Farm Pics from my Farm Weekend

After five fruitful days at Hemingway-Pfeiffer, I crashed at home-home (Cottonwood Corner), as opposed to home (Fayetteville) and wrote and wrote and wrote, slept in my “own” bed, walked around the farm, and wrote some more. And I took lots of farm pics from my farm weekend.

Do you know what I mean by home-home? For me, it’s the specific place I grew up. Not everyone has the strong pull of place, as some folks moved all over the world, military families and whatnot. But the roots of my family grow in Mississippi County, Arkansas, the place, the house, the soil. That part of Arkansas always tugs me back. There’s a light for me at home, a truth, a consistency I need.

I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe. Maya Angelou said that, and I agree.

I carry home with me like baggage—the good, the heavy, more than I sometimes need— and return to recharge, repack, remember.

The weather was crazy warm for mid-November. Crazy enough that sunflowers were blooming near the home place.

Whenever I go home to the farm, I spend half my time in the closets digging around for things I don’t know I’m digging around for. I found the Viewmaster slides my sister and I collected for years. I slipped Jack and the Beanstalk in and “watched” it. Each time I pressed the clicker thing on the side, the picture flipped with a grating noise, the slide warped over time. But the images were still bright. Our version of 3-D.

I watched Sleeping Beauty, too, and another of my all-time favorites, The Brady Bunch Goes to the Grand Canyon. (I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of this vintage collection. Next time.)

Seriously, if you want a quick jolt of reality and a reminder of how far we’ve come technologically, watch a Viewmaster slide.

The propane tank in the picture below? For whatever reason, I take a picture of it every time I go home. Must be the peeling paint and rust that draws me in. 

I had a thing for it even when I was a toddler.

Another of my favorite western views looking back toward Keiser to the lone stand of pecan trees.

Happy Hump Day, y’all. Be kind and good.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]Farm pics. My favorite sort. #MississippiCo #NEArk #TateFarms[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:
Emmylou Harris – Wayfaring Stranger