Pets - grace grits and gardening

Lucy and Annabelle go Downtown

July 14, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

Lucy and Annabelle love their walks and, lucky for me, Fayetteville is a very walkable city with a fun downtown area. We’ve been living here about ten months now, and so yes, people are beginning to recognize the “girls” when we are out and about. They’re popular that way.

Recently, we explored downtown starting with Fayetteville’s Farmer’s Market. And by the way, Fayetteville’s Farmer’s Market is THE place to be on Saturday. Like the Wal-Mart in my hometown only not. People bring their dogs and babies and the local farmers sell wondrous produce and flowers. There’s live music and crafts, too.

Lucy loves the crowd and activity. Annabelle gets a little nervous and prefers to hang out in the peripheral area. All in all, it’s a good dog watching / people watching place with the bonus of fresh veggies and fruit.

After the excitement of Farmer’s Market, they pulled me toward Chunky Dunk Milk + Cookies. I think it was the signage that lured them over.

Seriously. Look at that cookie sandwich. It’s called Regina George Got Hit By a Bus. Ha. If you are a fan of Mean Girls, you know she so deserved it. Ingredients = 2 chocolate chip cookies, fudge sauce, vanilla icing, and crumbled sugar cookies. Wowza.

Lucy and Annabelle liked the picnic tables and water bowl.

I gotta admit I kinda loved the garden on the back of the Chunky Dunk food truck. Food truck gardens should be a thing.

Next stop, The Curious Book Shoppe on Block. First of all, I’m partial to any shoppe with an “e” on the end. That one extra vowel makes the place seem more quaint in an enchanted sort of way—like maybe tucked within a secret shelf they sell magic wands or crystals than cure allergies or something equally exotic. And the fact that this shoppe is smaller than Harry Potter’s room underneath the stairs makes it even more intriguing.

Lucy and Annabelle enjoyed their visit, but it was their first book shoppe so they really had no frame of reference.

On the way home, Annabelle stopped for a quick drink in this natural tree root dog bowl. Water slurped out in the wild is always best. Or so I’m told.

Naps all around when we got home. Stay tuned for Lucy and Annabelle’s next adventure.

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

[tweetthis]Lucy & Annabelle go exploring. @ExpFayetteville #ChunkyDunk #CuriousBookShoppe #FayettevilleFarmersMkt #schnauzers[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:
Rufus Thomas, Walking the Dog

what the dogs smell (let it rain)

March 11, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

My walks with Lucy and Annabelle consist more of stopping and starting than walking. We play a sniffing game, especially after a rain or snowstorm. For just one day, I’d love to be able to smell what the dogs smell. To be that alert and aware, so alert they nearly pull my arm out of socket when a scent hits their noses and yanks me in a completely different direction.

What’s in the rain?

Does the water revitalize the scent of the soil, the tracks of the squirrel, the mark of another dog? Or is there more to it?

The same rain has fallen since the beginning of time.

Rain.

Evaporation.

Rain.

Evaporation.

And with the process, a world of smells travels from the ground, into the rivers and lakes and oceans and into the clouds overhead. The smells of yesterday. History. Animals, extinct and present. People, here and long gone. Every smell that ever existed has been soaked into those rain droplets and snowflakes.

That’s what I like to imagine anyway.

The history in the smell of rain is responsible for our less than smooth strolls. It’s not just dog pee.

I love the smell of rain—that distinct earthy aroma that’s difficult to describe yet immediately noticed. A smell that always grabs my attention and makes me pause and inhale long and deep. What do the dogs smell? The explosion of a Civil War musket? Tracks left behind by the Cherokee who settled in this area? The smell of a wolf pack, their ancestors?

Or is it merely the squirrel sitting on the branch above their heads?

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]I’d like to smell what the dogs smell. #historyintherain[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:

Eric Clapton, Let It Rain

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived. The odors of fruits waft me to my southern home, to my childhood frolics in the peach orchard. Other odors, instantaneous and fleeting, cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered grief. Even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start awake sweet memories of summers gone and ripening fields far away.”

― Helen Keller