grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

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

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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

Adopt the Pace of Nature; her Secret is Patience.

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Adopt the pace of nature

Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience. I’ve been thinking about this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote lately. It seems to fit our current situation of staying home and biding our time.

I consider myself to be both an optimistic and a realist. I look on the bright side of things while balancing my expectations with a dose of practicality. As much as I pray everything is back to normal in 17 days, I won’t be buying an Easter bonnet this year.

I’ve probably not worn an Easter bonnet since this picture from 1965 or so. But you know what I mean.

Easter Bonnet

Yes, our health crisis has quickly morphed into a financial crisis. Within less than two weeks, so many people have lost their jobs. The unemployment rate will skyrocket. Businesses have already begun to close, possibly permanently. Without businesses, employees won’t have jobs to go back to. It’s the chicken and the egg notion, a conundrum as old as time. Continue Reading

My Lessons from Nature

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Everything I learned, I learned from nature

My Lessons from Nature.

This year so far, our spring has been indecisive and teasing. In one sleep, our wild weather vacillates from hard freeze to near 80 degrees. Since February, I’ve been growing African daisies, marigolds, okra, and basil in my makeshift greenhouse.

What’s a makeshift greenhouse? In my world, it’s a folding table shoved in front of a sunny window in our garage. Our garage is heated, so it works until we can build a real greenhouse.

I have succulent and coleus cuttings, and a bulb of fennel the butterflies will love. Ten days ago, John and I rescued a flat of waterlogged coreopsis being sold at the nursery for next to nothing. After only a few days of drying time in our warm greenhouse, they made a huge comeback and are ready to go in the soil.

Yes, we are plant rescuers. When fair-weathered friends toss Halloween chrysanthemums to the curb, we’ve been known to haul them home in the trunk of our vehicle and nurse them back to health.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m getting antsy with this greenhouse arrangement. I rotate the plants so that no one hogs the sunlight. On warm days, I take them outside for fresh air and direct sunlight. Before dark, I return them inside because frost is still a real threat. I am teaching them the importance of taking baby steps.

You have to be patient, I tell them.

They continue to wait.

I provide water and promises of this too shall pass.

I don’t know if they can hear me, but I think they can.

All this waiting and watching the weather has me thinking about the lessons I’ve learned from nature and gardening and life as a farm girl. You know that book All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten? I might say the same for nature. Most everything I’ve learned, I learned from a connection to nature, playing outside, growing up on a farm.Continue Reading

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

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