Louisiana pictures

Don said he was enjoying the pictures. I asked him how I did on the sugarcane post, and he said I did okay. Or maybe he said it wasn't bad. I decided not to ask what he meant by that! What I really wanted to ask is if I had improved my "C" in college botany, but thought I'd better leave well enough alone! LOL

Soybeans. I've heard of soy sauce, soy milk, etc., and saw soybean fields my whole life but had no clue what they looked like. I do now!

The pictures I took of the actual beans were out of focus, so I snagged this picture from Wikipedia. These little beans are where all the yummy stuff comes from.



Soybeans being harvested. What you can't see in this picture are the hundreds of birds in the field eating the soybeans that fell from the harvester. It was an awesome sight. They were following the harvester around the field. Quite a following he had!



Making the last pass in this field.



Close-ups of the plants before harvesting.





And one truck load ready to go to the soybean place, wherever that is. I was on information overload at this point!



We were really up close and personal. Don just drove the Jeep out in the field! LOL. See the beans falling out of the back of the harvester? That's what the birds were enjoying! The hand belongs to my fabulous brother. He was explaining things to me and talking with his hands. It's the Cajun in us that makes us talk that way!



Judging from what I absorbed during this lesson, I'd say that "C" was probably a VERY good grade for me!

This is a picture of a cemetery in Franklin. The fence around the cemetery was the railing from an old bridge that was removed and replaced. Beautiful ironwork. It would have gone unnoticed by me if I hadn't had the most wonderful tour guides on this trip.



For those who aren't familiar with the story, Don and Gail's house was struck by lightning in August, 2006 and burned down. They have rebuild the home almost the same but a lot differently, if that makes sense. As I've said before, the home is so warm and inviting. A picture of some of the living area - sorry the shot is dark. Should know I can't take pictures at night. Notice the wonky leaf quilt on the back of the sofa? I wonder who made that? :)



The dining room, with the breakfast area in the sunroom beyond. The white bucket in the shot was given to them by a Mormon family in Franklin. The bucket contained disinfectants, gloves, cleaning supplies, garbage bags, things you would need to clean up after a hurricane. What a wonderful, thoughtful gift for the town's residents!



My bedroom upstairs. It was huge. Two gigantic walk-in closets, a nice bathroom, and both windows perfectly framed beautiful oak trees outside. Wouldn't this make a fabulous quilting studio?! I mean, I'm just saying ... Oh, that quilt on the bed was made by Gail's mother and grandmother. There were a few things that survived the fire, thank goodness!







And finally the pool area. The pool still had leaves and gunk in it from the hurricanes, although it's been cleaned up since and the fence repaired. It's a salt water pool. I really like this area. There's a full bath in Don's shop, and they made an entrance to that bath from the pool area. Smart move! Oh, and the shop also has a full kitchen in it. While I was there, Gail stuck a ham in the oven out there so as not to heat up her kitchen in the house. They really built in some nice features.



I have some pictures to post of their friends' home. The property is absolutely breathtaking. I'll do that another time. Since I haven't sewn in two weeks, I'm heading to the sewing room right now!!