grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Rain

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I awoke to clapping thunder and a downpour. Perfect dozing weather. Except in our tiny Fayetteville bedroom on the air mattress, it seemed the house would be whisked off to Oz. I was just being introduced to this home – its storm sounds new. The rain reverberated on the tin roof sounding like golf ball-sized hail. Nearby flashes of lightning illuminated the interior – partially painted, barely furnished. Lucy and Annabelle burrowed underneath the quilt thinking the end was near. It was peaceful.
Dallas rain from upstairs porch
The next morning back in Dallas, thunder and a much needed rainstorm drenched the already parched city. The weathermen were animated. Everyone breathed more easily.
One week later I spent my first evening in Piggott amidst a typical Northeast Arkansas tornado watch. The blackened skies immediately put me at ease, made me feel at home. With all my recent traveling, I was becoming a storm chaser. Or a storm magnet?
Growing up on a farm, there were many thirsty summers when no one dared look at Daddy or accidentally smile about anything, followed by days of rising flood waters. Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor. We grew up studying the clouds and the sky, sniffing out wind direction and predicting rain by our achy bones. We did August rain dances, careful not to twist an ankle in the bone dry cracks splitting the front yard open. On Sunday mornings during the every-eye-closed-and-every-head-bowed part of Just As I Am, every farmer’s wife and child prayed for rain. The farmers did their praying out in the fields scouting for rain on the steamy horizon. 
Tate Farm (aka florida farm)
Spending the day out on our farm Saturday, I learned about new irrigation techniques and pumps, laser leveling to save water and increase yield, and the inner workings of center pivots. I can spot pigweed from the interstate. After a day of studying the slope of each field, I realized for the first time Mississippi County isn’t pancake flat. It started looking downright hilly by the end of the day as I noticed low spots around Little River and the built up banks along Kochtitzki. Even the topography has changed since Hernando De Soto explored the Mississippi River Valley. I wonder what Thomas Tate thinks about the  new fangled farm technology? Tractors drive themselves now…
electric pump Tate Farm
Leveled irrigated fields would certainly allow the farmer to sleep a bit easier during the long hot summer, if farmers slept. But they don’t.
When I water my herbs and flowers in Dallas during a string of 100 degree days, I can keep them alive. Barely. But if it rains, a steady slow soaking, they smile and grow. Nothing replaces the real thing when the heavens open and the rain falls. 
talya
Musical Pairing:
“Rain is a Good Thing”, Luke Bryan
The rain, rain, rain came down, down, down
In rushing, rising riv’lets,
’til the river crept out of it’s bed
And crept right into Piglet’s!  (Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day)

A Place to Remember

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I don’t think you see a town until you spend time walking around. Every place has hidden treasures to uncover, even those nearly invisible communities tucked among the corn fields hours away from the closest Dillard’s. You may need to squint to clearly see.
Presbyterian Church, Piggott, Ar

Flying down Main Street in a cool car driving somewhere better, the old church cornerstone is a blur, the cemetery overgrown, the dilapidated house with gingerbread trim faded. The town appears abandoned, a ghostly whistle-stop off the interstate. Small-town stereotypes come to mind leaving an empty feeling, a who-on-earth-lives-here feeling. Stopping at the single red light seems ridiculous with not a soul in sight. You have some place to be. Some place exciting. Some other place. But walking the neighborhood, studying the building design and reading the historical markers bring back life. A life. A history. Every place is someone’s home, someone’s place to remember. It crosses someone’s mind.

Faded mural on side of building

Last night I walked for hours taking pictures of this little town that at first glance appeared forlorn, forgotten, faded. A passerby waved and an old man said hello from his porch swing. A stone cottage surrounded by a sizable garden with rows and rows of vegetables and apple trees caught my eye. It was framed by a rock wall, crooked yet perfect. I coveted it. I considered knocking on the door to ask permission to walk beyond the stone wall. Tomatoes already grew heavy on the vine. Could I have garden tour and learn the secret to this abundance? Would the gardeners who live within those walls consider me crazy? Do I care? It was late so I thought better of it.

Piggott reminds me of Keiser where I attended grade school, trick-or-treated on Halloween and hung out with my friends on weekends. I’m sure travelers blow through thinking it to be a sad, depressing place. They didn’t know Vic and Bobby Don who always hung out at the gas station guarding the entrance into town, or Howard Ray who road his bicycle affectionately named Trigger, or the Shake Shack with slap-yo-momma Pizza Burgers. But we do. We were part of it. We remember cotton trailers lined up at the gin, Edwina’s Beauty Shop always smelling of perms, and Spin-the-Bottle in Nana’s dimly lit attic. We remember cheering on the Keiser Yellow Jackets. We remember.

talya
“Living in a small town…is like living in a large family of rather uncongenial relations. Sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes it’s perfectly awful, but it’s always good for you. People in large towns are like only-children.”  Joyce Dennys, Henrietta Sees It Through

Just a Girl

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Today. At the writer’s retreat… Tell us a bit about yourself….This is a huge question. How do I convey what I want these folks, these soon to be new friends, these writers, to know about me in 3 minutes? Who am I? 
Last night I thought about the words I threw together describing myself on the “About Me” section of my Grace Grits & Gardening blog, strung together simply off the top of my head with very little thought. Words to fill that blank spot on my intro blog page. Truthful but quickly written.

  • I am a wife. John thinks its cool that I put this first. Maybe all that subliminal southern Baptist rearing stuck back in my head that teaches subservient wifely things? Nah. John describes me as a hard-headed woman, assuring me this is a compliment. I think he is trying to convince himself…
  • I am a mom. These words, this short simple sentence, form the badge I wear most proudly.  If I never do anything else, my life has been productive. I know I have contributed. This allows me to sleep at night.
  • I am a farmer’s daughter. Huge influence. In this life I learned to wake before sunrise, do what I say, reap what I sow, and memorize the words to every classic country song, skills all southern girl should master. 
  • I love to dig in the dirt. Yes, I started making mud pies at an early age. I do my best thinking wearing my worn gardening gloves and would spend my last five bucks on a perennial rather than food or water, unless my Black Eyed-Susans were thirsty of course.
  • I am a book junkie. Oh the places I’ve been within the pages of a book – through the doors of musty wardrobes, behind secret garden walls, into the dark forbidden forest and journeying across cold mountains. Real books that you can see and smell and touch and hold. Books you fall asleep with like a favorite feather pillow that leave imprints and lines on the side of your face and within your heart. 
  • I am a beginning yogi. Yoga has opened my eyes to the possibilities. If you practice you know.
  • I am a beginning writer. This brings me here, to this moment in time, sitting in the very barn where Ernest Hemingway wrote portions of A Farewell to Arms. I am in awe.
  • I try to do something creative every day. See all of the above. 

I’m just a girl from Arkansas.

talya
“Write drunk, edit sober.” Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway Barn


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