As I sat on the levee the other afternoon a guy came up on his ATV device, introduced himself and then said, “You’ re the newspaper lady, aren’t you? Are you up here writing?”
I usually have a puzzle magazine with me so I guess he thought I was writing. I just said, “Yup”. He was friendly and it turned out we had some mutual acquaintances. My car is pretty obvious parked on the top of the levee so people do stop now and then.
The weather continues to be beautiful, as you know. Chilly in the mornings, air conditioning time after lunch. Kind of hard to know what to wear. My yard is a little bleak from the dryness.
I had a nice chat with Mr. Huet the other day. He sent me some really nice pictures on making an ant-free Hummingbird feeder but I still haven’t made one yet. It involved using a plastic cup and I didn’t have one in the house. Now I have a pack which I won’t use, but I will get the feeder device made this week.
It was very foggy at 6 a.m., but now at 8 a.m., the sun is shining. I nearly jumped out of my chair at a huge bang close by which turned out to be a truck dumping dirt on the levee. My neighbor is constructing a road ramp across the highway ditch so he can use the levee for parking. The dump truck emptied a load of dirt and the tail gate banged down.
Belle River is absolutely smooth, not a ripple. There might be a slight movement of the water from the south but it’s low. Going across the Belle River bridge is worth slowing way down. There is practically no boat traffic other than the one which makes docks and decks.
Generally each morning I play Wordle, Connections and Strands on my computer and share my results with my eldest daughter. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the games, Wordle is a puzzle where you have to figure out a mystery word in six tries or less. Connections gives you a bunch of words and you have to figure out what the connection is between them. I am not good at Connections.
The connections are very vague. Strands is not so bad. You get a clue as to what words you’re to find and I often find them. Now my daughter tells me she is playing another Boston Globe mini puzzle. I may try that one Meanwhile things are very quiet over here other than a truck banging. Even the traffic on Levee Road has not been bad. I haven’t asked and probably won’t but I have noticed that the big tanker trucks which were traveling on the road are no longer doing so. That’s really nice. I don’t know why, but I’m not complaining. There does seem to be a bit more unusual traffic, I guess you’d call it. Several people on bikes, a few on foot just walking. Hwy 997 or Levee Hwy has no sidewalks and no shoulder so it’s not a safe place to walk and certainly not for bicycles.
A few miles to my north is an encampment on the levee itself— sort of a squatter village which has been there for years. The people there have no electricity or water or any official amenities but they seem to manage and I’ve not heard of any trouble from the area.
There are more campsites appearing on Levee road along the river. As I sat on the levee the other day I saw and then heard a truck back in the woods across the road along the river. From the noise it sounded like things being dumped and or pounded so I think another campsite is being put in.
Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be emailed at lindacooke1939@ gmail.com.
