grace grits and gardening - ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

I prefer Delta Graffiti over the other sort

July 15, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

I prefer Delta graffiti to typical gangster graffiti. Delta graffiti is clear and to the point. Easy to read.

Really, it can be considered true signage.

Words to the wise.

Country song lyrics.

Yes, it may be grammatically incorrect, but still, there are no confusing symbols.

Plain, simple, countrified.

Delta graffiti.

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

[tweetthis]I prefer #Delta graffiti over the other sort. #WordstoLiveBy [/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:
Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues

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

my Southern Heritage

July 12, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

Whoa, everywhere you turn people are talking and arguing about the Confederate flag. Many want to erase it from history. Others are wrapping their bodies in it like a beloved blanket. Southern heritage means different things to different people. No matter how much ranting and protesting one way or another, people will NEVER see things exactly the same way.

You probably knew it was only a matter of time before I had to throw my two cents in about southern heritage. After all, my blog includes grits in the title for heaven’s sake. Southern? Why yes I am.

But the Confederate flag is not a symbol of my southern heritage.

My southern heritage includes the people and places and family traditions that shaped me.

This land at our home place, once swampy and snaky, land that my grandparents and great-grandparents cleared, this is my southern heritage.

Land rich in history.

This is the place I return home to as often as possible—the place I can breathe and remember and just be.

This field was (is) my playground.

My sister and I spent countless hours zooming our Matchbox cars between the furrows of cotton that by August grew thick and high above our heads. We hunted for tadpoles and turtles in the ditches and made mudpies on steamy summer days. We rode our John Deere bicycles to the far edge of the property where the earth seemed to curve. We chopped cotton with the farm hands.

My southern heritage includes priceless black and white family photos and stories passed down for generations.

A wooden box of old family recipes, the handwritten cards smeared with oily fingerprints and smudges of chocolate.

My church home filled with memories I can recall more clearly than what I did last week.

My southern heritage includes the small Delta towns that will always be home to me, and Old Man River which roils nearby shaping the very culture of this place.

The truth is, racism isn’t my story. I’ve never been denied anything because of my race. My ancestors who hailed from Tennessee and other points below the Mason-Dixon line likely fought against the abolition of slavery. They probably even owned slaves. Although I’ve never researched my ancestry, I doubt my people sat in the back of the bus. So who am I to say the rebel flag isn’t racist to those whose ancestors were slaves?

I am reminded of the wise words of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s iconic book To Kill a Mockingbird. “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Since we can’t literally climb into someone’s skin, maybe all we can hope for is tolerance. As a society we’d do well to remember that everyone’s story is different and worthy of consideration. Even those completely unlike our own.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I gotta believe that down deep where we all live, we are more alike than not.