Baja St. Martin

Hasn’t this cool weather been absolutely wonderful? In just a few days I’ve been able to comfortably mow grass, weed-eat, trim back vines and plants taking over my sidewalks. I even spent most of one day on my knees, hand trimming St. Augustine runners which were taking over the driveway. It looks so neat now.
The levee was mowed recently, at least in the places where residents had not done so already. Today two big John Deere tractors came along – one dragging an apparatus with some sort of spinning wheels which put all the dry grass in long rows. Later another tractor came along pulling this box-like thing which picked up the grass and sort of disgorged it into huge rolls. I don’t know what you call this equipment, so forgive my descriptions. It was fun to watch them operate. Tomorrow I expect somebody or something will be along to pick up the rolls.
I did wonder what the tractor operators thought of the previously mowed patches which gave them no fodder. I guess the levee mowers don’t mind when people do their job for them unless it means the mowers have to stop and start too much.
A friend of mine who lives a bit north of me and whose part of the levee was not mowed – as mine was not – stopped to chat and we agreed it seems rather pretentious and certainly unnecessary to mow the levee across from your home. Not to mention it puts a lot of wear and tear on a mower not made for heavy duty work. Maybe we’re both jealous! Anyway, the levee looks nice no matter who mowed it.
The spillway level has fallen considerably with the strong north wind we’ve been having. The dog and I can walk on the mud banks easily and I’m finding new spots on which to sit and read while the dog plays in the water. The mosquitoes are pretty bad, however, in my yard and everywhere else.
If you want to read a great book sometime look for Running with the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams. It’s the story of a young boy raised on a cotton form in Georgia in the early l900s. Absolutely hilarious in places!
My new little kitten is taking a nap on my laptop keyboard which makes typing a bit haphazard, but better than when he kept walking back and forth causing my computer to freeze up from conflicted instructions. It is amazing how much fun a kitten has with so little. A pencil which will roll, a box, a shoe, a ball of yarn, crumpled foil. I just wish my big old cat would appreciate all this and become a bit more tolerant.
Dean Wilson, the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper will be presenting a program at the Pierre Part library tonight on a topic which I think was presented to upper St. Martin earlier. Dean feels the Atchafalaya Basin is becoming restricted by property owners who don’t allow fishing or perhaps charge money for use. I will attend the meeting and will report next week on what I hear.
Crawfishing has changed so much from the days when my husband and I fished. We were considered reasonably big fishermen with 300 traps! Now they fish with thousands. And I’m told everyone leaves their traps out hanging on trees which was once a terrible sin. It certainly makes sense when you have so many traps. There was a time also, when nobody worried much about filing for taxes on crawfish earnings, but I know that’s not true anymore. Now there are trip tickets to keep track of who is catching and selling what and how much. It’s all big business these days.

Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be e-mailed at lcooke9417@bellsouth.net.