Life - grace grits and gardening

THIS TREE. The most beautiful thing I saw all week.

June 18, 2020 By Talya Tate Boerner

THIS TREE. I’m not kidding. This was the most incredible thing I saw last week.

THIS TREE lives on our block. I’ve probably walked underneath it at least two thousand times since I moved to Fayetteville. And I notice it nearly every single time I walk underneath it because there’s a perfectly round hole about ten feet up the trunk. The hole is more like a woodpecker hole than a Boo Radley hole. There’s a distinct difference, you know.

This old tree continues to grow no matter what’s going on in our town or in our state or in our country or in our world. Continue Reading

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

May 24, 2020 By Talya Tate Boerner

Happy Memorial Day weekend! If I could, I would give you a bouquet of red poppies…

This Memorial Day likely won’t look the same as Memorial Days of the past. (Well, it shouldn’t, in my opinion.) While the corona-craziness has changed the scope of our gatherings, (well, it should, in my opinion), the meaning behind Memorial Day hasn’t changed. And that’s what’s important.

On Memorial Day, we commemorate those who died in service to our country.

Poppy Symbol

Did you know the red poppy is the symbol of both Memorial Day and Veterans Day? I only learned of this poppy connection a few years ago while doing book research for Gene, Everywhere.

After WWI, red poppies were the first flowers to bloom across war-torn European battlefields. The seeds had lay dormant for some time, but after such disturbance to the land, they germinated again.Continue Reading

Dear May,

May 1, 2020 By Talya Tate Boerner

Dear May,

I breathe in your pea green freshness. I crawl on my hands and knees looking for every tiny change in each plant pushing through the soil.

May is for feeling alive. (This May, in particular, we need you.)

I think of May Day and may poles and while I don’t know the history behind it all, I like the idea. Girls dressed in floaty, flouncy dresses wrapping Easter-colored ribbons around and around and under and over. Hair woven with flowers—clover and daisies and baby’s breath.