Arkansas - grace grits and gardening

Gardening, Writing and Making Enchiladas.

March 31, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

Gardening, writing and making enchiladas will keep a girl busy. My mother (aka The Bat) thought I had either croaked, lost my phone, or dropped it in the toilet because she had texted me several times over two days, and I hadn’t responded. I hadn’t posted on Facebook or blogged either.

First of all, I never received the texts because of a mysterious change in my iPhone settings. How does that happen? Anyway, after a bit of research, I fixed it without a call to AT&T (which would have severely cut into gardening, writing and making enchilada time, for sure). Yay me.

As far as being absent on social media, I’ve been on a self-imposed schedule that involves a) working on my book in the mornings, and b) gardening in the afternoons. And yes, I did make enchiladas the other day, but more on that later. So here’s an update. The book? I think it’s going well, but it’s taking longer than I expected. That’s mostly okay by me because when I’m done, well there’s the whole finding-a-publisher-thing which is way harder than breathing life into dead pansies.

And the gardening? You already know it’s one of my most favorite things to do in this life.

Here are a few of the plants John and I bought at Westwood Gardens, my go-to local (Fayetteville) garden center. A trunk full of plants leads to an afternoon well spent.

One of the things I did yesterday was attempt to spruce up our front porch pots. After the snow and ice, last fall’s pansies were soggy and shriveled and looking rather pathetic, BUT since the pansy growing season in Fayetteville is soooo much longer than Dallas, I decided to revive them instead of throw them away. I dug them up, trimmed the dead leaves, added more soil, and replanted them with snapdragons and asparagus fern. The pots look much happier now, and I believe the pansies will make a recovery.

Believing is an essential part of gardening.

End of Winter (left pot) / Beginning of Spring (right pot)

Here’s another before and after shot showing my pansies going from pitiful to perky.

Check out this cute little succulent. This one is named “Pig Ear”. Perfect for Razorback land, don’t you think? I put him in one of our most unique pots, a container we purchased at Redenta’s in Dallas. (It was handmade by an Arizona artisan whose name I don’t know, or I’ll tell you.)

My sister-in-law gave me lots of irises, day lilies and onion sets from her yard! “Dig up whatever you want,” she said. Now that’s a gardeners dream, right? Receiving plants from someone else makes the world even more special, and some of these plants originally came from my mother-in-law’s garden which makes me happyhappyhappyyyyy.

I planted a row of them along our rock wall. This is a hot spot, so they should flourish.

Others I planted around this boulder (along with phlox).

So where does making enchiladas come into this story? I made a big platter of chicken enchiladas last weekend using an old favorite recipe from my Baylor Cookbook (recipe tweaked a bit and coming later, maybe). We ate supper outside around the fire pit while enjoying the beginning of spring.

This is an Arkansas meal. Chicken enchiladas made with Tyson chicken + Riceland rice.

Thank goodness, gardening burns calories:)

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]Trunk full of plants + belly full of enchiladas = perfect day. @Redentas @TysonFoods @RicelandFoods #WestwoodGardens[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:

Travis Tritt – It’s a Great Day to be Alive

I should have been an archeologist?

January 29, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

I should have been an archeologist or geologist. I may have missed my calling.

I took several geology classes at Baylor—as many as I could and still graduate on time with a business degree. Daddy wouldn’t hear of any major other than business even though history and rocks and things buried beneath the earth’s crust always held a special interest for me. Who knows why certain people are drawn to certain things, but as I think back, there is a common thread in many of my memories.

I grew up living on the New Madrid Fault where earthquakes were a way of life. My best summer days were spent exploring the streams and trails in the Ozark Mountains and jumping from the rocky cliffs around Lake Norfork. Our delta fields often presented treasures such as arrowheads and other Indian artifacts.

And there are related snippets too, like buying a jar of rocks in Hot Springs and digging up pearly shells and pieces of rusty tin on the banks of Little River.

Obviously the Earth was filled with mystery. Literally.

