Planting Cotton and building "Eudora" The Joggling board. At my Nebraska home "Mississippi on the Plains"

Hinds County News

June 2017

Me in my brand new bibs!  my Spring gardening uniform

I, Gloria Christiansen, living at my home, “Mississippi On the Plains” in Holdrege Nebraska, soon will be a cotton grower!  Yes, I will!!!  Of course, my planting of cotton will not be of the magnitude of lets say, a Mississippi Delta plantation or of a Gaddis Farms in Hinds county…. doubt you would even describe mine as patch of cotton…I am suspecting my cotton growing will be more in the manner of a large galvanized tub from the farm store in size.

Y’all, at Garden Club Monday evening (April 17), our speaker was a Nebraska Master Gardener, toward the end of the meeting he held up beautiful fluffy boll of cotton, he vowed and declared he grew it right here in Holdrege.  Well, you know I light up like a Christmas tree! I was so excited!  I had to know where I could get seed.   lo and behold he had cotton seed with him and he gave me a package!   Now it is just a matter of waiting for the ground temperatures to come up to between 65 and 70 degrees.  Wish me luck! Because I do not even live on the south side of town.

 There is not a cotton gin close by….so to get my cotton ginned, I may have to box it up, send it priority mail, to the Gaddis McLaurin Hardware store, Main Street, Bolton, Mississippi, and ask Joyce if she would mind stepping it across to the Bolton Gin.

"Eudora"
The Joggling Board

I told you last month I had lumber delivered so I could construct a Joggling Board, like the one Eudora Welty mentioned in her book “The Delta Wedding”.   It is finished!  And It is Grand addition to the back yard! Some of those who have seen my joggling board, have speculated it is perhaps the only one in Phelps County…. Maybe even the whole state of Nebraska!    Wouldn’t that be wonderful!   I have never been first at anything…ever. 

“The Delta Wedding” Joggling Board and the tub of cotton will be the focal point of my Mississippi Garden.  In addition, to the Joggling board and cotton there will be okra and collard greens.

Love to all,

 stop by if you get this way!

Hinds County News April 2017

Good Morning! Hinds County!  I am writing this March 20, the first day of Spring, today’s high, here in south central Nebraska, is fore casted to be in the middle 60s, yesterday’s high was 85, weather man said this morning, snow is a possibility toward the end of the week.

We have had some gorgeous days of late....so I have been scrambling to get yard cleaned up and ready for spring.   I have never been ready for spring…. Ever!   Now, I understand why it was difficult to be ready for spring’s arrival while in Mississippi…big yard, so many bushes needing attention, big pecan trees, dropping huge limbs all winter long.   Those limbs piled in and around the burn pit had to be dealt with and that is not easy as you might think…You cannot just strike a match and set the pile a blaze…oh no!   It was usually very dry, so had to wait until after a nice rain...and a day the wind was not blowing.

fallen limbs from my pecan trees

fire pit behind spider

But here…in this little tiny yard…...I still cannot be ready for spring when it blows in! Why!? 

  I know the answer, I have come to believe I have a mental disorder “Putter Brain” …. I will stop raking, cutting back roses, or cleaning out planting beds to run to the lumber yard to buy lumber to build a joggling board!

This is a joggling board
(not mine)

  Or make a hardware run to get a can of bright pink paint to repaint my flamingos, or a junk run in search of yard art…. The junk run turned in to a tree and flamingo pillow buying excursion.

New Pillows

  I do recognize I am an out of control putterer…. If there is a cure…I do I really want to be cured? Me thinks not.   This morning as I peek out my front door…I see a fabulous flamingo pillow in the swing, bright red pillows in the Adirondack chairs, plastic flamingos staked around in the yard.   One hardly notices the shrubs that need tidying up, or the great piles of leaves that have blown in the corners of the fence.

new tree

The tree I planted in the front yard, by the Adirondacks and swing, is a flowering crab, the picture on the tag shows the blooms being almost the exact same color as the flamingos! Won’t that be fabulous?!!!!

I planted a maple in the back yard….in my direct line of sight, as I peer out the west window of the kitchen…. Won’t that be fabulous when the leaves turn this fall!!!

I built the Adirondack chairs from a kit, I like them a lot, they really dress up the front yard.  I painted them bright white…I am not a neat painter…lots of drips and runs…but I am not disheartened …because I have nearly convinced myself drips and runs give the chairs character and age, like this was not their first coat of paint.   And with the addition of the bright red pillows, one hardly notices the chairs runs and drips of paint.

