I wouldn’t say the weather is getting much cooler, but maybe more bearable. Most likely, however, I’m just getting used to the heat.

The farmers have pretty much finished baling the cut levee grass up to the Belle River landing area. I think they do this just once, but I’m not sure. The first area they cut several weeks ago already needs mowing.The grass is getting tall and the dog and I had a close encounter with, what I think was, a cottonmouth moccasin. She (the dog) stopped suddenly, started nervously checking a clump of grass, so I stepped aside and saw a black body slithering away.

In the woods, I’d be very careful where I walked and put my hands, but usually the open levee is snake free. I’ve been bitten or kicked by many things during my years in Lousiana – mink, nutria, birds, fish, raccoons, horses, cows, pigs, chickens, but not snakes.

I’m heading north for a week to visit my sisters in Michigan soon, and am taking my two granddaughters with me.

I’m expecting to have a terrific time with the girls and it will be so wonderful to see my sisters after almost a year. I’ll also see a host of nieces, nephews and cousins.

They tell me it’s been pretty hot up there this summer, but anything below 95˚ sounds great to me!

Not to be ghoulish, but I drove into Bayou Tranquille on my way to a friend’s house and saw the place where the fire occurred. It must have been a terribly hot fire, because there was almost nothing recognizable.

A Pierre Part fireman is reported to have said that by the time they arrived on the scene (and they respond quickly), the most they could do was try and save the adjacent homes. I guess they did that. One trailer next to the charred pile was intact, but had what must have been vinyl siding all curled up. A truck parked across the road had a plastic bug shield on the front, which was melted. It’s such a sad thing.

Most of Belle River and some of Pierre Part had a power outage the other day for nearly three hours. I haven’t heard what caused it, yet.

Our generator comes on automatically within 30 seconds of an outage, so I really didn’t even notice there had been a failure until I heard the deep humming of the machine. We placed it by the road for convenient refueling and it can barely be heard up at the house.

What a joy it was to not have the air conditioner shut down for that length of time.

It’s hard to imagine now that I lived in this state for many years, with no air conditioner, no phone and no running water. How on earth did I survive? (Do you think it might have been because I was 40 years younger?)

Linda Cooke

Teche News” Lower st. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be contacted via email at lcooke9417@bellsouth.net.