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St. Mary Soil and Water Conservation District and Natural Resources Conservation Service will be hosting its annual Locally Led Conservation Meeting to identify resources concerns in St. Mary Parish.
The meeting is on Feb. 19 at 11 a.m. on the second floor of the Blevins Building, 600 Main St., in the large conference room.
The meeting is to identify local resource concerns. The information gathered from this meeting will be used to give direction to the USDA Farm Bill programs that NRCS has to offer. Every resident of St. Mary Parish is welcome to attend the meeting to voice their concerns and enjoy light refreshments.
For additional information, contact the office at 337-828-1461, ext. 3. The Natural Resources Conservation Service is an equal opportunity employer and also provides reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. To request special accommodations, contact the Franklin Field Office at 337-828-1461, ext. 3-10 days prior to the meeting.

The 3rd Annual Centerville Cast Iron Cook-off has been set for Saturday, March 30.
Organizers say the event has been extremely successful in the past, so much so that they have expanded the cooking competition to three separate categories.
There will be teams competing in seafood main dish, non-seafood main dish and appetizers/desserts. Each team must cook their entire dish in cast iron, no other vessels are allowed.
This event is a celebration of south Louisiana cooking heritage, and a nod to the past chefs that have made this area stand out as one of the best culinary gems in the nation. In the past, teams have prepared truly outstanding dishes that were popular with locals.
All proceeds from the various booths benefit Centerville High School student programs, and there are games and food for everyone to enjoy. This year a 5K Color Fun Run will be held, with t-shirts and other items for sale.
The event will again be held at the bus drop-off area behind CHS. Teams wishing to cook will pay a $10 fee for their booth space and $20 for each dish they wish to enter for competition, but teams can only enter one dish per category (a maximum of three), and dishes must be turned in to be judged at 12 noon.
The 5K Color Fun Run registration is from 8-8:45 a.m. and begins at 9 a.m. The general public is invited to attend from 9:30 a.m. until the completion of the event, at 2 p.m.
Winners of the cooking competition will be announced and awards presented at 1:30 0.pm. Unique hand-painted trophies and cash are the awards for placing. For more details, rules, and registration for the various events, visit www.chscastironcookoff.wordpress.com.

Josh Caffery, director of the Center for Louisiana Studies at UL Lafayette, visited with Franklin Rotarians Tuesday at their regular luncheon at the Forest Restaurant.
Caffery, a Franklin native, has been researching the historical music of southern Louisiana for the last 10 years, particularly John and Alan Lomax and the recordings they made of Acadian song lore in 1934.
According to Caffery, the Lomaxes, a father and son team, were the most prolific song collectors of the 20th century, gathering songs from across the country with a 300 lb. recording device.
“They came down here in 1934 and recorded about 200 songs in the summer of 1934,” Caffery said, “and it’s really the first record that we have of traditional music right from this little pocket of Louisiana.”
Caffery said the Lomaxes were not interested in “commercial recordings,” but were instead in search of songs with more historical and traditional merit.
He said they did the majority of their recording around New Iberia and found songs of lesser known origins which had been carried to Louisiana in the minds of original Acadian migrants.
Caffery exhibited Alfred Granger from Loreauville, who was recorded singing: “L’amour et Fanatisme,” acapela in high, wavering tenor tones.
He said that after some difficulties in searching, he found the song to have been written in 1859 by a French aristocrat, making Granger an exception to songs of Acadian origin.
The song is said to be about an Islamic knight in love with a Christian girl, their love forbidden by Allah, which drives the knight to the front lines of battle, there to die, rather than live without his beloved.
Caffery said he knows the song can’t have been brought from Nova Scotia with the original Acadian settlers because it still had to wait around one hundred years, or so, to be written. But nonetheless, Caffrey said he is interested in how the song made its way from a French opera house to Granger in Loreauville, and he said that’s one of the things he finds so fascinating about the research of these songs.
Caffery teamed up with Joel Savoy and a record label in Eunice and re-recorded many of the tunes he found in the Lomax Collection, with a variety of artists, to create “I Wanna Sing Right: Rediscovering Lomax in Evangeline Country,” released in 2017, and nominated that year for a Grammy Award.
Caffery shared that the lone St. Mary Parish artist recorded by the Lomaxes was John Bray of Morgan City.
“He was a really interesting guy,” Caffery said. “He was a finger-blues guitarist, and it’s a shame that the only recordings we have of him are the four recordings made by the Lomaxes, because he would have been famous if he would have gone on the folk festival circuit in the 60’s.”
Caffery said Bray was a songwriter as well as a performer and wrote a song called, “Trench Blues,” in which he narrates his memories of fighting the Germans in World War I, and how he felt, at one point singing, “I was worried about the submarines.”
“He should be more well-known,” Caffery said, “and he would be more well known, had he received more exposure.”
Bray was recorded by the Lomaxes singing another song based on the singing-calls Bray remembered from being a “bully” (boss or captain) of a logging crew, pulling cypress logs from the swamps around Morgan City.
The compilation of the Lomax recordings can be found and heard at Lomax1934.com, where Caffery has divided them by parish.
Caffery also wrote a book called “In the Creole Twilight: Poems and Songs from Louisiana Folklore,” which can be found at https://www.joshcaffery.net/store/c2/Books.html.