Essentially the paint job looks as if it was done by your teenager, trying to make a fast buck, to buy a tank of gas.

Love to all

Come see me if you get this way!

You can sit and joggle on my joggling board with me….

Since writing this I have begun to make my joggling board 

 I had never heard of a joggling board, until recently when my book club read Eudora Welty’s The Delta Wedding…She mention a joggling board….so you know I must have one! I have not gotten it built yet…But lumber has been delivered! 

Hinds County News

  December 2016

Our first snow has fallen,

 Winter came quite abruptly to Nebraska, we were blessed with a long and delightfully mild, nearly jacketless fall.

Our first snow came, on Friday, the day after one of the most pleasant weather days in my memory, Thursday the 17^th of November, the high that day was 75 degrees, no wind just a gentle breeze from the South.  The pups and I spent the entire day outside.

 I cut greenery, and made wreathes for my doors, windows and gates.   That is going to be a lot of green and red on this little house….But, the southern side of me knows, “It is not  done until it is overdone” But my southern side also knows, there is a fine line that you cross over to “tacky”.  But southerners, especially southern women, possess  a very valuable gift, they have an innate, you might even say God given ability to hone in on tacky, we KNOW what tacky looks like.

 But we, ourselves, we  NEVER EVER do tacky….Our friends and our neighbors…they are the ones who do tacky.  And we do not mind at all saying how tacky they are.  Oh!  Not to them, not to their faces…we would never do that…that would be tacky. 

Southerners, particularly the ladies, also have the unique ability, an art really, to carefully pick their words, say them in a sweet tone, wearing a charming smile, that never hurts feelings. They say things like “Interesting”, "Fascinating", they will reach far to find something nice to say, “oh what a great color!”

Wait! Wait! This reminds me!  let me tell you about a friend and what she did, that left us all rather stunned and without words…It was winter, everything had turned brown in her yard….Our friend got up in the middle of the night and took cans of green paint and went outside and sprayed all the brown plants in her yard green.   Her only statement about the incident was “I just got tired of looking out the window and all I could see was brown.”  

 Our friend had recently lost her husband, so we attributed to the late-night painting spree to her loss.  So, the worst that was ever said, but repeated over and over was “Bless her heart she in mourning.”  She never did it again.  (I know some of you Edwards folks remember this event)

So anyway where was I before I got off on that…..Oh yes I remember! The day before first snow.

Around noon, my brother stopped by and we ate a nice lunch of my homemade Tamales,  salsa, from one of the last farmer’s markets, and sour cream…we ate in my little building.

 When he left, I took the wreathes to the garage, for safe keeping until after the snow, and high winds that were forecast to come with the snow, then I sweep out the little building.   The rest of the afternoon the pups and I spent watching the sky, as the sun went down, it spread a subtle glow of gold, lite up the beautiful church across the avenue….It was a grand day!

In fact, the pups and I sat in little building, until the street lights came on, I did not want the day to end, so Emma and I went for a walk, my house is a block from downtown, we walked toward town, the store windows were brightly lit, in the windows were Christmas trees,  snow men, dolls and toy soldiers…

We walked and we walked, back home I went to close the little building for the night, instead I sat back down and watched it get darker and darker. 

Summer was gone, there would be snow on the ground tomorrow. I felt not unlike I did after Angela and Adam had left home, and they would come back for a visit.  When they left…. John and I would stand on the porch, and watch as they drove out the driveway, down the hill, over the railroad tracks, up the hill and turn the corner by the old water tower….when they finally disappeared from sight, John would sit down in his rocking chair, I would go to the swing….and we would just sit….sometimes we cried.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas from Mississippi On the Plains

Hinds County News

February 2017

Good Morning! Happy New year!

I celebrated New Year’s Day the in the southern tradition…. sort of.  This may surprise you all, but smoked hog jowl is impossible to find up here.

 last year, about this time, I mentioned my jowl disappointment to Tim, the gentleman who cuts my hair, he took finding hog jowl as a challenge.   Tim, bless his heart, thought he had found it a time of two…. but just was not to be.

