grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

All You Need is Love…. and Chocolate.

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Growing up, my sister and I loved to spend the night with Uncle Rex and Aunt Frances. They lived in a single wide trailer at the edge of the cotton field on the home place, adjacent to Nana and Papa Creecy. Their trailer was surrounded by a little stand of pine trees which made it even more special. You were much more likely to see cottonwoods or pecans trees in Mississippi County, not pine trees. We played among those magical pine trees, collecting pine cones in late fall. I often wondered if Uncle Rex planted those trees, or did they grow from seeds that Nana tossed out her back door, like the beanstalk that grew from Jack’s enchanted beans. I never thought to ask anyone.

That mobile home was about the neatest thing ever. The huge console stereo spanned the entire living room wall and tons of albums filled the cabinet. We were allowed to play those albums unattended. I heard Patsy Cline sing Crazy for the first time in that living room. Staci and I played it over and over, placing the needle of the record player just right, careful not to scratch it. We sang along off key, while turning somersaults on the floor in front of the sofa. I was always amazed at how such a small home could seem so spacious and stay so tidy. But they had no children to mess it up.

I was a bit sad when they sold the trailer and moved to town to be closer to work. They both worked at American Greetings. In our little corner of Arkansas, if you weren’t farming, you were working at one of the factories on the banks of the Mississippi River. It’s still that way.

They were soul mates, practically joined at the hip. And at some point, they started dressing alike every single day. On purpose. They might both be wearing jeans and red shirts, or similar sweaters, but always the same color combination, as if they would be posing for a family photo after lunch. They even dressed similarly for church each Sunday. One summer they visited us in Dallas, sharing one suitcase crammed with matching outfits for each day of the trip. They discussed which outfit to wear each morning. It was cute.

John and I are not that cute, but we accidentally dress alike on occasion. It’s very plausible considering we primarily only wear jeans, gray, black and white… On those days when it does happen, I like to call him Rex.

Uncle Rex had two addictions – Frances and chocolate. And in that order. He was absolutely lost if he was separated from Frances for any period of time for whatever reason. When Frances was in the hospital, we really needed to go ahead and admit Uncle Rex – he was always beside himself with worry, making himself sick. A few years ago when she was hospitalized, worried that Uncle Rex might starve, the church ladies activated the casserole phone tree and brought food to the house, including a HugeChocolateCake. This was like a bottle of whiskey to an alcoholic. He ate the entire cake in one sitting. Having chest pains later that night, he ended up in the hospital with Frances, which is where he wanted to be. He’s the only person I ever knew who nearly overdosed on chocolate.  

Uncle Rex died a little over a year ago. They were so blessed to have found each other, but what must it be like to lose your soul mate? Frances is heartbroken and lost and doesn’t know what to do with herself. A part of herself is missing. Sometimes she just gets in the car and drives, but never straying far from home. I wonder how she decides what to wear each day?

talya

Musical Pairings:

Patsy Cline, “Crazy”
Patsy Cline, “Fall to Pieces”

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be. – Robert Browning

my secret garden

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my well-worn copy

Santa knew I was a voracious reader. He fed my addiction, always bringing me a stack of books for Christmas which I devoured more quickly than the chocolate candy in my stocking. One year he gave me The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was magical and life-changing as I became completely lost within the pages, on the moors at Misselthwaite Manor. Mary Lennox and I were both ten years old, and I somehow related to her. Living in the country surrounded by bare winter fields could be a bit dull.

It was the first book I read that I simply could not put down. Although I wanted it to last forever, I quickly inhaled it. Wrapped in my blue and white polka dot sleeping bag and hidden underneath the dining room table, I found myself behind the stone garden wall, reading cover to cover one cold, Sunday afternoon, after church. It was a quiet spot to read as long as my little sister didn’t search for me. And it was cozy with the wall furnace nearby. Everyone needs a place to hide sometime. By the time the thistles turned to  roses at the end of the story, I was designing my own secret garden. Someday. 

Our secret garden

Forty years and hundreds of books later, The Secret Garden is still one of my top 10 books. It may even be in my top 5. I re-read it every few years and discover new things each time. And it continues to inspire me as John and I plant and trim and weed our tiny, postage stamp sized yard near downtown Dallas. It was a challenge from the beginning with no fence, bad dirt, a dying trash tree, and an oddly shaped deck. Slowly, we are transforming our bit of earth, hidden behind an iron fence and a few Japanese maple trees.

