Baja St. Martin

Brrrrr! It is beautiful out today but chilly! At least it’s not raining and that is well worth a few shivers!
A bit of an update on the water level. In the last few days the spillway has come up over the two most southerly Belle River launch ramps so once again, almost everyone is using the far north one where the approach was raised a few years ago. The submerged ramps are in perfectly good order but you can’t see where they are so it’s a bit iffy backing into nowhere! All the big yellow dumpsters have been moved to the road side of the levee and the bathroom bears an Out Of Order sign so be prepared for that. There is plastic warning tape all around the structure.
It has occurred to me that the Atchafalaya Basin Levee District wasn’t overly worried about FAS building a wastewater transfer site on the levee, heavy trucks passing all over the place, but they don’t want people driving on the levee and they’ve closed the bathrooms. Priorities are a wonder.
My walking trail is more than half under water so the dog and I stay on the batture but in the grass, not on my regular trail. She loves it this way because every clump of grass seems to have a wonderful fragrance – probably mice, rabbits, possums, armadillos not to mention stray dogs.
On our last walk a young eagle soared overhead, not very far up, making its whistling call and I worried a bit about my shiny black puppy gamboling blissfully along, but either she didn’t look tasty or the eagle was just looking about. Not long ago, a friend sent me a YouTube video of an eagle actually attacking a pretty large mountain goat. The two tumbled down a steep mountainside and in the end the goat got free and the eagle crashed into the ground, but it was still pretty amazing to see the bird try to capture something so large. (Larger than my dog!)
If you get the AARP newsletter you probably read this article about the latest scam. Someone posing as an IRS representative calls and threatens all sorts of dire consequences if you don’t call such and such a number. I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention but I received such a call just the other day. A woman said I needed to phone a number about my income tax return or be subject to prosecution. I hung up on the woman before she finished her entire spiel, but I’ll bet it was the one mentioned in the newsletter.
If this warning wasn’t bad enough, the same newsletter said the FTC had charged four cancer charities with fraud and included that a former beauty queen had swindled money from supporters by claiming she had cancer. As a cancer survivor myself, I thought this last one was really super ugly. The AARP advice was to contact the IRS if in doubt – (800) 829-1040) – and don’t give to charities unless you’ve checked them out thoroughly.
The husband of Stephensville Elementary Secretary Sandra Gros is critically ill. He is in the hospital in Lafayette under hospice care. I’m sure the family could use your prayers. Mr. Roy has not been in good health the past year or so.
Don’t forget – bingo in Belle River on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 10 a.m. until noon. Food for Seniors on Thursday, Jan. 28 – usual places and times unless otherwise announced. I’m looking forward to the two events. With a few exceptions, these are the only times I see the people who come.
The Sheriff’s annual luncheon has been postponed due to the possibility of flooding. That doesn’t seem likely at this point, but it all depends on how much rain we get in the next few weeks.

Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be e-mailed at lindacooke1939@gmail.com.