  Black eyed peas, I found those in the bean section, on the bottom shelf, at the Sun Mart, a bit dusty, but hey I found them….no collards though…I grow collards but, mine were in the ground wilted from numerous frosts…so I had Cole slaw….and as you well know, cabbage is perfectly acceptable as your green for the New Year’s meal. Smoked hog shank was the replacement for the jowl. I Made ice tea, they drink tea up here, but it is unsweet as a rule, and cornbread baked in an iron skillet, so it was crusty on the bottom, rounded out my New Year’s Day meal.

Hog jowl is not the only thing difficult to find…. pig feet they can be found up here but, it is a road trip to get them.   Well, that not exactly true, every grocery stocks Hormel’s pig feet, pickled in a jar.

 Storytelling, like the food is different here, I came to that realization one day when a neighbor returned from a trip to New York City.  When I inquired her about trip…she told the WHOLE story in a couple of sentences.   A southerner can’t go to the grocery store without coming home with a longer story than that!  And she went to New York and came back without a story… I was shocked! 

A southerner telling a story about touring New York City!  I am here to tell you, it would be nearly impossible for that tale to be told in just one sitting.  Of course the story would not begin in New York, might would begin in the car headed to airport…because a trip to the airport is never uneventful….but could start anywhere anytime, even weeks before the trip began…shopping for the clothes to take….or even years ago telling about a movie they saw about New York. 

Let me tell you how stories in the south are often born…I was having a gathering on my front porch, everyone had arrived except my friend Fredna…. On after while, she arrives hurried and breathless, and explaining her tardiness as she climbed the front steps.  Fredna was late because she was trying to meet a taxidermist…as she went on with the explanation, we discovered Fredna was carrying around a deer head in the trunk of her car… and because she and the taxidermist had not been able to make connections, the deer head had been in the trunk for several days… Now keep in mind this gathering was on my front porch so it was not cold or even cool…. she did have it in a cooler…. but still and all.

We laughed and laughed and a story was born!   Fredna did not know at the time she was telling a story that will be told over and over.

Maybe the stories do change a bit from one telling to the next… not to embellish you understand, but because we remembered some very significant detail/details that will improve the story greatly.

Things just happen in the south that make great stories. I have a friend who is the mayor of one of our small towns in rural Hinds County, as was her duty, as mayor, she was participating in a celebratory parade, may have been 4^th of July, can’t remember.  Any way she was being driven in a patrol car by one of towns policemen, they were rolling along, waving and smiling at the crowds gathered along the street, when suddenly among the spectators, the policeman spots a “person of interest”.   The policeman had been looking for this “person of interest” all day. So, not wanting to miss this opportunity, he pulls over to the curb, puts the “person of interest” in the back seat and  then continues the parade route…with the “person of interest” in the back seat.   He too, the “person of interest” got in the spirit of the occasion and began smiling and waving too.

Southerner have stories…one story leads to another story… the tales can go on for hours and hours and often do.  I have fond memories of storytelling at social gatherings, pig pick’ns, crawfish and shrimp boils, church dinners of the grounds etc.   And dinners parties…. sitting down at seven and not get up from the table… many times until after 10 to go to the living room for a night cap.

One thing I love about the south…we are easily entertained and not easily offended by a story told on us…heck we will tell one on ourselves.

Love 

Hinds County News (Mississippi)
for October 2016

So here I am, and another month has passed, Summer is gone and it is Fall.   Here in Nebraska there has already been a frost in the panhandle.

Let me tell you a bit about my road trip to Louisiana for grandson Garrett’s wedding.

   I do not travel the interstates at all, so I am mostly traveling on two lane roads.   Been making the same trip up and down highway 183 for many years, in fact 50ish years.  There are not many towns of any size on my route, mostly small farming communities…over the years those little towns have changed from bustling main streets, with local cafes, grocery stores, feed stores, furniture stores, a Ben Franklin 5&10, Western Auto store, several full service filling stations, and every town had a school.  Oh! And an adorable little motel with a bright neon sign flashing “vacancy” or “No Vacancy”.

It is not that way anymore, sometimes it is a challenge to even find gas, when you do it is often an unmanned place, next to what used to be a Co-Op.  If you happen up on a little convenience store that has a gas pump, it is not uncommon that you have to pay inside, because the pump is of an age that it cannot accommodate a credit card.

Many Main streets in rural mid-west are empty shells, once lovely homes abandoned, schools and play grounds vacant. 

