grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Lake Child

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Momma, Daddy, Me, Staci
at the lake
In our family we count down to the lake much like Christmas. Only its better because there’s no shopping stress. Throw some flip flops, t-shirts and bathings suits in a bag and hit the road. There is nothing better.
Of course bathing suit shopping can be extremely stressful, but I don’t much worry about that any more either…
All the kids in our family were born and bred to be lake rats, just as they were raised to love the Razorbacks, country music and cotton.  It takes a special combination of nature and nurture to fully grow into a lake child.

No more sleeps!!!

talya

Musical Pairings:
Let Your Love Flow, Bellamy Brothers

Zach & Taylor

Kelsey & Tate

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore. . . .I hear it in the deep heart’s core. – William Butler Yeats

Built by Tom Tate

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In 1954, Daddy built this piece of furniture in high school shop class. Staci and I used it as our night stand for years and then it was Tate’s. Now it’s in our Fayetteville house.
It belongs back in Arkansas.
When I was in 9th grade, I decided to take shop instead of home ec. I thought I might build some furniture too.  Daddy ix-nayed this idea right away, saying you only want to take shop because Craig is in that class… I was forced to go straight to home ec with all the girls. Turned out to be pretty fun other than the sewing debacle. And I still managed to spend plenty of time with Craig…
Craig and Me 2011
That little night stand is sturdy and very well built with dove-tailed joints. He did a great job on it. In the back of the drawer, upside down and hidden, Daddy burned an inscription into the wood, Built By Tom Tate 1954. The inscription is only visible when the drawer is emptied and removed. The inscription itself is a treasure, written in Daddy’s hand.
The little drawer has held all sorts of trinkets beginning in 1962. During the past year, Tate’s room has been empty, but the little drawer still held his things. Things left behind. Some not touched in years. A time capsule from childhood through high school. Plastic ninja toys from Ci-Ci’s Pizza, his Harry Potter Halloween glasses, guitar pics, golf tees, boy scout badges, his lifeguard whistle, a Little People person… 

Now it’s empty and polished and sitting by our bed in Fayetteville. I’m not sure what will end up in it, but I know whenever I go, it’s going with me. Until it can’t.
talya
Musical Pairings:
I Love, Tom T Hall
Craig and Me 1966?

Rain

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I awoke to clapping thunder and a downpour. Perfect dozing weather. Except in our tiny Fayetteville bedroom on the air mattress, it seemed the house would be whisked off to Oz. I was just being introduced to this home – its storm sounds new. The rain reverberated on the tin roof sounding like golf ball-sized hail. Nearby flashes of lightning illuminated the interior – partially painted, barely furnished. Lucy and Annabelle burrowed underneath the quilt thinking the end was near. It was peaceful.
Dallas rain from upstairs porch
The next morning back in Dallas, thunder and a much needed rainstorm drenched the already parched city. The weathermen were animated. Everyone breathed more easily.
One week later I spent my first evening in Piggott amidst a typical Northeast Arkansas tornado watch. The blackened skies immediately put me at ease, made me feel at home. With all my recent traveling, I was becoming a storm chaser. Or a storm magnet?
Growing up on a farm, there were many thirsty summers when no one dared look at Daddy or accidentally smile about anything, followed by days of rising flood waters. Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor. We grew up studying the clouds and the sky, sniffing out wind direction and predicting rain by our achy bones. We did August rain dances, careful not to twist an ankle in the bone dry cracks splitting the front yard open. On Sunday mornings during the every-eye-closed-and-every-head-bowed part of Just As I Am, every farmer’s wife and child prayed for rain. The farmers did their praying out in the fields scouting for rain on the steamy horizon. 
Tate Farm (aka florida farm)
Spending the day out on our farm Saturday, I learned about new irrigation techniques and pumps, laser leveling to save water and increase yield, and the inner workings of center pivots. I can spot pigweed from the interstate. After a day of studying the slope of each field, I realized for the first time Mississippi County isn’t pancake flat. It started looking downright hilly by the end of the day as I noticed low spots around Little River and the built up banks along Kochtitzki. Even the topography has changed since Hernando De Soto explored the Mississippi River Valley. I wonder what Thomas Tate thinks about the  new fangled farm technology? Tractors drive themselves now…
electric pump Tate Farm
Leveled irrigated fields would certainly allow the farmer to sleep a bit easier during the long hot summer, if farmers slept. But they don’t.
When I water my herbs and flowers in Dallas during a string of 100 degree days, I can keep them alive. Barely. But if it rains, a steady slow soaking, they smile and grow. Nothing replaces the real thing when the heavens open and the rain falls. 
talya
Musical Pairing:
“Rain is a Good Thing”, Luke Bryan
The rain, rain, rain came down, down, down
In rushing, rising riv’lets,
’til the river crept out of it’s bed
And crept right into Piglet’s!  (Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day)

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

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