Week 35

First, the nature report:
I forgot to say last week that our baby cardinals have gone.  One fledgling sat on our window sill for about 30 minutes singing for its supper, and the daddy cardinal came several times bringing food for it.  And that's the last we saw of them.  Male cardinals don't get their brilliant red plumage until they're about a year old (I guess not being flashy is helpful when you're young and don't fly well--don't alert predators until you're very good at flying away).

Mimosa trees are blooming all over the place.  Lots of yards have beautiful specimens, but they also grow along the roadside mixed in with other trees.

Pink powder puff blooms

 Another flowering tree we see a lot is the chaste tree--pretty purple flowers on it:

The chaste tree in bloom

For folks who plant tomatoes and other vegetables no earlier than May 15, it's quite amazing to see the blossoms already on squash plants, and tomatoes and corn like these beauties--already over two feet tall:

This week's "education of the south" highlight was a trip to Frogmore Plantation.  It's named after Frogmore Estates in England, where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are buried.  The original owner of the plantation came from England and I guess thought it would seem like home.

The plantation is a little over an hour east of us, between here and Natchez.  We took the combination tour, which included a look at cotton production now and in the 17- and 1800s, as well as a Civil War tour to learn about how the war affected the plantations in the South.  What really made cotton profitable was the invention of the cotton gin in the late 1700s.  A cotton boll has a lot of seeds and the cotton fibers really make getting them out difficult.  At one stop on the tour, the guide gave us each a cotton boll and told us to get the seeds out.  We couldn't!  It would take a slave all day to get the seeds out of one pound of cotton.  The gin changed all that by mechanically removing seeds quite quickly. The gin cleaned 50 pounds of cotton per day per worker.

We saw one of the original steam powered gins, and watched a video of the modern gin in action.

The gin

The steam house. the tamper that compressed the cotton, and a bale ready to transport

Originally, slaves saved 5% of the seeds for planting the next year.  Eventually, though, cotton seed was found to have a lot of protein and oil that could be used for animal feed and human use.  Then they saved all of the seeds--still using just 5% to plant, but selling the rest for other uses.

The most interesting thing was about the oil--Proctor and Gamble made a product out of it called Crisco--Crystallized Seed Cotton Oil.  Who knew?!?  Also, the fuzzy lint on the seed is used to make paper money, duct tape, yarn, stationery, and other products.

Cotton also contributed to language usage.  I grew up hearing my father say, "fair to middling" when asked how he was (and I often use the same phrase).  When cotton is graded for quality, middling is the term to describe it. The higher the number, the lower the quality; the lowest number (highest grade) we saw in the case was 11.  Middling is a real thing!  That used to be judged by hand (or eye), but now it's done by computer.  In this room is a copy of the Degas painting called The Cotton Exchange--Degas had an uncle who was in the cotton business, which inspired this painting.

Grading cotton and Degas painting

We also learned about the lives of the slaves on plantations in general.  Such backbreaking labor.

The plantation house and the slave cabins

The corn crib, the boll weevil (eradicated in 2005), the sugar cane mill, and some cotton seed products

After the Civil War, many of the slaves remained on the plantations as share croppers.  They could earn more money and have more say in their lives, but still very hard labor.  One of our three tour guides had been raised on Frogmore, the daughter of a share cropper.  Plantation owners often opened little stores so the people wouldn't have to travel so far to get supplies.  Some owners were honest and fair, but others cheated their tenants with inflated prices and payment in tokens that could only be spent at the store.

The plantation store

Saturday we decided to have a boil again.  We're going to miss crawfish, even if it is a lot of work to get the meat out.  The sauce on the left is like fry sauce with lots of Cajun kick to it.  Delicious.

First the paper bag, then the double bag, the single bag, and the delicious boil

The real highlight of the week was starting the summer institute class on Wednesday.  There were only two students and one "mature" sister, but it was great.  We're studying Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel, and looking forward to teaching that every week.  While we're having a lot of fun and learning much exploring Louisiana, we're here to serve the Lord.  What we truly enjoy is the opportunity to serve in the many capacities of this mission.  It is so different and so much less structured than our last mission (in fact, we call this our potpourri mission).

