Columns

Information Trading: The Most Valuable Crop You Can Share

In rural communities, information has always been one of the most valuable things a person can share. Long before the internet or smartphones, knowledge traveled through back fence conversations, handwritten recipe cards, or a chat at the general store. If someone had a trick for keeping bugs off squash or a better way to mend a torn feed sack, you can bet it was passed along with a grin and a “Now don’t forget this one.”

That’s information trading, and it’s just as vital today as it ever was.

While some folks think of bartering as a loaf of bread for a dozen eggs, the truth is, the simple act of sharing what you know can be worth far more. Maybe you’ve figured out how to make the best tomato cages from scrap wire, or you’ve learned the hard way how not to store potatoes. That experience, those hard-won lessons, are pure gold to someone just starting out.

Deer eating your plants? Try these strategies

When you gaze upon your garden, you might see many things. Perhaps you delight in the bright colors of your flowers, the lush foliage of other plants. Maybe your eye is drawn to the delicate butterflies and buzzing bees that come to visit Deer, on the other hand, see a garden differently. It’s one big kitchen for these herbivores — full of delicious, leafy snacks.

Gardening in rural Louisiana — and even suburban and urban neighborhoods bordering wooded areas — brings unique challenges, and deer are one of them.

It’s hard to dislike deer. They’re usually gentle, shy creatures. But no one appreciates having the fruits of their gardening labor munched on, either.

Jessie Hoover knows this dilemma all too well. As an LSU AgCenter horticulture agent based in the hills and woods of the Feliciana parishes, Hoover regularly gets questions from local gardeners about how to deter hungry deer.

Terrible times are upon the earth right now, Airplane crashes, destructive floodings, that take hundreds of lives, wars, cancers, funerals, etc., but this is what the scriptures say, “For the great day of His wrath hath come, and who shall be able to stand?: (Revelation 6:17)

“Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17 NASB1995 Keeping our dignity in our country is harder and harder with all the problems, deceitfulness, lies, and negativity prevalent today. We live in a world where most things are upside down. Things civil society used to consider to be wrong now are acceptable. Why is that? Because of the weak sense of dignity in people’s hearts and minds.

I observe that dignity has no value or relevance for most people today. When dignity becomes weak in people’s life it is the cause of what we see in our country today. To be respectful of others’ person-hood, efforts, and values has no meaning. There is no importance placed on reasoning and discussing a point and it is seen as a waste of time. Many won’t agree to disagree in a civil polite way.

It has been said, “Don’t ask a question that you don’t know the answer to”. Historical buffs who follow this article like to read history that they know but certain parts of it had slipped their mind — especially dates. Mansfield’s history is one of the writer’s favorite things to reminisce about.

In the early 1930’s times were stressful in some ways like today but in different kinds of way. Huey P. Long, Governor of Louisiana, felt the need for a more jovial spirit and humor. As the Great Depression became more stressful Long started a little word battle with the Governor of Georgia and the Editor of the Atlanta Constitution. The proper way to eat “cornpone” or cornbread was with soup or milk or potlikker. Long contended the proper way was to dunk the cornpone in the “potlikker” which you younger readers may not know was the juice from boiled vegetables like mustard, turnip or collard greens cooked with salt and pepper and fat pork. The above concoction was a favorite meal of most southern families.

The New World Screwworm and Its Threat to U.S. Livestock

It may have the word ‘new’ in its name, but the New World Screwworm (NWS) is nothing new to United States livestock producers. Scientifically known as Cochliomyia hominivorax, the NWS has been around for over a century, with the first known discovery in the Southwestern United States in 1842, with eradication from the U.S. in the 1960s. This eradication was completed through the use of sterile male NWS flies. NWS flies mate once, and the female fly then dies. This allowed the flies to mate without egg fertilization, thereby depleting the population of larvae. Sterilization of the male NWS fly was performed with ionizing gamma radiation.

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) today released the following statement after voting to pass President Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill.

“President Trump and I want to preserve the American Dream for working and middle America,” said Dr.

Cassidy. “We keep taxes low, cut taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security, extend the Child Tax Credit, fix our broken education system, support our military, secure our border, and build a business environment that creates better paying jobs — especially in Louisiana.”

As chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Cassidy led the Committee’s portion of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which fixes America’s broken higher education system and addresses the root causes of the student debt crisis.

(Our dear centenarian and historian, Raymond Powell, is currently in the hospital with plans to move him to a local facility for rehab sometime in the future. Please send your prayers and best wishes to this dear and much loved man that has written for The Enterprise for decades!)

July 4th is approaching soon and it is one of the most sacred days for the American Citizen. On July 4th, 1776, delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Penn. voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence. The 56 men who issued that famous document realized they were signing their own death warrants because the British would consider them traitors. A follow- up article next week will tell of the suffering and hardships each of the signers and their families went through.

Last week the evening news reported on and showed footage of a giant black snake weaving through the limbs of a tree in Fenton, La. The landowner reported seeing it near one of his crawfish ponds and claimed it was over 12’ long! When asked for an I.D. of this giant the La. Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries were of the tentative opinion that it was a “… very mature Black Rat Snake.” The largest on record in Louisiana being over 7’ long.

Well, I’ve watched the video (over and over and…) and believe it isn’t a Rat Snake. I ought to know because I had two huge Black Rat Snakes a few years back. I kept them in a large display case I’d made complete with a water bowl and gnarly pecan branch for them to climb on. They were very long but slender and very mean – they would strike in an instant! This pair got up to around 6’ until the apartment manager made me give them away. The boy’s Daddy who’d answered my ad repeatedly asked me if I was SURE they weren’t poisonous!