Baja St. Martin

The indoor/outdoor thermometer sitting on my kitchen counter says the temperature outside is only in the low 80s, but I spent a few hours outside this morning doing yard work and I thought I might have developed a heat stroke!
OK. So I didn’t really, but I did have to sit in front of the fan for quite a while until my interior temp lowered. I did, however, get carrots, lettuce, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, swiss chard and a few pak choi plants in the garden boxes. I’m just hoping it doesn’t get too hot for them. I hope to find a few tomato plants and some arugula.
My retired teacher friends and I are worrying lately about the possible changes to our Office of Group Benefits health insurance. We’re reading very conflicting articles. I talked to one friend who said she’d read in the Advocate that our premiums would rise a lot and almost the same day I read an article, also in the Advocate, which said that wasn’t true. An issue which confronts many of my friends is the lack of Medicare because they didn’t ever work at any job other than teaching in Louisiana.
My hummingbird feeder is being used by at least two hummers, maybe three, but it’s hard to count accurately. However many, they seem to have reached some sort of détente because they don’t fight. I have had to go out on several occasions when a chameleon was hanging on the feeder, however, snout inserted in one of the plastic flower spouts and was keeping the little hummers at bay. I admit I gave the little lizards a whack with a small stick to knock it off. Wasps are an occasional problem but I keep the ants off with an oily rag on the hangar.
Hallejuia! The backside of the levee is now mowed. It was such a pleasure to be able to walk and actually see where I was putting my feet.
I went to the Shrimp & Petroleum Festival in Morgan City on Labor Day. Every year an older couple from Thibodaux come with a tent display of bromeliads and I try to buy at least one of two things from them. They said Friday and Saturday were pretty bad with heavy rain but Sunday and Monday were fine.
I recently attempted to cancel a gift subscription to a magazine which one daughter said she didn’t want any more. A flyer in the mail offered half a dozen different ways to RENEW but no proper box or space to CANCEL. I went online to the magazine and found the same situation. I could RENEW for the rest of my natural life, but CANCEL? Uh-uh! So I found a phone number by using a magnifying glass to read some teeny tiny print on the front cover of the magazine. I called and was given numerous choices (none of which said CANCEL), and was put on hold for so long I finally actually found myself talking quite rudely to a recorded message and then I hung up. When the magazine subscription finally expires, I think I will just play dead! These people really don’t want you to cancel!
My older sister sent me an interesting article taken from a Nature Conservancy publication telling how the paddlefish had almost become extinct after a lake north of Caddo Lake had been dammed affecting the water flow. The Conservancy along with other agencies have put 47 paddlefish, fixed with radio tracking devices in Caddo Lake. Hopefully the fish will survive and multiply. I remember catching one such fish in a net while shrimping below Morgan City and possibly in a net on Grand Lake once. Really unusual fish.
Now if someone can figure out how to save the African elephants!

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