Today as we install a sprinkler system and churn up dirt in our new backyard, I’ve been finding shards of creamware and pottery and chunks of heavy glass. Much like the sugary Florida beaches where a fresh batch of seashells wash up each morning, pieces of old stoneware and glass work themselves up from the ground daily. Okay, I’m sure most people prefer seashells to broken glass, but this sort of thing fascinates me.

I found this collection (below) during a five minute stroll through the backyard.

To most, this may only look like trash, and back in the early 1900s, it probably was. Without city trash pickup, garbage was often tossed out the back yard to the pigs or dumped in low spots near streams. Paper and food items disintegrated but glass and pottery waits to be discovered.

To me, these broken pieces are treasures. Bits of history left behind. I enjoy these shards not only because of the unique craftsmanship represented, but I like to imagine the family who used the dinner plates etched with faint blue flowers. What were the people like who lived in these hills at the turn of the century?

This next piece was completely covered in mud. I didn’t realize there was a design until I rinsed it off.

And what a thrill to find a piece with preserved words. A few keystrokes later, I discovered this stamp was the mark of china manufacturer Edwin M. Knowles China Company. The three numbers indicate the date of this piece as 1918.

If you are still reading (thank you), I have one more piece—a heavy piece of glass with scalloped edges. This one reminds me of quartz.

I can’t imagine all the treasures buried beneath the surface of the Earth. Real treasures, never to be discovered.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

“You can either be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It all depends on how you view your life.”
― Paulo Coelho

Musical Pairing:

Whole Wide World – Mindy Gledhill

The Scary Side of Christmas

December 21, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

As a child, Christmas was my favorite time of the year. Homemade stockings hung by the chimney with extra-care. Daddy was in a semi-decent mood. Yummy food spread on the kitchen countertop morning, noon and night. School was out for weeks. Sometimes knee high snow fell while I slept. Plus, Christmas was Jesus’ birthday which included certain church perks like singing Christmas hymns instead of regular hymns and receiving tangerines at the end of the Christmas program.

Brinkley Chapel Choir. (l-r Monica, Staci, Lesa, Mitzi, Me, Kim, Karen, Jamie)

But.

In my young mind, there was a scary side of Christmas, too. A dark side that adults glossed over or ignored altogether. Two worrisome things in particular kept me awake at night during the most wonderful time of the year.

Number 1 Scary Christmas Thing: Jesus was born to a very young virgin mother. Although the specific details of being an unspoiled virgin versus “one of those girls” were fuzzy, I had a vague idea of what it meant.

WHAT IF THAT HAPPENED TO ME?

I wanted no part of it.

When the angel Gabriel said, fear not for behold I bring you tidings of great joy, Mary and her whole family went right along with everything. Mary was so wonderful and worthy she even sang a song about it.

If Gabriel visited me in the night, such tidings would not be well received by Thomas Tate.

Daddy (Thomas Tate)

Not at all.

I also believed the more I stewed on something, the more likely a self-fulfilling prophecy would occur. So I tried to focus on other things—anything other than being a pregnant virgin child like Mary. Like trying to be extra good and not pouting because Santa Claus watched my every move.

Number 2 Scary Christmas Thing. The Naughty or Nice List that controlled Christmas. I knew Santa made a list and checked it twice, but that’s all I knew about his curious list.

When did he make the list?

What were the list guidelines?

Exactly how bad did I have to be to find myself knocked off the good list and onto the bad list?

I had lots and lots of questions that no one seemed qualified to answer.

Each year, I felt certain I had NOT been good enough. All throughout Christmas Eve night, I worried that I would wake on Christmas morning to no toys, no new Barbies, no clothes even. Nothing at all. After all, I wasn’t nearly as agreeable as Mary (see Number 1 Scary Thing above).

Worry-wart much?

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]The scary side of #Christmas…Yikes! #VirginMary #BetterNotPout[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:

Mindy Gledhill – Santa Claus is Coming to Town