneath one web, my daughter Mathilde had the unforgettable experience of having a large and hairy wolf spider drop with a dull ‘thump’ into her boat.

Although Tilly doesn’t share her mother’s abject horror of spiders she does have her limits, which turn out to lie somewhere on the sensible side of sharing a small plastic boat with a spider the size of a squirrel’s head. Half a mile from the nearest dry land Mathilde abandoned ship onto a fallen tree, and spent the rest of the trip perched on the prow of her brother’s boat. Ashley, who abhors spiders, would point out that Mathilde’s experience only underscores the wisdom of following Cicero’s lasting advice and spending your spring afternoons at home in more controlled natural surroundings. Indeed, it might explain why his words are still turning up on tea towels two thousand years later; while mine, well, end here. Happy reading, folks. May your garden grow green!