Monday afternoon in Edwards

"The Invasion of the Bridge builders"




"Not much progress and no activity"





This crossing is being closed forever....this is right there by Bertha and Charles Rathers house.






They got "Yard of the Month" from the Bolton Edwards Garden Club.

I am ashamed to say I do not know who lives in this house, it is on Jackson street....



That's all for now...this is me signing off.



by the way I persevered and fixed my computer....so it didn't crash, not all of the way.

Thanks for stopping by!

My computer is trying to crash....

So you may not hear from me for a few days....but here is last weeks Christiansen's Comments. Hopefully.....Maybe a picture of Doctor McCall and his wife Vicki.

July 26 2007
Don’t you just love an uplifting funeral service? Larry Dickson’s service Saturday at the Edwards Baptist Church was just that, uplifting. Doctor McCall’s message was encouraging. Doctor McCall reminded us, there is a place for God’s people in heaven, scripture tells us, Jesus went ahead to prepare a place for us.
Which is not to say there were no tears, there were many…I cried. I loved Larry…Larry and I were diagnosed with cancer about the same time…we had long heart to heart chats; about dieing…our chats were not morbid. We both knew death is a natural part of God’s plan. Larry will be missed, he lighten the hearts and the load for his many friends, neighbors and strangers.
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Sunday afternoon I motored over to Clinton to see The Attala County Garden Club, the play the Brick Street players are doing currently. The play was written by a Mississippian, Topher Payne. Topher has Edwards connections, his mom and dad live out at Queens Hill.
The play has yet another link to Edwards, Naomi Purvis Barnette, although not the star, stole the show…. when ever she came on the stag, the audience instantaneously began to laugh.
I was impressed by the wardrobe too; the play is set in the mid 1980s, they ladies often had on the big shouldered dresses of the period.
The play’s plot twisted and turned in startling ways…..I will not reveal the plot here; Let’s just say it is not your Mama’s garden club.
If you get a chance go see The Attala county Garden Club.
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Speaking of Doctor McCall, when ever he speaks at one our community services, he introduces himself by saying; “I am the interim pastor at the Edwards Baptist Church” he has been there for 6 or 7 years….somebody needs to go on and tell him he has the job….’cause they anit look’n for nobody else.
Doctor McCall turned 90 recently, and still going strong. Doctor McCall serves the Lord with such humility and so cheerfully…he considers it his privilege. Doctor McCall, he is an inspiration and blessing to this community.
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What do you get for those folks who have everything, or just plain hard to buy for? Or maybe you just do not want to get out and shop? Do what I did, get them a subscription to the Hinds County Gazette.
Happy Birthday Betty!
Happy Birthday Suz!
The paper you are reading is my gift to you.
Love to all and call if you need me.

Recipe.....?

I will get back to this first picture....











Well, it is not exactly a recipe it is more of an assemblage...On the food channel and in ladies magazines they all the time are assembling all ready cooked food and calling it a recipe. They will take something like as a rotisserie chicken, a bucket of mash potatoes, some roasted garlic stack it in a bizarre way and call it a recipe...they may have roasted the garlic themselves.

Back to the recipe, Mississippi has the figs this year, and the are especially delectable...fig trees must not mind drought....so I have been trying to use them...So this is how I began the assembly..just slicing the bread.





Then I grilled them on my cast iron grill pan...


Then I spread the grilled bread with cream cheese topped it with a spoon full of my fresh fig preserves.

Now about the top picture...I had a gathering here the other evening, sort of before the theater party for the author of"The Attala County Garden Club", his out of town guests, and some of his family and friends...I used fig branches as my center piece...with figs still attached....And nobody thought it was strange...They liked it... Now if you see a center piece made out of fig branches in Southern living...remember you saw it first.

I must confess, when I served the fig and cheese toasts they did not look like the picture I placed on this blog...my pictures of the affair did not turn out well.


That's it from here....Rural Hinds County Mississippi

The pretty side of cotton....

The cotton is blooming. Isn't it gorgeous?

Cotton was king in Mississippi, I don't know if it is anymore...Where once were fields of cotton and soybeans there is corn.

I believe, the beauty of the cotton flower is under appreciated.

"Summer Time and the Living is Easy"

Harper Lee and Boo Lounging in the shade of the Japanese Magnolia...

Easy Picking

I have seen gardens planted in Boots, bucket and Hats...But this is a first.

