Baja St. Martin

The lovely weather continues but we surely do need some rain. My broccoli and cauliflower wilts every afternoon if I don’t get the hose out.
It is nice walking on the levee lately except the mosquitoes are terrible. I now carry a book, water bottle, Kleenex and a spray container of repellent, otherwise I can’t sit on my favorite log or even walk in peace.
Halloween is a non-event for me here. Hwy. 997 is too dark, no streetlights, no sidewalks, and the houses are too far from the road. I’ve never had trick-or-treaters except when my daughters were little and maybe two of my friends would bring their children to the door. A friend in Pierre Part told me she had about 200 children stop at her house. She’s a partially retired teacher, well-known and well-loved so her house is obviously a popular place to beg.
We have heard that the public hearing for the FAS/levee issue will probably be sometime in January, but no particular date has been set. Apparently, the DNR has “fixed” the FAS application, returned it to FAS for revision and received it back. All fixed, I guess.
We have recently made a good contact with the Coast Guard in Morgan City. This is the group that deals with the spillway area which includes the FAS injection wells. They have expressed a willingness – actually an eagerness – to communicate with us – citizens, etc. – about violations, etc. in the spillway.
The Assumption Parish County Extension Agent, Rick Louque, came to my house recently at my invitation to look at two of my fruit trees. A Meyer lemon and a satsuma were not producing blossoms or fruit at all. He said the last winter’s freeze had killed the grafted part of the lemon so the tree was producing beautiful leaves but would not produce fruit. The satsuma may be in the same situation, but he suggested giving it a year to see.
So I’m getting the chainsaw out this weekend to get rid of the lemon and while I’m at it I’ll cut off a big branch of my golden raintree which is drooping almost to the ground.
The next Food for Seniors will be Nov. 20 I’m told. Friends handled the last distribution for me and let me know that the date had been changed to this, which is much better than the earlier one originally scheduled. People now will have a bit more for Thanksgiving.
I will be having outpatient surgery soon for some colon polyps – a kind that could become cancer if not removed, so I want them out! I recently spent a day going from Our Lady of the Lake to Woman’s Hospital getting paper work done and the stress wore me out. Of course, I got a bit lost at one point but not badly.
I am not a city driver. I don’t know how people live with that traffic every day. When I was in California recently I had occasion to utilize a shuttle service and told the driver that I lived in a town that didn’t even have one stop light. He thought that was so amazing and pretty funny.
I guess the hummingbirds have gone wherever they go for the winter. My feeder has not been used in days.
The telephone and power lines go over my house and every once in a while a squirrel will fall from one line onto the roof with a loud thump. My house is an A-frame so the poor critters then scrabble desperately trying not to slide down the corrugated tin, making a horrendous racket. We’ve kind of gotten used to the noise!

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