Baja St. Martin

I had a first last week. I went to the middle school in Pierre Part to take a few pictures and when I went to leave my car wouldn’t start. When I lifted the hood I could see the battery terminals were covered with corrosion and of course I had no wire brush, etc. A female friend stopped and suggested I use Coke so I bought one from the teacher’s lounge machine and poured it on the terminals. Then I found a jack knife in my purse with which I scraped some of the junk away. A few thumps on the terminals with a jack handle and my car started.

Back home, under husbandly instructions, the connections are all cleaned and a charger is connected. In retrospect, I recall that my car was not starting quite as quickly as maybe it should have, but stupidly I did not investigate, just kept driving. I don’t drink soft drinks, but I might just keep a can of Coke in my vehicle from now on. That really works!

The weather has been absolutely heavenly the past few days. I’ve walked farther than usual, sat on a log in the woods and chatted with my sister via cell phone. I’ve almost cleaned out a flower bed with dead Mexican petunias. My sister said they were getting more snow and their temp was going down to zero at night. Their tractor is on the blink so she and her husband keep their long drive clear with two snowblowers. She said the blower sort of moves itself, but she still had to guide it. This is my 81-year-old sister, mind you!

This morning I looked out the front door to see a flock of white pelicans swimming slowly past my dock heading upstream. A few minutes later a second flock passed. Odd how they were clumped together in two “packs.”

No Purple Martins yet. I did see a couple of other birds investigating the houses and I went out on the porch and yelled at them to get away. I’m quite sure they didn’t understand but seemed to get the message and flew away.

I’m beginning to clean out flower beds, cutting back dead stuff, clearing away piles of dry cypress needles and Spanish moss. I have actually planted some veggies in flats in my greenhouse, but I don’t have a heating coil anymore so things are not sprouting quickly. I do have arugula coming up and some romaine lettuce, but no tomatoes yet.

Addendum to the battery story above: Despite all my cleaning, and getting stuck one more time, the battery turned out to be almost dead so I have now a brand new one and hopefully won’t have any more troubles for many years. And wow! Batteries aren’t cheap!

Food for Seniors will be Feb. 27, usual places, usual times.

I’ve now met Mr. Bryan Staton, the new principal of Stephensville Elementary School. Very nice man with tons of varied experiences, all of which should make him a very good leader. I don’t know the “rule” about what schools merit an assistant principal but at S.E.S. there is none so the principal sort of has to be a jack-of-all trades and have a good relationship with his faculty. I do know S.E.S just got 30 brand new computers which will be really great for the students.

I’m not very “tech” savvy but even I know that technology is moving ahead so rapidly it is mind-boggling to people my age. Seems that I just manage to understand one new device and it’s already out of date. Frustrating as it is at times, that’s the way it should be.

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