We started early this morning, my mother and aunt waking up around 5:30 and me dragging myself awake around 7:30. Out here on Lake Bruin, in rural Tensas Parish, there is not much to do except enjoy the isolation and scenery. But what little there is to do in the way of organized activity happens early during the weekends.
My mother needed to get a flat tire repaired. I had swapped it for a narrow spare in the gravel parking lot of one of the few local restaurants the previous night. As she headed off to get it tended to at the local farmer’s co-op, my aunt Anne and I went into the parish seat of Saint Joe. Our destination was the small farmer’s market at the end of Main Street, tucked up against the levee. There were no more than 10 or 12 people selling items ranging from tamales to wooden bowls and homemade squash pickles. It may be the parish seat but there is not much left to Saint Joe. Just a few, half filled brick building that used to be banks or dry-goods stores and some newer buildings housing, among other things, the closest grocery store. We were there for a few staple items, fleshed out with the diverse selection of pickles from Enola Farms I had gotten at the market.
In all, it was a busy morning in an otherwise sleepy place. Our morning chores attended to, I went for a drive to try to get some photos. The lush green leaves cotton looked healthy in the fields, the corn dried on its long stalks and languid tributaries that once connected Lake Bruin to the Mississippi were choked with turtles, white egrets and cypress. All in all it was just another morning in the country. But, that is why I love to come up here. Each day can seem a lot like the last but the quiet and the natural, alluvial beauty of the place never fails to put my mind at ease. So, these are the photos I have so far. If the skies clear tonight I may try to get some shots of the Milky Way, but we have a few more, much anticipated, guests arriving this afternoon and who knows where the slow country days will take us when they arrive. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend and taking full advantage of all that our wide and elegant world has to offer.