grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Arkansas: My Happy Place

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Once I cross the state line into Arkansas (from any direction), I can breathe and think as the pace seems to slow just a notch.

I was born there.

I couldn’t get away fast enough.

I hurry back as often as I can.

Arkansas is where I go to relax, recharge, remember.

I’m headed there today.

Hot Springs, Arkansas
Hot Springs
Mountain Home Arkansas
Lake Norfork

Arkansas My Happy Place
Dairy Hollow Writer’s Colony, Eureka Springs

Arkansas My Happy Place
Keiser
My Happy Place Arkansas
Hemingway-Pfeiffer, Piggott
My Happy Place Arkansas
Fayetteville

Arkansas My Happy Place
The Farm. Mississippi County

Maya Angelou said the ache for home lives in all of us. 

Where’s your happy place?

talya

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


“Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.” 
― Donald Miller

Musical Pairing:

Los Lonely Boys, Heaven

Old Farmers Day

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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.

IMG_5904
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…

Frances Creecy (Nana)

Oh, and one more tidbit about Papa Creecy. Guess what his all-time favorite dessert was?

Yep.

Angel food cake.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life

Musical Pairing:

Alabama, Song of the South

That Bookstore in Blytheville – New Owner!

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TBIB New Owner
Have you been to That Bookstore in Blytheville (TBIB) lately?
In 1976, Mary Gay Shipley opened That Bookstore on Main Street in Blytheville, Arkansas, as a place to swap one stack of used paperbacks for another stack of ‘un-read’ paperbacks. Only a little hole in the wall,  Mary Gay nurtured and grew her bookstore, which eventually attracted New York Times best-selling authors to her little spot along the Arkansas Delta Byways. 
When she announced her retirement, I worried. I don’t like change, especially when books are involved.
I am happy to report I still love it. The new owner of TBIB, Grant Hill, is book knowledgeable and friendly. He humored me as I ‘practiced’ being on book tour.
See? Here I am pretending to be at my very first book signing. The picture is blurry because I’m too excited to be still.
That Bookstore in Blytheville

My friend Harold says I’m the only person he’s ever heard of who promotes a book yet to be published. So? I’m just extreme vision boarding…

TBIB dedicates rows of shelving to regional books by local authors. There are many. I stared at the books lining this section and pictured copies of my book stacked right beside Reflections from the Black Lagoon by Julie Adams. (Julie, from Blytheville, was the Creature’s bathing beauty…) 
Grace Grits and Gardening Candle
Grace Grits candle posing at TBIB in front of Julie Adam’s Creature book…:)

If you live or travel anywhere in Northeast Arkansas or the bootheel of Missouri, be sure to stop by TBIB and buy a few great books (or a whole stack like my mother and I did). And be sure to follow TBIB on Facebook and Twitter. Wherever you live, go out today and support your local independent bookstore.
That bookstore in Blytheville

Now, I need to find a publisher…

talya

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

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!