Week 34

OK, OK, I know I always say we've never seen this much water, but really, this morning was SO wet!  The storm came in about 4:30 am and rained for only a couple of hours, but the amount of water was incredible.  When we went to church, field after field looked like rice and crawfish ponds instead of plowed fields.  Couldn't even see the tops of the furrows.  Some yards were completely under water, and the Red River was back up to the level it was in January when we'd had weeks of rain on and off.  (Year-to-date, we've had 26" of rain.)

More like lakes than fields

Red River Rising

The fun highlight of this week was the swamp tour.  We had intended to do that last week to celebrate our anniversary, but the weather wouldn't let us.  This Friday was beautiful, so we headed south to a town called Breaux Bridges, a little way past Lafayette.  There were only eight people on the tour boat, and the tour guide, Allen, was fabulous.  I'll apologize in advance for all the pictures; they really don't do justice to how incredibly beautiful the swamp was.  (This is one of those things young missionaries are not allowed to do, but seniors can--there have to be some benefits for being old, wise, and sensible.)

The word 'swamp' conjures up images of stinky, murky water but that's not how it was.  A swamp is a flooded forest--it generally starts with a bayou (a slow moving stream) that eventually enlarges to lake-size.  The main trees that grow there are cypress, and they can live to be 2000 years old.  The other main tree is the gum.  It only lives for about 60-80 years, but its leaves ward off mosquitoes.  Hanging from most trees is Spanish moss.  It isn't a parasite, but rather an epiphyte (lives on air) and it actually benefits the tree.  The moss helps keep the air clean, and grasses help keep the water clean.  Over a lot of the surface of the water is duck moss.  It is actually like teeny tiny water lilies with a flower beneath the surface.

One of the purposes of a swamp tour is seeing alligators, and we saw lots of them.  They lay eggs in June and December, and usually go to the same area to nest.  The guides get to recognize some of them.  They call one mama gator Stella, and I said our granddaughter would be happy to know a nice alligator is named after her.  When we got near her, she raised her head (an aggressive gesture) and shortly began hissing.  It was really quite a menacing sound.  The guide said they only do that when guarding the nest or the eggs, and he quickly backed us away. 

After a while we came to an area where there were several baby alligators.  Allen said they are six months old, and the mother has been leaving them more and more.  The babies have to feed themselves from the time they hatch, but the mother stays around to protect them for about six months.  She was not anywhere near, and we got an up close and personal look at the little ones.

One area of the swamp is closed to tour boat for several months because it's a sanctuary area for migratory wading birds.  We couldn't go in, but we could get close enough to see so many great white egrets, great blue herons, little green herons, spoonbills, and many others as they flew around. 

OK--here come the pictures:

Cypress with Spanish moss, Asian hyacinth, dead gum tree

Baby alligators

Mama Stella on top, two others along the way

Red lichen grows only on north side of trees; duck moss

Various critters (notice the turtle covered with duck moss as he surfaces)

Cypress knees--roots that help stabilize trees as they grow, but they don't become trees themselves

Egret, heron, anhinga (snake birds), and an osprey 

After our two-hour tour, we went into Lafayette to each lunch.  I picked a place called The Blue Dog, and was surprised to find that it had been started by George Rodrigue--the artist famous for the blue dog paintings.  He was born in New Iberia (not far from Lafayette) and started painting scenes from his neighborhood.  His blue dog paintings started as an attempt to capture a Cajun legend of loup-garou.  The restaurant is full of his paintings, and the food was excellent.  Kerby had crawfish enchiladas, and I had shrimp and grits; both outstanding!

Blue Dog

We had a pretty successful day finding less active members in Marksville this week.  We needed to wait a short time to go to one house, so we stopped at this historical spot--the DeFosse House.  It's the oldest home in Mansura, circa 1790. Isn't that sort of amazing??

At the prison this week we discussed several parables (as per Come Follow Me study guide).  When one prisoner read the parable of the prodigal son aloud, he and another inmate got choked up.  It was so tender--these men have surely felt like the prodigal son and already have learned or are learning about the deep measure of the Savior's grace and mercy.  It touched them and it touched us. 

Week 33

This was missionary apartment inspection week.  In Alexandria, both elders were transferred out last time.  When we were setting our appointments last week one of the new elders said, "Sister Kerr, you are going to CRY when you see how clean our apartment is now."  He was almost right!  They had really transformed it.  The elders in Marksville have really improved since our first inspection there, as well.  (The sisters just remain stellar.)  We know apartment cleaning isn't the most important part of missionary work, but it is nice for missionaries to be in a clean environment.  We usually take a little treat and it's fun to visit with the young missionaries while we inspect.

