A Gardener's Paradise - Callaway Gardens, GA

Botanical Garden at Callaway Gardens

In January 2004, I went to Callaway Gardens, GA to attend a Southern Gardening Symposium.

I read about the symposium in Southern Living Magazine and thought it would be helpful in planning for a southern heirloom garden for the old country home and birthplace of an Ala. Governor, Big Jim Folsom, which was moved to Elba in 2003. Also we had just moved into a home that had no landscaping and I needed all the help I could get.

I arrived at the Lodge late Friday afternoon and attended the Opening Reception where I met others attending the symposium, many who come every year. I could hardly wait for the classes to begin on Saturday. A bus arrived at the Lodge to take us to the classroom building inside Callaway Gardens. There were many interesting speakers and workshops throughout the day. I opted for a box lunch so I could spend some time in the gardening marketplace where there were so many plants for sale and a a silent auction. I signed up for a lot of unusual plants and was I ever surprised at the end of the day when I was top bidder for lots of healthy plants; almost more than I could load in my car! I think I spent less than $25 for all these, including an amaryllis that had 4 or 5 large blooms which I brought back to a sick friend.

I bought some books and had them signed by the authors who presented programs. One I really enjoyed was a program on Southern Heirloom Gardens (bought that book) that was presented by one of the authors, Greg Allen, from Center, TX. Greg was the speaker at the banquet on Sat. night. Another book I bought was "Front Yard Idea Book" by Jeni Webber, who was great.

Sunday afternoon I drove through the gardens and sat inside the chapel while someone was playing the organ. What a treat! Then I drove through the gardens enjoying every minute. In January you can see much more of the landscape than in the summer.

I have been to the gardens in the summer when all of the azaleas and other flowers are blooming and it's beautiful. This was my first winter trip except to go to "Fantasy of Lights" at Christmastime. We have been twice to see the lights and both times it was extremely cold, even sleeting once. It's truly a winter wonderland.

This is a place that changes every season. I can't wait to go back again someday.  Check it out at:
http://www.callawaygardens.com/Callaway/

Memories of times spent at Ocean Isle, NC

News of a tragic fire last Sunday which killed 7 college students in a beach house at Ocean Isle, NC was devastating. We have been to this family beach so many times over the years. In October 2003 we celebrated our 50th anniversary there with family and friends and stayed in a rental house that looked much like the one that was burned. I do remember checking the smoke detectors before going to bed on the 3rd floor. We probably had about 20 people staying there, including lots of kids.


We went to Ocean Isle in November 2000 to celebrate my younger sister Carolyn's 50th birthday. She was the 7th person in our family to turn 50. We sent Carolyn and her husband Dave away from the house while we decorated and got ready for the party. They were to return at 2 p.m. for the party. In the meantime we got busy decorating, etc. and getting the food ready, making a birthday cake which was a mud cake with worms (not really) which the kids got a kick out of. I made Jim

an Elvis outfit to wear and he was going to come to the front door and serenade Carolyn. Things were going along as planned and it was getting close to time for the party. We sent Jim to the back of the house, on ground level, to wait for Carolyn to arrive, etc. Everyone was gathered in the big living room area waiting for her to arrive.


The doorbell rang and one of the little girls answered the door and ran back into the room and said there was a "crazy" lady outside.

One of the adults went to the door and this really wierd old lady was acting strange and insisted on coming in to see what was going on. She was very aggressive and pushed her way into the room. We were all so startled and didn't know what to say to her. In the meantime, Jim came to the front door and rang the bell, and was ready to serenade Carolyn. Well, the old lady rushed to answer the door and you should have seen Jim's face when she answered the door. He just stood there looking at her and she told him to come on inside. The kids were all hiding behind furniture, etc. and peeping around corners, etc.

Carolyn realized she was scaring them so she pulled off her long gray hair and wrinkled mask. Everybody had a good laughed. The joke was on us - not her. I don't remember if Elvis (Jim) ever got around to singing or not, we were all laughing so hard. We always have a good time when we have family gatherings like this.


Once Carolyn removed her crazy ole' lady mask, everybody relaxed.
Then Elvis began to serenade her and everybody joined in the fun.

Our last big family gathering was James' 50th birthday at Thanksgiving last year, 2006, when many of the family gathered in Elba for his party. We gather for special birthdays, weddings, graduations, and other special times. Next summer we will be celebrating Bill Gilmer's and Cindy Gilmer's 50th birthdays (date to be determined) and Ron and Cindy's 30th anniversary which is in August.

Weeds - a plant out of place!