This is Ricky Selby's garden engineering. He lives across the river in Warren County.

I didn't forget.........

I didn't write a column last week...so I didn't put it on the blog, so in it's place here is a recent column....Thank you for asking...I am pleased as Punch!

June 22 2007 Christiansen's Comments Hinds County Gazette

I still do not know what kind of critters are eating my roses…I was rather suspecting the “Those wascally wabbits” but, my friend Emmy, who for years, has had an on going, and bless her heart, losing battle with deer, tells me that deer droppings and rabbit dropping are not dissimilar in appearance……CJ, he sits in the pew in front of us at church, confirmed it. So there we are then, the mystery continues.
I told you all I was going to make compost in garbage cans….sometime ago it became so heavy I could no longer turn it by myself, so I got grandson Garrett to help me….well that didn’t go so favorably…it was full of maggots and smelled bad….Real Bad!! Garrett declared he would not be helping with that chore again
. That was not supposed to happen….compost is supposed to have a fresh earthy odor.
So, I got back on the internet in an attempt to determine what went wrong. After a bit of studying, it became clear what the problem was my green matter, vegetable scraps, grass clippings and the like, and my brown matter, dried up leaves and the like, were out of whack…. I had too much green and not enough dry. Compost it seems is delicately balanced formula, and apparently the compost recipe must be strictly adhered to or suffer the consequences. So I added a bunch of brown matter I was then satisfied I had corrected the problem. ..
Well, daughter Angela came for the weekend, she comes regularly, to count cats and dogs and to make sure my bank account is in balance and I am not in the red. Angela is concerned that I might turn into some kind of squirrelly, peculiar old lady, now that her daddy is no longer here to keep me in check. So anyway, I drafted her to help turn the compost…It was not pretty…. not only did the compost smell BAD…And Perhaps because I did not drill enough holes in the garbage can it was juicy…so when the heavy mass of compost hit the bottom of the transfer can… it splashed up…. on her. She commenced to gagging, running and squealing….headed to the bath tub. She created such a ruckus that she frightened my dogs and shop cats, they went to scrambling every which way….. I wish you all could have seen the carrying on….it was a Grand Spectacle for sure.
Angela is such a prissy …she as far as I know, has only been dirty twice in her life. Even as a wee bitty child, however I sent her to school is the way she came home, no food stains, no pencil marks…she never ever even got snags in her leotards. I do not know how I could have raised such a wimp….The compost juice splashed on me too…I did not panic….I just went to the water spigot and sprayed myself off.
Bertha Rather in an email tells me Charles believes it is deer dinning on my roses. Dreaded deer!!
We need rain….I am amazed at how much green there still is considering how little rain we have gotten…we haven’t even had heavy dews of late.
I am off to putter in the back yard. Call if you need me…..

The Brick Street Players

The Brick Street players are doing the play "Attala County Garden Club", I went this afternoon...I must say I was surprised by the plays plot, which I will not give away here. Let's say it has an unexpected twist.



Of course, Naomi Purvis Barnette, our very own Edwards girl stole the show!

That's it from here.

This was my yesterday, but I was too exhausted to post..

Mr. McCurtis and Robert Edward Wilkerson are the regular guys at the Post office working on the world's problems...they are there nearly every morning..





Today they were joined by Willie Rozell. Willie has lost a good bit of weight...His secret "don't eat at night."




Then I went on to Longwood drive to visit my friend Betty..it was her birthday. She was having a grand birthday all of her children had called.




Then I stopped by Jo Gayle's to make a delivery...this is her youngest grand child Madeline fast asleep. Cute Cute Cute!!



Then it was on back to the house, where I began mowing....and I mowed and mowed, until I was exhausted.



That is it from here.

About Town

I hope you can read the sign, as you can see, in my rear view mirror, I had some one following me, so I could not get a real good picture.




This picture was taken at Kitty and Donnie Powell's house...A very nice remembrance of our country and our veterans, the darker flag is a POW MIA flag.


And I don't think you can have too many pictures of Ruth Ann's chickens...



That's about it from here.

Progress on the bridge....

Progress? ... Well, Let's just call it"activity"

We will keep watching.....

Good Bye Ole Buddy.....

Larry Dickson died at home, last night around 11:15.....Larry was my cancer Buddy, he and I were diagnosed with cancer at the same time. Larry was a sweet compassionate man.