We made our last seminary class visit of the semester on Tuesday in Natchitoches.  While getting up at 4 am is kind of fun, we can probably survive the summer without doing that.  This is a picture of the magnolia tree on the church grounds in Natchitoches.  Many trees are much bigger than this one:

Such beautiful trees

On Horseshoe Drive we pass a house that has a hedge of about 15 magnolia trees--they are a more columnar variety, still tall but narrower and bushy down to the ground. A nice way to hide your house from the road.

One of this week's activities was watching all of the missionary safety videos the Church just produced.  There are 12 of them, ranging from about 15 to 20 minutes in length.  The format is like a sports analysis show, complete with instant replay and analysis by the guys who do the BYU sports analysis program.  There is a lot of humor but each ends with a "let's get real" segment with true examples of things going terribly wrong relative to the topic.  Sadly, some are interviews with parents and companions of missionaries who died.  A couple are reenactments of sensitive topics.  All leave you realizing the rules and guidelines are there for a reason.  In a world with no guarantees, you certainly increase your chances of staying safe and sound by being obedient, situationally aware, and respectful (those are the points that come out in each video).  The Church takes missionary safety very seriously, and these are so well done.  All current missionaries were to watch at this time, in the future they'll be viewed while in the MTC.

When we went to visit members in Marksville this week, we went much farther south and out in the country than usual, and we passed acres and acres of sugar cane about a foot high.  The perfect rows are almost mesmerizing.  Later in the week we came across about 100 tomato plants over 18 inches tall.  The cotton isn't very tall yet, or hasn't been planted.  There are still lots of fallow fields.  

All around the Gulf Coast is an insect called lovebug.  They are really quite annoying, though they don't bite or sting.  Just pesky and get splattered on the windshield.  They get their name because they stay together for several days after mating.  Kind of weird to see this double bug flying around.

Our little cardinals have started to fly.  Yesterday one was clinging for dear life with its little claws to our window screen.  They are quite awkward, but they're learning.  Good life lesson--don't give up just because you're not good at something at first.  They seem to have moved out of the nest, but still live in the bush.  They can set up quite a chorus of chirping.  Here's how they looked earlier in the week while still in the nest:

Can't believe how fast they've grown--they don't all fit now

On Thursday McKell graduated magna cum laude from LSUA.  We went to the graduation--so tiny compared to all the BYU graduations I attended for 33 years.  The girls won the tournament last week, so this week they play in Georgia in the next round.  

This week I received these beautiful flowers from the grandchildren, but I suspect their wonderful mothers are responsible:

Friday was our 6th anniversary.  Our original plan was to go to Lafayette and Baton Rouge to do a swamp tour and tour some plantations.  However, severe thunderstorms were in the area both days, so we just stayed home.  Went to a place called Tunks for dinner.  It's right on Lake Kincaid, a very beautiful setting.  The food was very good, and had Cajun flair--alligator Parmesan for the appetizer (alligator tastes like chicken but with a firmer texture) [now we've had the big three unusual items--alligator, squirrel, and crawfish], I had snapper with shrimp and crab, and Kerby had crawfish fettucine. Gotta love that seasoning kick.

Lake Kincaid--about 10 miles east of Alexandria

After dinner we drove around for a bit and went to check out the Alexandria airport.  It is actually nicer than expected:

Small but nice

We decided to have crawfish for dinner on Saturday.  A lot of little "shacks" are just open during crawfish season, with names like Crawfish King, Swamp Daddy's, Heads or Tails, Crawdaddy's, and the one we went to, HotHeads.  You order crawfish by the pound, and one skilled eater will put away at least three pounds.  That's really lots of shell and very little meat.  We ordered a combo to share--3 pounds of crawfish, 10 shrimp, 2 potatoes, and 3 pieces of corn.  They told us they'd be pulling a batch out in about 10 minutes, so to just wait in the car and they'd bring our order out.  It come in a big plastic bag, tucked in another plastic bag, in a big paper bag.  We got it home, donned our aprons, and dug in.  So good!

You'd have a hard time finding a messier meal!

Kerby spoke in church today--he gave a wonderful talk about love and obedience relating to both the Savior and mothers.  They gave all the sisters a pretty corsage with a big red rose.  

