Baja St. Martin

I don’t know what the current price of crawfish is to the fishermen, but it seems that people are starting to catch a few. When you drive along Highway 70 going to Pierre Part you pass almost all the crawfish buying stands and lately there are piles of purple sacks on most. Not huge piles, but until now there have been no piles at all.

Food for Seniors in Baja St. Martin will take place on Thursday, March 27, same times, same places. I’ll be handing out flyers then about the upcoming veterans meeting scheduled for April 11. At this time it appears the get together will be in the new Belle River Community meeting building. The use of this building had been delayed but now things have been resolved. This will be on Friday, April 11 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Unless something changes, District Attorney Haney will provide lunch for the veterans and their spouses and/or significant others who come to share information, visit and hopefully just have a good time being together. Veterans Affairs officer Dee Vicks will be there to answer questions. Thanks to Shirley Akers for organizing this whole affair. I’ll probably be handing out flyers to Food for Senior recipients and put some information in the local papers. This is for St. Martin and St. Mary parish vets, not other parishes and not for children.

Belle Riverites are concerned right now about the possibility of a facility being located on the levee just south of the public boat landing. A local company is seeking rezoning and/or a variance in order to put something in this site. A town meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 26, in the Belle River fire station at 6 p.m. so the company reps can explain to all exactly what it is they want to do. Needless to say, people are becoming worried even with minimal information.

I will be present at this town hall event and will report on it to you. At this moment I really don’t know much at all and don’t want to print anything that might be just gossip. After the meeting, I’ll definitely let you know what’s going on. Rumors, of course, are flying about. We have a relatively pristine environment here, the levee is clear and clean, devoid of structures (mostly) and we (those of us who live here) don’t want anything to change. So, stay tuned.

I’m hearing this morning on the news that some debris has been spotted in the Southern Indian Ocean which may – just may – be from that plane that disappeared. I looked on the map to see where the sighting was and was stunned to see how far south it was. Way below Australia! Will we ever find out how on earth a plane got here which was supposed to be flying in the opposite direction? As I write this it’s much too early to know if what is seen comes from the 777 plane. I feel so sorry for the relatives of the passengers. They certainly need some resolution, bad or good.

The levee was mowed yesterday and the air smells like fresh grass. As I talk with my sisters and they tell me of more snow, below freezing temps still, I can look out my back door and see the lovely green on the levee topped, unfortunately, by the brown steel seawall.

Outside my window, three squirrels are running up and down the cypress trees, leaping from branch to branch, running along my privacy fence wall. Does anyone know if squirrels are really just playing when they do this or does all this movement have something to do with mating rituals?

The purple martins are chattering away. I’m still a bit disappointed to not see more birds, but maybe I’m just not watching closely enough. I do enjoy their noise.

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