Larry fought the good fight...he was a much better fighter me...but his cancer was meaner and more determined then mine.

Larry will be missed...by his wife Linda, their family, his church family, The Edwards Baptist Church, and his many many friends.....

Good Bye Ole Buddy.....

I will see you again in "Beulah Land"

Figs are ripe in Mississippi!

So, I made fig preserves today...very good. Fig preserve cake is the best...I had never heard of fig cake until moving to Mississippi...In fact figs were new to me...I never saw them in a grocery store ...ever except in a Newton...I don't know where I thought they came from, someplace exotic...you know..like those places where people used them to cover..certain body parts. That wasn't anyplace I had ever been.


Notice something new on this page...at the top...click on it...Go on click on it....

Topher Payne is Cleve and Sheryl Payne's son "The playwright".... The very talented, Naomi Purvis Barnett, is in the play, of course you from Edwards remember her late mother, Virginia.

Pat Fordice, Mississippi's former First lady, died Thursday....I was at a gathering of ladies last evening...we lifted our glasses in remembrance of Mrs. Fordice.....Now there was a First Class, First Lady....

Column for July 12 edition of th Hinds County Gazette.

It was about the roof raising Last week at Queen's Hill

We had an Event!!! July third, a bunch of folks carried lawn chairs and coolers up Highway 22, where we were treated to a “Happening”. The roof was raised for the new home that Barbara and Lee Pennebaker are building, at Queens Hill.
The Methodist have a new preacher, he was there enjoying the festivities, I have been wondering what he went back home thinking….
Barbara, being the quintessential southern hostess that she is, had a big basket full of goodies she was passing out to the gathered crowd, her sister Merry Ellen was driving a golf cart back and forth, to and from the comfort facilities….It was quite an affair…..Nothing quite like it in my memory, not in Edwards for sure.
Oh one time, back several years, we had entertainment for several weeks, watching the paint being scraped at Mike Ratliff house over on Royal Street…Never saw such a complete scraping, they went down to bare wood and started over…. those painters were good.
But such event as house scrapings and roof raisings are quite rare…. Our entertainment often consists of counting train cars…watching tomatoes turn red on the vine…trying to guess where the next city water leak will turn up. We are pretty easily entertained.
Lee and his crew constructed the roof for the two story home, on the ground and then a big crane came and lifted it in to position, on top of eight steel supports.…the crane was assisted by Lee and his team operating two backhoes and a bulldozer…. There were a couple of anxious moments, once while the crane was slowly lifting the roof, the roof suddenly tilted and one side of the structure fell back to the ground. The crowd gasped collectively. They quickly recovered and the operation went on more or less smoothly…with the help of a brave young man, who when the roof or the steel supports needed a bit of persuading to act right, climbed up a ladder and did what it took to get the thing to fit together…sometimes it was with the help of a blow torch, occasionally it was a sledge hammer that was need to get the job done. Nobody left, until the roof was set in place and welded together. It was a Grand time.
My kids and Grand kids have been here and gone now, we had a quiet 4th, I did not allow fireworks on this hill…to the disappointment of the Grands…It was so dry…we did have a dribble of rain, but under the trees in the woods, the leaves and other debris were still dry and crumbly….I was afraid of fire…We have had a good bit of rain since, we needed it…ponds and lakes were as low or lower then the old timers ever remember seeing them.
Adam and I did get a bunch accomplished round here, routine maintenance type stuff, and I was exhausted. Not from the work…I can work…I do not mind work…in fact I like to work. What wore me out was the running to Clinton or Vicksburg for the pieces and parts we needed,…..and getting back home to discover we didn’t have exactly what we needed….we made lots of runs.
Frustration and aggravation will make you weary …much faster then work for sure! But still and all we only left two things on the list undone….we will do them in November when he come back.
I gave John’s old Ford 150 truck to Adam, because I did not like seeing it in the driveway, the sight of it made me feel very lonely….but when Adam and Philip pulled out of the driveway in John’s old truck….I cried and cried…. For many years it was the sound of that truck coming up the hill, and pulling in the driveway that brought comfort to the dogs and I, it signaled “The Papa Man” was home safe...We miss him.
Love to all, call if you need me
PS. I have pictures of the roof raising, ( and by the time you read this much more) on my Brand New blog, The blog will be taking the place of “The picture of the day” I have been sending around….I would love for you to visit me at http://gloria-ruralhindscountymississippi.blogspot.com/,

Some days are Diamonds some Days are Stone....