Feeding birds in winter is one of the nation’s most popular wildlife-watching activities, yet many ornithologists say it’s often more rewarding for people than for birds. And it might even put wild birds at risk.
“Feeding birds is not necessary for their survival except in extreme weather conditions,” said Stephen Kress, vice president for bird conservation at the National Audubon Society. “Feeders can definitely help them get through that kind of weather.”
Most birds are insect eaters and aren’t attracted to backyard feeders. “For those birds, I recommend planting natural habitat and native plants,” Kress said.
Besides, birds that do eat seed “will be more likely to come to feeders if there is some cover nearby. They’ll be able to feed and dodge back into the safety of shrubbery.”
The most common error people make when managing bird feeders is incorrect placement — putting them in locations where birds are frightened by foot traffic, vulnerable to predation by cats, or at risk of flying into windows.
“If a feeder is within 3 feet of a window, it’s better,” Kress said. “If a bird is spooked, it won’t be killed when it strikes the glass. And keep your cats indoors so they can’t stalk vulnerable birds and animals.”
Learn which bird species frequent your area so you can avoid feeder wars and understand the pecking order.
“Some birds are more aggressive at feeders,” Kress said. “Their eating habits are such that they can consume a lot and not leave much for the others.”
One answer to that is to feed at multiple locations using different kinds of seeds and feeders. Nyjer seeds, for instance, attract goldfinches, while tube feeders with wire covers prevent large birds from entering.
Pay attention to seed quality and freshness. Unprotected seed left too long in feeders will turn moldy, and mold can kill foraging wildlife. Refresh your feeders every few days and clean them frequently by soaking in a solution of 10 percent bleach.
“You can feed more effectively and efficiently by using black-oil sunflower seeds, as it is the preferred seed by most feeder birds,” said Adam Rohnke, a senior Extension associate at Mississippi State University. “An added benefit is reducing waste seed (on the ground) from seed mixes which can attract rodents.”
“Boost the number and diversity of bird species by providing different types of feeders to resemble their natural feeding behaviors,” Rohnke said in an email. “For example, ground-dwelling birds such as doves, towhees and others prefer low platform feeders because they feed on the ground.”
Along with black-oil sunflower and nyjer seeds, feeder-friendly birds like suet (woodpeckers, jays, songbirds), fruit (orioles, bluebirds, waxwings) and mealworms (robins, chickadees, wrens).
Do not feed wild birds anything salty (whole peanuts, crackers, potato chips) or food that could choke them (plain bread, fats).
Provide a steady supply of clean water but shop around for shallow birdbath designs. Most are too deep for birds, Kress said.
Placing a few large stones in a birdbath can provide perches.
“Hummingbirds like to bathe in leaves, so spray large leaves to attract them,” Kress said.
—Online: For more about feeding birds, see this Stanford University fact sheet:
http://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Feeding_Birds.html