grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

hometown charm

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small town charm

It feels surreal to be home, home on the farm (cue Home on the Range) and see my picture plastered all over town and all over the house. There’s some hometown charm going on, and I owe a big thank you to Jason Stark of Osceola Printing for the eye-popping posters and flyers. Not only did he create the design, he handled the project from start to finish in a matter of hours during a time when I couldn’t think straight. Sometimes the right person appears at exactly the right time. And, yes, a professional makes all the difference.

Being from a small town is a great thing.Continue Reading

pick a bale of Arkansas cotton

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Mississippi Co CottonI grew up in the Arkansas Delta, so for me, fall means harvest, and harvest means rice, soybeans, and cotton. As you might gather from the title of this post, once again I’m talking about cotton. (Last cotton blog post for the year. Promise.) Some folks have never seen a field of cotton ready for picking, and the entire process of ginning is a mystery. I made a few videos during my recent tour of Lee Wilson & Company Cotton Gin in Wilson, Arkansas. And, I wrote an article about Arkansas Cotton for First Security Bank’s Only in Arkansas blog. Impressive sustainability improvements have been made in cotton farming since 1980. Click HERE to read all about the world’s most popular fiber.

BUT FIRST, check out my videos which you may find as exciting as watching paint dry, but I happen to love.Continue Reading

Pictured: Delta Cotton

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P i c t u r e d: Delta Cotton

Cotton-picking time in the Delta is my favorite. This week when I haven’t been holed up working on my book edits (yay!), I’ve been driving from the bootheel of Missouri and along the Great River Road searching out magazine and blog post stories. The highways and byways of the Delta are roaring with trucks hauling soybeans and grain. The gins are ginning at capacity. I can often be found poking around in fields or parked on the side of the road taking pictures. So far, the farmers work around me. ? ??

A few Delta cotton pics. (The smoke in the first two pictures is from the adjacent soybean field—burning stalks after harvest.)

cotton picker

 

round bale cotton

 

Adams Cotton Gin

 

old cotton picking sack

 

in the cotton field

 

1910 cotton picking basket

 

Delta cotton!

  1. John Deere picker, Mississippi County, Ar.
  2. Round bale, Mississippi County, Ar.
  3. Adams Cotton Gin, Leachville, Ar.
  4. Old cotton picking sack, Mississippi County Museum, Osceola, Ar.
  5. Momma, my sister and me.
  6. 1910 cotton picking basket, Mississippi County Museum, Osceola, Ar.
  7. Beautiful boll, Dunklin County, Mo.

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

[tweetthis]In them old cotton fields back home… @ArFB @JohnDeere #farming #Delta #Arkansas[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:
Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cotton Fields Back Home

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

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