Butte La Rose et Les Entourage

Bonjour!
“Once I was young, I will be old once.”
Just another little reminder to everyone about the Senior Citizen day Oct. 11 in Catahoula! Rain or shine, sleet or snow, God willing we’ll be there. Invite friends, especially to enjoy the gumbo Sheriff and Mrs. Ronny Theriot are treating us to. And our little group of music will play the traditional Cajun waltz for the contest. Everyone enjoys watching the challenging dancers competing. C’est fun!
It’s that time of year also to get the little floor heaters cleaned and ready for winter. You know how we forget little things like that until the last minute after the cold has come hit us in the butt.
When we came to live in Butte La Rose in 1976, we moved our trailer here from New Iberia. We wanted to eventually either trade for a bigger mobile home or add an addition to the smaller one we already had. I decided to start looking around this area for an old frame house. I found an old wooden one made of cypress in the Nina area. There was a for sale sign on it and when I called the owners I was told the house had to be moved from the property. That was what I was hoping to find. I bought it for $300. It had a fire place that I was able to buy for another $50. There was no trace of termites on the wood.
With the help of my sons Steve and Kenneth we tore down that house including roof and fireplace and all. And as we’d tear it down we removed nails because it was easier to stack the planks flat in bed of the pickup for moving. That took about a week to get all that wood here. Levee was still graveled then.
This was a blessing because there was enough wood to attach the walls together and build two bedrooms and a living room measuring twelve feet by about fifty feet to our 10- by 55-foot trailer.
And to say we were comfortable in the trailer and snug as a bug in a rug. But we were a heck of a lot more comfortable in the addition that gave us those added rooms. I had bought the 2x4s 14 feet long to build the frame of this addition, on which my husband, Allen, had gotten me started.
I had never built anything of that size before and was willing to do what I needed to. But together we put up the frame and that worked out. He worked offshore so while he was gone I’d work on the outside wall and then eventually did the work inside. It was not perfect but it was home, babe! I was proud of what I was doing. How could I have ever known that when I was a kid working in the fields with a hoe and shovel and sometimes milking cows, that would have given me guts to do this kind of adventure. C’est tes fun.
But what a mess this yard was. The grass had not grown back yet since we’d moved here. And then wood piled all over the yard, pooyie! Not to mention all those piles of bricks. I was not embarrassed over the looks of the yard because I knew my castle was gonna look good someday after it was built. I was happy beyond words to have this place in Butte La Rose, just a few miles from my Catahoula roots, where I pray to stay from now through eternity.
And here it is 2014, thank you God! Let not the greed of man try to take away the blessing God has bestowed upon me! And the beat goes on to Part Two.
Ametiè!

–Cousine Hélène
337-228-1714
helenboudreaux@juno.com