Along the way, we’ve discovered our garden has a few secrets of its own. Underneath the garage lies an old root cellar. It was filled in years ago, but we discovered its massive concrete doors during pool excavation.  UpCharge…. And each time we dig a hole to plant a flower, we find a brick. Through research we discovered several apartment units were built onto the back of the house for returning soldiers after WWII. After demolition, these bricks were buried over time. So far, we’ve found no gold bricks, jars of silver coins, or a secret garden gate key buried in a badger hole. Although John thinks we might have a badger… 
Within the tangle of oregano lives a yellow plastic army man – he guards the plants with his rifle drawn. I stationed him there after digging him up in the yard, evidently forgotten by a child who played here years ago. That army man is doing a great job – we have enough oregano to open a pizza restaurant. And to say my cactus is thriving is an understatement. What began as a small cutting from my Nana’s cactus is taking over our side yard. Some people inherit jewels or antiques, but I have a family heirloom cactus. 

For such a small space, the life within it is pretty phenomenal. Along with bright green geckos, varieties of butterflies and a giant orange dragonfly that hovers and darts over the pool like the enchanted golden Snitch, we also have entertaining birds. A cardinal family built a nest on one side of the yard and the blue jay family moved in to the adjacent nest. They reluctantly coexist, but occasionally like the Bloods and Crips, there’s a confrontation.

Last weekend, a baby screech owl tried to move into the garden as well. Like nosey neighbors, the cardinals and blue jays lined up along the back fence protesting and gossiping as John fished the fledgling from the pool. Owls can’t swim, and this one was just learning to fly. I suspect the Angry Birds pushed the baby owl into the water. 

The owl has been relocated to a nearby bird sanctuary, the cardinals and blue jays are now settled back into their respective nests and two busy schnauzers are diligently patrolling the perimeter this morning. All is calm, all is bright in our garden refuge.

talya

Musical Pairings:

The Beatles, “Mother Nature’s Son”
KT Tunstall, “White Bird”

“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.” 
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden


Grown from my Nana’s cactus

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Now I lay me down to sleep, a bottle of pills at my feet…

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This would be an excellent time to rob a bank. It would likely go unnoticed, unless during the process you also shoot a singer or actor in the teller line. For the next few weeks, until another Hollywood darling dies, serious news will go completely unreported.

This is your brain on drugs.
Ok so yes, Whitney had an amazing voice, especially 10 years ago. She was beautiful. I really liked The Bodyguard, but primarily because of Kevin Costner. And now she’s gone – much too soon – likely from a drug overdose (prescription or otherwise). Or maybe it was heart failure – your heart can only endure so much abuse. Regardless, she sadly did this to herself. It’s terrible. I feel bad for her daughter and her family and her true friends who probably saw it coming. But, people – we did not know her. Why are we so interested in this? During the first full hour after the news of her death, there were 2,481,652 tweets and retweets (per MSN.com), peaking at over a thousand tweets a second! Hmmmm. When this news exploded, my sister, mom and I were driving back to Dallas from Waco. My mother received several phone calls and text messages about this. Really? Apparently Osceola was all torn up.

Why not devote hours and tweets and blogs and tears and news reports to soldiers who have died in Afghanistan protecting Whitney Houston’s freedom? Isn’t that newsworthy? CNN will pontificate about her death for weeks, while young unnamed men leave behind devastated families and friends every day serving our country. 

Was anyone surprised when Michael Jackson died? Really? The King of Pop was bizarre and mixed up and sad. We felt like we knew him, growing up with “Rockin’ Robin” –  back when he still had a nose. I saw him sing Thriller in person. He was an amazing entertainer. But when he died, I wasn’t surprised in the least.

And Amy Winehouse? She bragged about her addiction, singing about her refusal to check into rehab. Oh let’s give her a Grammy for that. 

Now I will admit, when Elvis died, we were devestated. People sobbed at the pearly gates of Graceland – and still do. But this was Elvis, and it was a different time. His downhill spiral wasn’t as obvious – we weren’t force-fed his every move by the media back then. His death was a shock.


Living just across the Mississippi River near Memphis – Elvis was practically our neighbor. When he was home at Graceland, the Commercial Appeal often printed handsome photos of Elvis giving away diamond rings and Cadillacs to his nurses. Ok, so this should have been our first clue – Elvis had nurses…? Who has nurses? Michael Jackson? On the occasions he checked into the Baptist Hospital for “exhaustion”, Momma and Nana immediately loaded us into the car, and we drove to Memphis. We circled around and around the hospital, with Staci and me hanging out the windows like dogs, trying to catch just a glimpse of the King. His top floor hospital room was easily identified – the window was covered in aluminum foil. This was our entertainment. So yes, we were very distraught when he died sitting on that toilet. We were still hoping for a diamond ring. 

I’m just gonna go right out on a limb and predict LiLo may not be long for this world. Wild guess.

RIP Whitney Houston

talya

Musical Pairings:

Third Eye Blind, “Semi-Charmed Life”
Whitney Houston, “Didn’t We Almost Have it All?”
Elvis, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”


Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!