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Franklin FFA will celebrate the grand opening of its Annual Spring Plant Sale on Saturday, March 23 from 7-12 a.m. and 3-7 p.m.
The sale will take place at their greenhouse on the school’s campus. Students enrolled in Agriscience courses at Franklin High School learned propagation procedures, as well as horticultural business applications, while producing these plants.
All profits will benefit the Franklin High School FFA chapter’s upcoming travels to National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, IN.
Types of plants available include annual bedding plants, vegetable starters, hanging baskets, perennials and succulents.
Franklin High School is located at 1401 Cynthia St. in Franklin.

Participants can pick up a copy of the art program class schedule from the Tax Department of City Hall in Franklin.
Art classes will be taught in the Art Room of City Hall by Laura Zuniga (acrylic), Jeanne Wattigny (drawing) and Marissa Verrette (portrait). The schedule for art portion of the summer art program is as follows:
Beginning Acrylic: June 5-7 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Beginning Drawing: June 3-5 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Beginning Portrait: June 17-19 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Intermediate Acrylic: June 12-14 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Intermediate Drawing: June 10-12 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Intermediate Portrait: June 24-26 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Registration for the Bayou Beaux Art and Dance Program is April 1-12 during normal business hours in the Tax Department of City Hall. Registration fees are nonrefundable; they are $20 per person for dance and $20 per course for art classes. Fees can be paid with a cashier’s check, debit or credit card, money order or cash. Students must be at least 13 years old by June 1 to participate in the art program and at least 5 years old to participate in the dance portion.
For more information, contact the Office of Community Development (ashields@franklin-la.com or 337-828-6345).
The Bayou Beaux Art and Dance Program is supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council as administered by the Acadiana Center for the Arts and by a Community Partnership Grant from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Foundation.

An expired date on an egg carton. Browning avocados. The Chinese takeout from last week. They’re all foods likely destined for the trash.
If you’re hoping to reduce household food waste, experts say there are two key things to do: Eat what you have, and buy only what you need.
Practicing smarter shopping is not only green for its environmental impact; it saves you money.
“People need to really think through whether they need to be buying as much food as they are,” said Jonathan Deutsch, a professor of culinary arts and food science at Drexel University in Phila-delphia and author or editor of six books on food management.
We can rethink what we define as waste, Deutsch pointed out. A bruised apple or the green leaves encasing a head of cauliflower can be easily repurposed into a sauce or side dish.
“A good cook can make a good meal out of what’s already in most people’s houses,” he said.
“Make sure you’re buying only what you need, and then be sure to use it.”
The world’s food waste problem is well-documented and multi-faceted. Some estimates put global waste at 30 percent of all food. This is in spite of the 795 million people suffering from chronic hunger, according to numbers from the United Nations. Food waste that isn’t composted piles up in landfills.
Fortunately, there are ways to make your grocery shopping more environmentally friendly.
Buying expired or “last chance” produce at the supermarket is one way 38-year-old Jule Eisendick reduces waste. Eisendick has been practicing a low- to zero-waste lifestyle while traveling, and writes about it on her blog, The Happy Choices .
“I only buy fresh produce when the old one is gone,” she said, adding she tries to use every part of a fruit or vegetable. She might make chips with leftover potato peels, or throw remaining carrot and beet tops into a salad. “What I don’t use goes into compost.”
Much of the food waste problem starts in the supply chain. Tons of misshapen, small or bruised produce is left in the field. Sometimes, markets have too much of one particular food so the rest could get tossed by the wholesaler. And it’s common for grocery stores to reject foods that don’t look like what the customer expects.
In the last few years, however, a secondary market for these “rejects” has arisen. Now they can be donated or sold.
Two such companies are Misfits Market, based in Philadelphia, and Imperfect Produce, from San Francisco. Both have partnered with farmers to rescue rejected produce. Customers sign up online for a delivered box of funny-looking fruits or veggies. The box is then delivered to their front doorsteps.
Misfits Market, which opened last October, sells “ugly produce” boxes in the Northeast. Customer sign-ups have grown 10-fold in the first five months of business, according to Abhi Ramesh, Misfits Market’s chief executive officer.
“There’s a tremendous interest in doing something to reduce food waste,” Ramesh said. “People know it’s a huge problem.”
By comparison, the Imperfect Produce website touts some 40 million pounds of produce saved through its business model since the company was founded in 2015. The boxes of rejected produce are currently available in 15 cities, but the company plans to expand service to 12 more areas by the end of the year.
“There are some really funny-looking fruits and vegetables,” said Ben Simon, CEO and co-founder of Imperfect Produce. “Some are really anthropomorphic — a potato that looks like a teddy bear.”
Still, this food is fine to eat, Simon said. “Maybe there’s an orange that is slightly smaller than one you’d find at a grocery store.”
The convenience of these home delivery services appeals to busy professionals. Customers can choose the size of the box and frequency of delivery.
Zucu Ingersoll, a 36-year-old San Francisco Bay Area resident, has subscribed to Imperfect Produce for almost a year, and said the most unusual piece of food she recalls getting was an oversized head of cabbage. Getting the deliveries has cut down on time spent going to buy food.
“I don’t shop at the grocery store much now,” she said.

Berwick officials have plans to place a second lighthouse along the town’s riverfront, and this lighthouse will stand more than three times the height of the one currently there.

Berry Bros. general contractors has agreed to move the 125-foot tall Ship Shoal Lighthouse to Berwick from its current location off Louisiana’s coast below Dulac. The 37-foot tall Southwest Reef Lighthouse has been in place along Berwick’s riverfront for over three decades.

Since 2014, the town has hosted its Lighthouse Festival showcasing the Southwest Reef Lighthouse in conjunction with the finish of the Tour du Teche paddle races.

Talk of bringing the Ship Shoal Lighthouse to Berwick started quite a few years ago, but town leaders have recently re-invigorated efforts to bring the lighthouse here.

Authorities haven’t yet determined when and exactly to where they’ll be moving the lighthouse, said Troy Lombardo, general superintendent at Berry Bros. Lombardo is also a former town councilman.

Once the Ship Shoal Lighthouse is moved to Berwick, it will need to undergo significant maintenance and refurbishment, Town Chief Administrative Officer Newell “Bubba” Slaughter said.

In 1987, Berry Bros. moved the Southwest Reef Lighthouse from offshore to its current location on the Berwick riverfront.

The iron Ship Shoal Lighthouse was assembled in 1858 at I.P. Morris Company’s Port Richmond Iron Works in Philadelphia and then taken apart and shipped to Louisiana to be erected on Ship Shoal. The light was first activated in 1860, according to an article on lighthousefriends.com. The website cites various years of the “Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board” and “Lighthouses, Lightships, and the Gulf of Mexico” by David Cipra as sources.

Lighthousefriends.com says, at base of the tower, positioned 20-feet above the water, was a two-story, cylindrical dwelling for the keepers, and crowning the structure was a second-order, Henry-Lepaute Fresnel lens. Ship Shoal Lighthouse was discontinued and abandoned in 1965.

Southwest Reef Lighthouse was also built in 1858 and lighted for the first time in 1859. It was built to replace Point Defer (Point Au Fer) Light Station below Eugene Island, the town of Berwick’s website says.

Southwest Reef was unique in shape for the Gulf of Mexico, a square pyramid sheathed in iron with a 28 foot base, the town’s website says.