Throwback Thursday - grace grits and gardening

Fifteenth Wedding Anniversary!

January 16, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

John and I said “I do” fifteen years ago today. Wow. Fifteen years skipped by in a blur of work and school and sports and drill team and boy scouts and church and life… (Seems like) only yesterday we were buried in Barbies and Legos and spelling homework. I couldn’t see beyond the end of the week, much less envision two college students and an empty nest…

By the sheer passage of time, so much has changed, yet thankfully so much is the same.

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

P.S. I love this picture of John and my mother taken after our reception dinner. Momma changed into her robe but still wore her corsage and pearls…

Musical Pairing:

Can’t Help Falling in Love, Elvis Presley

How did it get so late so soon? – Dr. Seuss

Land Johnson, Louisiana State Fair-1953

October 17, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

throwback thursday #TBT

Paul Land Johnson
Birth: August 7, 1914 (Mississippi)
Death: June 15, 1978 (Louisiana)

This is a picture of my Great-Uncle Land Johnson taken at the Louisiana State Fair in 1953. Didn’t he look like a movie star?

There are two things I know about Johnson men (seven original Johnson brothers and many, many more now)…

1. They ALL (had) have smoldering good looks.

2. They (were) are all natural born story-tellers.

The most incredible story about Uncle Land involved his ‘argument’ with an alligator. Although the yarn has grown through the years as most great tales do, I can only relay the story as I’ve heard it from Uncle Bud (Land’s son), another handsome Johnson yarn spinner…

As Uncle Land and his friend Emil spent a peaceful afternoon trotline fishing on the Mississippi River, a curious alligator swam up to their aluminum boat. The unusually clear water allowed the men a perfect view of this monster.

What to do?

Instead of hightailing it to shore or trolling in water not infested with predators, they poked him between the eyes with an oar… The beast went berserk. He bumped and rocked and pitched the boat, nearly dumping them into the river.

Being prepared farmer-hunters, the men had firearms on board. Uncle Land shot the alligator with his 12 gauge, making him even more crazed. His second shot, fired with a 22 rifle, killed the thing.

For days, Uncle Land hauled the alligator around town in the bed of his truck proudly showing off his 8+ foot trophy. Eventually he skinned, cleaned and cooked it but didn’t much like the taste. His son, Bud, took the alligator head to school which no doubt impressed all the girls.

I left out the part alleging Uncle Land death-rolled the alligator underwater like Tarzan, King of the Apes. Whether or not that happened is up for discussion among the cousins. One thing’s for sure—we all agree Uncle Land didn’t let the big one get away.

Land Johnson with his alligator…

talya

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

“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
― Marc Riboud

Musical Pairing:

Hank Williams, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive

(#1 hit song, January 1953)

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…