Today was my 11th day of the Master Gardener Class at the Alabama Cooperative Extension System office in New Brockton, AL. One more to go next Wednesday. Then after 40 hours of volunteer work using my knowledge gained from the 12 weeks of study, I can become a Certified Master Gardener. This all came about when I read the course content and discovered I could learn all about fertilizing, pests, proper planting techniques and landscaping. So I signed up and paid my $100. I have learned so much. I enjoyed the class on identifying weeds and what to do about them. I am well acquainted with weeds in our yard but didn't know the names of most of them. We were provided with a handout to help us determine how to get rid of the weeds. I didn't realize there are spring and summer weeds and then a whole new group of weeds that come up during the winter, and then die in the summer.

I was introduced to weeds at a very young age. We lived on a farm and my mother taught me how to pull up weeds in the flower garden and vegetable garden. As I got a little older, my dad taught me how to hoe the weeds and grasses from the peanut and cotton rows. Today there are so many herbicides you can use to kill weeds. We learned all about that in class.

I went about our yard looking for weeds to identify and came up with several varieties. Using my new Weed Book from Auburn

University I was able to identify all of the weeds. We try to control weeds that grow among the lawn grass using herbicides, but I just pull them up when they show up in the flower beds.


Bahia grass with the "v" at the end of the stems. I call it "peace" grass!
The runners (or stolens) that spread out on top of the soil get so thick you could almost gather them to use for firewood!! You mow your grass and in two days the little "v" signs are signaling all over the yard, ready for you to mow them again.

Snacks we ate when I was growing up

Today I was picking up some pecans, cracking them, and eating them on the spot. When I was young, in the fall when we came home from school we would pick up some pecans, crack them between two bricks or with a hammer, and pick out the pecans and eat them.

This was a great snack. We would find pecans outdoors from about October until springtime. Sometimes we would toast them in the oven with a little butter and salt on them.
In the fall we would also have peanuts to eat. First we would pull up peanut bushes, pick off the green peanuts and boil them. Yum yum. Not everybody likes boiled peanuts but I love them. Then when the peanuts were picked and dried, we would roast (parch) them in the oven throughout the winter. Sometimes we made peanut brittle, using cane syrup my dad made. So these nuts would take us through the winter.


In the springtime, we ate things from the garden, including green sweet onions with a lump of salt. Or raw turnip roots. Fruit trees including peaches, plums, and pears furnished us with fruit. We had apple trees but there were usually used for making apple butter since they were always too sour to eat. In May mother would take us blackberry picking to get berries for jelly and jam. In the meantime we would look for berry bushes near the house to pick berries for snacking. We had huckleberries (small version of blueberries) that we would pick in the summer to eat and make jam.

We had a big scuppernong (muscadine) bush that furnished such good berry fruit in the fall. There were some things I never did like, including persimmons. I ate chinquapins but didn't really like them as much as my friends did. In the summer we would dry figs, apples, and peaches to have in the winter. My grandmother made delicious fig newtons with the dried figs.

So much for fruits. Another good snack was to have a hot baked sweet potato in the oven when we got home from school. We would peel the potato and add a wedge of homemade butter. I still love hot baked sweet potatoes - with nothing on them usually. Mother would save left-over biscuits from breakfast and we liked to make a hole on the side of the biscuit with our finger and fill it with soft butter and thick cane syrup. Nothing like a good cold syrup and biscuit.
Another favorite vegetable for a snack was a big ripe tomato, with salt of course. Radishes, cucumbers and carrots were favorite snacks.


Cookies and cakes were for special occasions only. I loved "fruit cake weather". When it turned cold in November, we would start gathering things for fruitcakes for the holidays. I still love homemade fruitcakes soaked in wine or whiskey for several days before eating it. It just doesn't seem like Christmas without the aroma of freshly baked (and fermenting!) fruit cakes and lane cakes, and nobody in my family likes these delicious cakes. I always get slices from some of my friends to satisy my craving around the holidays. Other cakes we had at Thanksgiving and Christmas were "lemon cheese" cakes (a white sponge layer cake with cooked lemon curd filling) and a coconut cake (using freshly grated coconut). I didn't like having to puncture the eyes of the cococnut with an ice pick, draining the juice, and cracking the hard shell with a hammer, and then the hard part - cutting away the dark skin on the greasy while coconut meat. Then we would have to grate the white coconut and I always grated my knuckles and they would bleed and get sore.


I still eat a lot of these nutritious snacks when they are available. I like to drive out in the countryside in the summer and  look for the wild yellow plums in the summer that grow beside the road. They are so sweet and juicy.

Elba's flowing wells a thing of the past

This is the "new" fountain on the southeast corner of the Elba town square where the county courthouse is located. It's a far cry from the old flowing well that I remember as a child.