This day started out a stone! If all of Mississippi government was as through as the folks at the Mississippi tax commission office on Spring Ridge Road...we would have a system to be proud of...to get a title for John's 16 year old truck, that I am wanting to give away ..took 3 trips to the tax commission office and 2 trips to see a notary....you better have all of your Ts crossed when you go see those folks....actually it was blank spaces that worried them.

That took all morning, then I went to the grocery store...They had no jalapeno peppers.

But the day ended a diamond, my friend Suz came by and we enjoyed a late afternoon chat and listened to it thunder..we had a short shower but lots of thunder..That is Suz in her new cute car.

Thanks for stopping by...

GloriaChristiansen@gmail.com

It was a Dog's day.....

Is he pitiful looking? Looks like he is fix'n to cry...Don't you think?

Today is Charlie, the golden retriever's birthday....I gave him raw hamburger in the shape of a cake hoping to get his picture eating it...not even his favorite smell, raw meat, would distract him long enough to let me get a good picture of him....He is camera shy...gun shy...and don't even think about cranking up a four wheeler if he is any where around.

Charlie was not the hunter John would have liked him to be...but John was not much of a hunter himself, John went to deer camp and he had all of the paraphernalia hunters have...but he had lost his heart for it...He just wanted charlie to ride on the four wheeler with him...like the other deer camp dogs did....But on after while It didn't much matter....John loved Charlie anyway...they were grand companions.

Today was another day I did not leave this hill...but tommorrow, I have plans...BIG plans....I have lots of important things to tend to...grocery store, courthouse, junk store...Post office...very exciting day planned.

Too Much Thinking.....

Well the front yard is now mowed.... took me nearly all day ...John was right I should not have planted all of those trees. I planted those tree many years ago, when I was much younger and way more energetic....couldn't wait until they got big and pretty. They are big and pretty now, but they make for a long day of mowing and trimming...

I talk to God a good bit while riding the mower...or do BIG thinking...Today I did BIG thinking ...How many times a year do we have to mow here in mid Mississippi would you guess? 12? 15? 20?

I am 62, I no doubt will still be in this house when I am 92, I am very healthy ....That is thirty more years of mowing! To make it easy for my less then nimble brain, lets just say we mow 10 times a year....I have at least 300 more mowing to look forward to. I wish I had not thought about it....I am very tired now...

Monday July 9

Today was rather uneventful....In fact I never even cranked my car up.

It rained this afternoon, just enough that I could not finish mowing the lawn. I did finish the back yard. The Building in the back ground is my shop and home to my cats....I have three, Scout, Harper Lee, and Boo.

Saturday evening the members of the Baptist Church celebrated their pastor, doctor John McCall birthday,#90 with a party. The theme was Andy Griffith and Mayberry. I wish I had a picture...I heard Jo Gayle Reeves was dressed up like Aunt Bee she wore a genuine pill box hat. It was a catered affair, they had roast beef and all of the fix'ns for dessert they enjoyed a true southern favorite banana pudding.

Robert Cannada will be buried tomorrow....those of you who are from the area of course know of him....
Robert C. Cannada, Sr. died on July 5, 2007, after an illness of 5 months. He was an elder for 50 years at First Presbyterian Church. A founder and former Board chairman for 25 years of Reformed Theological Seminary. A founder and former Managing Partner for 25 years at the law firm of Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens, and Cannada. Mr. Cannada was an officer in the Navy and veteran of World War II and of the Korean War.

He was also a board member of a number of other legal, business, civic and Christian organizations. He was a faithful and godly leader in the home, in the church, and in the community. He was preceded in death by his lifelong love and wife, Inez Chisolm Cannada, and by one son, Paul Davis Cannada. He is survived by two sons, Robert C. (Ric) Cannada, Jr. (and wife, Rachel) and R. Barry Cannada (and wife, Angelyn), and by five grandchildren, Christy Cannada Burrow (and husband, Beau), Cecilia Cannada Rutledge (and husband, Bryan), Kathryn Cannada Nicholas (and husband Taylor), Caroline Chisolm Cannada, and Robert Davis Cannada, and by 5 great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, memorials are encouraged to be made to the Founders Fund at Reformed Theological Seminary (5422 Clinton Blvd, Jackson, MS 39211) or to the Twin Lakes Retreat Center at First Presbyterian Church (1390 N. State St., Jackson, MS 39202).
The funeral service will be held at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson on Tuesday, July 10, at 11:00 am, followed by internment at Lakewood Memorial Park on Clinton Blvd. Visitation will be held at First Presbyterian Church on Monday, July 9, from 5:00 to 8:00 pm and on Tuesday, July 10, from 9:00 to 10:30 am.

