Papa Noel with Papa Frank

To view the pictures larger, just click on them.





Another South Louisiana tradition is the bonfires that are set up along the Mississippi River.  These fires are lit on Christmas Eve to guide Papa Noel into Cajun children's homes.











The Rural Life Museum is on part of the old Burden Plantation.  Click on the words to see their website.  The land is a working agricultural research station.  For example, the pointsettias you buy every year are researched, varieties tested and chosen for the next year's production.

Steel Burden,    whose family owned the land, worked as a landscape architect in Baton Rouge.  He created the city park system plantings, and was involved in the plantings at McIllhenny Plantation, which is the hot pepper sauce people.

If you come to Baton Rouge we can go tour the Hot Sauce factory in New Iberia and then check out the Windrush Gardens and Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge.  

The Rural Life Museum here in Baton Rouge has Heritage Christmas Day ever December.  The museum consists of multiple buildings from homesteads, plantations and farms in the area that were part of the daily life .  They have a large museum of items from the period both agricultural implements and household items.

At the Heritage Days there are artisans doing things like chopping wood and quill pen writing.  Making candles and shoeing horses and mules.  Making cane syrup and frying chitlings.  Bagpipers and fiddlers.  Singers and dancers.

The end of the day at dusk they lit the bonfire built of logs and kindling.  And sure enough, Papa Noel showed up!  He distributed satsumas grown on the property to everyone.

We had Sawyer in his wagon.  He ran around for a while gathering sticks

with the other kids.  Then he found the bell.

That was it.  He wanted to ring the bell over and over.  It was heavy to pull and very loud.  I had to hold him and pull the bell with some considerable force.  I guess we will go back there every year and see if he is big and strong enough to pull that bell yet!

 Keep scrolling down and see the bonfire and Papa Noel as he was seen in the 1700s and 1800s here in Cajun Louisiana.

 

 

Thanks to Tracy, I am vindicated

I now have a good excuse for keeping every tiny bit of fabric.  I no longer have to throw out even the tiniest scrap because my friend showed me to way to perfect Nirvana!

Well, she showed us her technique for using scraps for art pieces like Danny Amazonas in a class through the Sassi Stripper Guild on Saturday.

Danny was one of the artists featured in the European Patchwork Festival from which we recently returned.  Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!  He is out of Taiwan and I have seen him in several Quilt Art magazines lately.

He was pretty cute too! LOL.  But it was his work that stole my heart and brain!




I had to leave the class at the halfway point so I didn’t get to finish my piece.  I had promised Sawyer
to take him to the Corn Maze at the Burden Plantation in Baton Rouge.  It is now an agricultural research station with LSU and a living history and Rural Life Museum.  The grounds are beautifully landscaped and had various crops and trails and a collection of old wooden buildings and southern style event places.

I hope to exhibit something there this spring in the Brush With Burden Show.




Here is Danny and then there is me.  I am still working on it, mind you.





I am sure you prefer Danny, it’s OK! You can say that!