Week 32

On Tuesday we visited the early-morning seminary in Leesville, and then we decided to look around the town a little before coming home.  There is a very small art park, and we snapped Elder Kerr enjoying a statue.

Just Thinking

We then ate breakfast at a New Orleans style restaurant--beignets, cheese grits, spicy smoked sausage, etc. 

About 15 minutes after we got home, there was a knock on the door.  That's usually the FedEx guy, but when Kerby answered the door, a woman said, "Hi, I'm Margaret Hammond's sister and I sometimes come to Louisiana (from TX) on business.  When I told Margaret I'd be in Alexandria this week, she asked me to bring you some flowers."  What a totally unexpected and delightful surprise!  Joy's sister, Margaret, was one of my students and has become a dear friend over the years.  Joy sells social studies programs to school districts and was in Alexandria and environs for a couple of days.  We had a lovely visit and she left these great spring flowers from Margaret:

Also on Tuesday we saw more activity near the cardinal's nest.  The papa was coming around, so we were pretty sure the eggs had hatched.  When the parents had flown off Kerby hurried out to take a peek, and here are the three little fuzzy red babies:

Our window ends just below Kerby's desk, and the ledge outside is where the birds do their food trade-off.  Papa will come and whistle for mama; she comes out of the nest to the window ledge, and he gives her some food.  She then flies into the nest to feed the babies.  Once in a while papa goes directly to the nest to do the feeding.  It has been so fun to watch this little bit of the natural world with one of my favorite birds in the world.  One of these days we should see little red fledglings having their flying lessons.

I've mentioned before that the drive between here and the prison is great because of all the nurseries.  One of the towns we pass on the drive is Forest Hill, the nursery capital of Louisiana.  This little tiny town has over 60 nurseries and business from all over come to buy wholesale plants.  And it's not the only town along the way that boasts nurseries.

So much green!

And speaking of flowers, the big beautiful white magnolias are starting to bloom.  Some of these trees are immense and they are all over the place.  A fabulous state flower.

At the prison this week we had the five members of the Church and an investigator.  After a good and spiritual discussion and the closing prayer, one of the men said, "Well, brethren, back to prison."  I said to him, "I hope this hour does feel different."  and he said, "That's why I said it--while I'm here I can forget I'm in prison."  We are coming to love these men and our discussions with them.  We ordered some "Come Follow Me" books for them (there was only one plus the teacher's manual before).  They had to be registered and stamped before the men could have them, but now they each have a manual and we'll be following the schedule as prescribed.  One guy was glad because he calls his 7-year-old daughter every week and now he'll be able to talk about the lessons with her. 

Wednesday evening we went to the home-study class in Many.  These kids are just great and we love getting to know them as well as support/work with the teachers.

Our plan for Thursday was to help a family in the branch set up and decorate the cultural hall in Alexandria (the wedding was going to be in their yard in Marksville, but the high chance of thunderstorms changed that).  However, they didn't  come until about 7 pm (they'd done a lot on Wednesday, but we couldn't help then), so we only helped for a couple of hours.  The wedding was on Saturday evening, and we were so happy to see Ryan and Tiffany get married.

The softball tournament was moved from Texas to Alexandria this weekend because of bad weather in TX. That meant we could go see our girls play in a couple of games on Friday.  They won the first one and lost the second later in the evening.  Everything was rained out yesterday until a game at 8:45 pm, which they won (but we didn't see).  They won the first game this afternoon and are playing right now.  If they lose today will be their last FHE and meal with us.  If they win they'll be around a little longer.  We just love McKell and Siearrah and will miss them terribly when they leave us.

On Friday we watched the live streaming of two session of BYU/Relief Society Women's Conference--the Sister to Sister event in the morning with all three auxiliary presidents answering questions that had been submitted, and Elder and Sister Christofferson's remarks at the closing sessions.  Grateful for what technology can bring right into the living room.  Both sessions were uplifting and insightful.

Kerby is displaying surprising talents.  Last February he volunteered to lead the singing at our seminary in-service meeting.  I had no idea he knew how to do that.  Then a few weeks ago he became the substitute branch pianist!  But he can't play, he pushes buttons.  Since we lost our pianist at the end of December, Brother Moss pushes the buttons on the electronic piano.  But when he's not there, Kerby fills in.  It's harder than you think, because the button is broken, and he has to push a pencil in a little hole at just the right time to keep the hymn playing. I had no idea I'd married such a musical man.