Monoprint Monday

I dropped the kiddo off for a few hours at his school on Monday.  It gave me some time to clean up the rubble he creates.  And he can create a lot of rubble.

I had about 20 minutes to do something I wanted to do, so I took out some paints and the leaves we collected on a Sunday walk.  I pulled two prints each of positive and negative.

I need a Louisiana piece for the Swamp Show in January.  This may be the beginning of that. I have been looking at one of my favorite authors Cas Holmes and her fabulous stitched books.  I’ve got a plan!

Sawyer is 2 and the River is High

Carbon Spot is

quilted and has the binding on it. Now I need to sit in front of the TV and sew it down.

Yesterday was Sawyer's second birthday!  We were at Diane's house in Addis for a crawfish and a party for the kid.

 I gave him the Board I made with all the chains, locks, switches, plugs and levers on it.  I haunted Habitat for Humanity Resale store and Harbor Freight to get all the pieces to put on it.

As cool as this was, Jason gave him a bubble blower...….he LOVED it of course!


I took this photo from the Mississippi River Bridge I have shown you in photos standing on the levee.  You can see the flooded area between the levee and the trees where grass usually is.  If you see the green roof, that is the walkway to the casino and just beyond it, the white object is the American Queen Riverboat that came in mid afternoon Friday.

We went down to the River Saturday morning and talked to several people from the riverboat and took photos of the letters in the levee.

The water is down about 6 feet this weekend.  Slowly going down, but still flooding!

Birthday at the Z00

Yesterday was Frank's birthday.  he wanted to spend it at the Baton Rouge Zoo with Sawyer.  so we made it happen.












First I gave him a shirt I had purchased in the Virgin Islands on the cruise.  I had gotten Sawyer the same shirt and gave it to Carrie when they were at the house for the BBQ this weekend.

We met sawyer and Carrie at the donut shop across from her office.  the best donuts in town!!  When Sawyer walked in with his bright blue shirt, his smile was ear to ear!  Both of them looked great in their shirts.  So many people commented on the pair!









The zoo was preparing for their weekend gala called Zippity Zoo Days and the landscape was immaculate.  The Baton Rouge Zoo has been under a lot of pressure lately.  It has deteriorated in the last few years so there was a call to move the Zoo to a location closer to a growing section of town, where more people could access it from the east, such as a heavily populated corridor through the New Orleans area.

Unfortunately it was voted down, leaving the Zoo in one of the worst, crime filled areas of Baton Rouge, far away from the population centers.  Too bad.

When his momma was little we would bring her to this same zoo with her flash cards.  So I had a set of new cards for him.  He was a little confused about why I was handing him cards, but he held on to each one I gave to him.  He will catch on soon enough.

We had a perfect day for the Zoo.  There were only 3 other family groups strolling the zoo walks with us, so there were no lines anywhere.

Sawyer took his first train ride.  Seeing his eyes wide in amazement as we moved through the trees and through the tunnel was priceless.

Frank crawled in the Prairie Dog Exhibit to be with Sawyer.

And we brushed some goats.



The train ride took us through the Swamp as we tooted along the rails, clickety clack.  And of course there was the playground with its climbing and sliding things.

We finished the day with Mexican Food at Frank's favorite place and Carrie gave him his present.

She kept thinking, what is the perfect gift for the newly retired person?  And she saw an ad with this guy lounging in his hammock!

Assembly was easy, much easier than the first attempt at sitting in it!

Hopefully he will get the hang of it soon and will be relaxing and reading in it with ease!

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.