Week 43

Well, it was a quiet week in Alexandria.  We just had a couple of things other than our usual round of activities.  On Tuesday we made a presentation about the changes coming to the seminary curriculum and our new on-line seminary teacher to the bishops' training meeting.  Thursday we participated in a lesson with our Marksville elders--a man they've been teaching for a couple of months. Tonight we had the seminary/institute faculty training.  Those used to be once a month, but now the face-to-face meetings are just twice a year and the rest of the training consists of 5-minute micro-training on line every week or two.  Not all the teachers were there, but it was great to get together.  Such dedicated teachers, all of whom love the gospel and are committed to their callings.

We never did get much rain out of tropical storm Barry last week, but Marksville got over 12 inches,  Cottonport (a town in our branch) got 19 inches, and Oakdale (where the prison is) got 17.  In Pineville, some homes were without power for up to nine hours.  Kerby's barber lives in Pineville, and had an alligator wander into the yard just enjoying the water.

This is Grand Lake in Marksville on Thursday--still overflowing.

A little soggier than usual

When we arrived in September, the cotton was mostly ready for harvest.  It is sprayed with a defoliation agent to make the leaves drop off so it can be picked.  Therefore we had never seen a field of cotton in the growing stage.

Here are a couple of cotton fields before the bolls form:

Cotton fields

The other thing that happens to cotton in July is blossom formation. The blooms are cream or yellow on the first day, turn pink on the second day, then dry and drop off.  We pulled into a field near Marksville to capture these pictures:

Cotton blossoms

We're quite fascinated with cotton plants, so there will probably be more pictures to come documenting the growth and development of cotton.