The old fountain was not in the center, but water bubbled out of cement posts and you just leaned over and got a drink of awful tasting water. I wonder what was in it that made it taste so bad. There was a small pond in the center with big gold fish swimming among the algae and water lilies. I think this is where I first saw gold fish. I remember thinking how beautiful they were. I think there was a wire fence and some shrubbery around the area. There were other flowing wells in Elba including one near the railroad track in New Town by Uncle Drayden Smith's store (Smith Brothers). I don't know what happened to all of the flowing wells.

A lot of school club initiations included something taking place at the flowing well downtown. I remember we had to do something in the Beta Club at night that involved going to the flowing well. It was spooky there at night. Maybe someday I can locate a photo of the old flowing well and add to this blog. I can probably find one in old school annuals at the library.

Blue Bell - best ice cream in the world

On our way home from Austin, TX recently we stopped by the original Blue Bell ice cream plant in Brenham, TX for a tour and sampling.


The first time we ever had Blue Bell ice cream was in the 80's when we were visiting Ron and family in Tyler, TX. I thought it was the best ice cream I had ever tasted. I had banana pudding and Jim ate homemade vanilla. You could only buy Blue Bell in an area in southeast Texas. People would purchase ice cream and take it home with them on the airplane, packed in dry ice (it was definitely worth it). Today you can have 2 half-gal. cartons shipped to us for $99. And people love it so much they will order it for special occasions. We have a plant in Ala. and can find it in most grocery stores in our area.


I'm standing by the original refrigerated truck used to deliver ice cream to the stores nearby. In 2007 Blue Bell celebrated 100 years and had a special ice cream for the century of service, "Century Cordial". It is like an ice cream sundae. I sampled some on our tour. At the end of the tour you can stop at the country store in the building and sample any of the flavors posted that day. I copied the list of flavors below from the website.
Homemade vanilla is our favorite.

List of Year Round Flavors: Banana Split, Buttered Pecan, Chocolate Chip, Cookies 'n Cream, Dutch Chocolate, French Vanilla, Homemade Vanilla, Milk Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip, Moo-llennium Crunch, Natural Vanilla Bean, Orange Swirl, Pecan Pralines 'n Cream, Rocky Road, Strawberry, Strawberries & Homemade Vanilla, The Great DivideList of Current Seasonal Flavors: Banana Pudding, Birthday Cake, Buttered Almond, Caramel Sundae Crunch, Caramel Turtle Fudge, Century Sundae, Cherry Vanilla, Chocolate Almond Marshmallow, Chocolate Brownie Overload, Chocolate Covered Cherries, Chocolate Covered Strawberries, Coffee, Fudge Brownie Nut, Hot Chocolate, Hot Fudge Sundae, Key Lime Pie, Lemon Ice Box Pie, Mango, Mocha Almond Fudge, Peaches & Homemade Vanilla, Peppermint, Pistachio Almond, Strawberry Cheesecake, Tin Roof, Triple Chocolate, Ultimate Neapolitan, White Chocolate Almond


This is a statue of the little girl and the cow that was created in the 1970's as a trademark for Blue Bell ice cream.

Fredericksburg, TX - a German settlement

On our way to the Texas hill country and the Frio River last week-end, we stopped over in the town of Fredericksburg which was founded in 1846 by German settlers. Over 150 years later their influence is still evident throughout Fredericksburg. The buildings with the two story balconies and the Victorian gingerbread, the German fachwerk, and the older log buildings scattered throughout Fredericksburg remind us of the German settlers. The beautiful Fredericksburg churches with their massive steeples are a sight to behold. Main street reminded me of a minature Gatlinburg atmosphere. Jim and our son Ron toured Admiral Nimitz museum . Nimitz was a native of Fredericksburg and served in the Pacific during WWII.

While they were at the museum, James and I had fun shopping at the stores on Main Street. We saw these tiny wooden snowmen in the window of an antique shop. I took this picture to bring home to our friend Ralph to see if he could make some. James enjoyed the Christmas shop and we got some old baseball cards at another place. We sat in a German biergarten and had an ice cold coke and listened to the "om pah" German band.

Before leaving Fredericksburg, we went to an herb farm at the edge of town. The farm covers several acres. A garden house and restaurant separates the buildings from the farm. My friend Elsie wanted me to go check out this herb business. She had heard of the place and wanted me to see it and tell her all about it. I was surprised at how clean the area was. Lots of paths among the herb beds.

Trade Days site (open every 3rd weekend of the month). Had some good food at one of the little cafes and enjoyed seeing the various things people take to sell. Didn't buy anything. Just looked. I can't believe the things people take to flea markets to sell!