 Even the smallest of villages may not have the amenities they once did, but most still have a nice water tower, frequently painted whimsically, but always proudly embellished with the town’s name, and very often the towns have a well-cared for city park.   In very recent years Dollar General stores have begun to pop up.                                          

  But what I find most fascinating about the small towns in the rural mid-west is this, there may not be a school, grocery or hardware store but, there is almost always a functioning bank.  For some reason I find comfort in that…. maybe the rural Mid-west is not dying, maybe it is just beginning a new cycle. We old people do not have to like it…we had our “good old days” these changing times are the “good old days” for this generation.

Before I head out on “The Junk Jaunt”, Let me relay an invitation to you all, from the sweet folks at Old Lebanon Church.

There are many abandon country churches in the rural areas of our country….But not Old Lebanon Presbyterian Church off Highway 18, Raymond Mississippi, years ago the congregation moved the few miles into Learned, Mississippi.   But Old Lebanon was not left to out there in the country unloved and forgotten, every fifth Sunday the congregation meets in that old church, even though it lacks modern comforts, no kitchen, or reliable heat and no air conditioning, I don’t think it even has electricity.  The windows do function and as I recall there is an outside privy.

October, 30, 2016 is Homecoming and dinner on the grounds, at old Lebanon. After the service, under the trees in front of the church, is where the cover dish dinner will commence. So take a covered dish, and a lawn chair, and enjoy the afternoon visiting with neighbors, friends and strangers,  and be sure and stroll through the old cemetery.  Everyone is invited. 

 I have been to 5^th Sunday at old Lebanon many times, when it was raining, sweltering hot and when it was cool bordering on cold.  Grand! Grand! Memories! I wish I could be there for this homecoming.

  By the way Old Lebanon Presbyterian church is on the National list of historic places.

Love to all    Come see me if you get this way

Hinds County News

March 2017

The older I get the more conscious I am of the fact, I will die at some point.  I am well past middle age now, unless I should live to be 144.  I am certainly not afraid of death. To quote my mother at age 92, “we cannot live forever just because our kids want us to, we are tired and want to go live with Jesus.”

Mind you, I am not wanting to go anytime soon, because I have BIG PLANS for the coming spring and summer.   But I am ready when ever my time comes.

I do not often dwell on my demise but, what got me contemplating it recently is this; I walk Emma Dog downtown Holdrege, Nebraska, I live one block from the courthouse and the down town area.  

 On the next block from my house is the Methodist Church
 across the street from the church is the court house. 

This is picture on up my street, West Avenue, from the Courthouse,

Miss Emma

The downtown area is about 5 blocks long and 3 blocks wide.  We enjoy strolling past the shops, window shopping, and seeing what is new and exciting going on downtown.

I walk her downtown because, when we walked around our residential area…we were unable to enjoy the walk, for dogs barking, from inside their homes and behind fences…early on over on Garfield street, I thought this big dog might come through the large picture window, ….he was jumping against the window…barking, growling and slobbering, he was so annoyed by our passing. I was not afraid of the dog particularly…but what if it had gotten through the window…was injured by the broken glass, I would have felt obligated to try and catch him.

  We had several incidents before, dogs climbing their fence to come out and smell Emma.  But the dog behind the picture window was what made me decide to begin exclusively taking our walks down town…where we seldom encounter another dog. 

I had come to believe my death might very well be the result of drugs….No! No! not illegal drugs! But some brand spanking new miracle drug, I would be given by a well-intentioned doctor, to treat some minor ailment….then find out from, from an attorney's  TV commercial, that the drug had horrifying side effects, sometimes even death.  (does it seem to you prescription drugs may be more deadly then street drugs?  Me too.)

coming up on corner of East Avenue and 4th Avenue

Well…. last week Emma and I were walking down town, beautiful day, we were waiting in the sunshine, for the light to turn green at the corner of East Avenue and 4^th Avenue, across from The Hotel Dale….the light turned green,  we stepped into 4^th avenue,  at the same time, waiting for the light to turn green was a car, as Emma and I began crossing the street, the car went to making a right hand turn, in to our path and was barely able to brake and get stopped before hitting us….I looked through the windshield at her, she was horrified, still had phone in hand, I felt a bit sorry for her….

Said all of that, to say this, it may not be a new miracle drug that kills me…. I may die in the middle of a street, from car crash wounds.

Love to all

"Mississippi on the Plains"

Come see me if you get this way