Thanks for spending a bit of time with us in rural Hinds County Mississippi.

Hinds County Gazette Coulmn

The bridge you see in the picture,( Where ever it lands on this page, I haven't quite got the hang of this blog thing yet) had it's 15 minute...more like 30 seconds of fame in the movie "Oh, Brother"



As I told you I write a column, "Christiansen's comments" for our local weekly newspaper the Hinds County Gazette... I will be posting them here after they appear in the paper.

June 28 2007 edition of the Hinds County Gazette.
I am shocked and distressed. Did you know that the presidential election is not until Next November 2008!!!?
I detached myself form the nightly news some years ago, in an effort to save what little bit of mind I may have left at the time. All of that bad news was worrying me, and breaking my heart.
But for some many weeks now, I once again began tuning in to watch the local news, hoping to see on the weatherman’s radar screen a patch of rain crossing over the Mississippi River to leave a bit rain on my parched lawn …and I have seen rain cross over the river to North of us and to South of us…It always seems to split right there at the river bridge in Vicksburg.
Looks as if I have missed very little…. murder, mugging, robberies in Jackson are still the headlines….And there is still yet another grand plan for renovating the King Edward Hotel in down town Jackson….pretty much where I left off years ago.
So anyway I said all of that to say this….I couldn’t help but see all of the politicking going on….The presidential debates being held here yonder and there. The debates coupled with all of the yard signs around Edwards, for counties candidates running for clerks, judges and sheriff. Well Brain put the two together and told me we were fixing to have us an election of the highest order.
I was watching C-Span over the weekend and something was said about the presidential election in 2008….at first I thought I was mistaken about what year it is…what with the lingering remnants of “Chemo” brain. (Chemo kills good cells as well as bad cells…the cells of the brain are not excluded, so your mind and memory can become quite fussy…it is supposed to go away over time.) I went to my desk and looked at the calendar I was right this is 2007…we have, what? 18 months of this to go. I don’t have to watch and won’t until September 2008.
But I want a candidate that has a strategy to fix the health care system …I was very fortunate, we had very good insurance, so my medical episode did not leave us in debt….but I am hearing more and more often horror stories, from people who go to work everyday, have insurance and still can not afford to go to the doctor because insurance pays 80 or 90 percent of the cost, which sound like a lot but considering the cost of care…having to pay 20% or even 10% out of pocket makes the cost of medical care prohibitive to already stretched budgets.
I know of a man who spent one day(not over night) in the hospital for tests, the bill was over $10,00…leaving him to pay 2,000 dollars for one day.…and as near as I could determine from conversations with the patient, the tests did not arrive at any real conclusions…the doctor is going to monitor him….
Another lady I know who through no fault of her own, has incurred medical expenses that she has to pay, until the other parties insurance kicks in. She was slow to seek treatment for that reason.
And if you have to insure yourselves… the cost of medical insurance is astronomical for healthy folks…they do not want to cover the unhealthy…. even the most mildly unhealthy.
A friend mine’s son has no insurance, because the premiums rose so high he could no longer afford them….Of course he will never be able to get insurance because of a preexisting condition.

Another friend…several years back, her insurance company left the state, leaving her without insurance. Looks to me like before insurers left the state, they would required to make arrangements for coverage of those they were leaving behind. … She is hoping to stay healthy. She is past 50, so it is just too costly for her to get health insurance.
I will be getting off my soap box now, going out to putter….hopefully in the rain.
Love to all
Call if you need me.
PS. Our old wooden hump back bridge is gone.

A happening at Queen's Hill

As you can see we are not without "Happenings"...The pictures are of the roof being raised on Barbara and Lee Pennebakers new house at Queen's Hill.

The spectators..

The "Oops"

All is well that ends well...

A few of the sideline engineers that came to observe. There were many more.

Thanks for coming.....please come again..