grace grits and gardening - ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Blogging Like Hemingway: 10 Simple Steps

October 13, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

grace grits and gardening blogging like Ernest Hemingway

Spending time at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Educational Center in Piggott, Arkansas is magical bordering on spiritual. Ernest Hemingway, who won a Pultizer Prize in Literature for Old Man and the Sea, wrote a portion of A Farewell to Arms in the barn which he claimed as his writing studio. For a writer, this corner of Northeast Arkansas is sacred.

Hemingway wrote each morning before the day grew hot and sticky. I imagine he gazed out the window looking to the trees for inspiration. He strolled the grounds leaving behind the sweet aroma of his finest Cuban. He felt the ground vibrate as the train rumbled through downtown Piggott…

In my efforts to channel Hemingway, I’ve compiled a list of blogging tips based on his writing style and famous quotes.

1. Write short sentences. Write straight to the point.

2. Establish a writing routine, and write consistently.

3. Be sure to Make every word count. Use strong action verbs.

4. Don’t spoonfeed the reader. Write so your reader feels what you feel.

5. Write on the principle of the iceberg. For every visible part, seven-eighths is hidden underwater.

6. Edit. Edit. EDIT. Write 800 words. Eliminate 400 words.

7. Live life. Observe life.

8. Edit again.

9. Eliminate exclamation points! F. Scott Fitzgerald said exclamation points are like laughing at your own joke. Hemingway rarely used them.

10. End your daily writing while you still have something to say.

Hemingway-Pfeiffer Educational Center and Museum

talya

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

Write the truest sentence that you know. -Ernest Hemingway

Homemade Face Mask

October 11, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Got eggs?

Eggs aren’t just for eating.

Egg whites help balance oily-to-normal skin while the creamy yolk adds moisture to dry skin.

As a teenager and even into my twenties and thirties, I had oily oily OILY skin. Now as the magical forces of aging control my life, my skin has turned bone dry and dehydrated. While salon facials are amazing, they don’t quite fit my struggling-writer-plus-two-kids-in-college budget…

So I make my own for pennies.

My favorite at-home facial is made from common pantry items, yet the result is more spa-like than common.

And spa-like is good.

Basic Ingredients. Not pictured: Olive Oil…

Ingredients

Honey-Banana Dry Skin Facial

1 egg yolk

1 teaspooon honey

1 tablespoon banana

1 strawberry, mashed

1 teaspoon olive oil

This makes more than one application, but working with smaller amounts of each ingredient is difficult. It will save in the refrigerator for a week or so, but I wouldn’t apply to your face more frequently than twice a week. Better yet, call your girlfriends over and have a spa day.

Method
Mash banana and strawberry into other ingredients.

smells good enough to eat because it is!

Whisk until fairly smooth. There will be bits of strawberry in the mask—that’s okay.

honey-strawberry scrambled eggs?

Steam open pores with warm hand towel. Spread mask on your face and neck. This is a bit messy so I do this in the bathroom with a towel spread over the sink.

a) thank goodness this is blurry;
b) yes, my fingers look strangely ET-like in this pic; and,
c) please no one pin this to their Halloween board…

Once the mask is on your face, it dries quickly, and you can go about your morning business… Have a cup of coffee. Eat the rest of your banana.

After 20 – 30 minutes, rinse with cool water.

Ahhhh…..

Note about the ingredients: Strawberries help exfoliate and dissolve dead skin. Honey has an antibacterial quality. The egg yolk, olive oil and banana provide moisture. I’m no esthetician—I’m not even sure how to spell the word, but this is a combination that works for me. Before you try this for the first time, test an area of skin behind the ear and wait 24 hours before applying to the face. Some people have an allergic reaction to the ingredients, especially the fruit…

talya

P.S. If you have oily skin, omit the olive oil and substitute an egg white for the yolk.

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

Musical Pairing:

David Bowie, Changes

Old Farmers Day

October 10, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

throwback thursday

Saturday is Old Farmers Day. I stumbled upon this quite by accident as I googled Angel Food Cake Day (which is actually today). Recognized each year on October 12, Old Farmers Day is the national day set aside to honor the American farmer. The day hearkens back to the 1800s when farmers celebrated the end of another grueling harvest season with a day of feasting and relaxation.

I’m a farmer’s daughter, a farmer’s grand-daughter, a farmer’s great-grand-daughter, a farmer’s niece, a farmer’s cousin… How had I never heard of Old Farmers Day? I can tell you how….There was never a moment the farmers in my family paused to breathe or reflect on their year, much less stopped to enjoy an entire feast. Daddy barely slowed down for Thanksgiving and often enjoyed his turkey and dressing on the turnrow leaning against a cotton picker.

Even so, I love the idea of Old Farmers Day. I imagine the first farm-to-table meal to be a lavish Pilgrim-like spread with corn and roast chicken and fresh baked bread with pear preserves (minus the Indians).

As long as people have poked seeds into the soil, harvest has been a time of celebration, a time to give thanks for their over-flowing bounty of food and fortune, a time to honor the fertile land.

Now a bit of history to honor my farming roots…

Reven and Frances Creecy

Nana and Papa Creecy were married October 8, 1936 (four days before Old Farmers Day), at Brother Smith’s house on Highway 140 in Athelstan (Arkansas). After honeymooning in Blytheville at the Hotel Noble, they made their first home in a little house on the corner of the Creecy home place between Crews Lateral and Coleman Lateral.Here’s a list of items from the original N. G. Cartwright & Sons invoice for the items they bought to start their life together.

Papa made his first crop that year with a $75.00 loan from Keiser Supply.

After paying off his debt, he bought eighty acres up the road in Dell and began clearing land while Nana managed the house, cooked and hunted with a 22 pistol strapped to her waist. Papa Creecy said she could shoot a cotton boll off the stalk…