Flowers I have propogated

Last fall I took a Master Gardener course for 10 weeks. I learned a lot and one new word was "propogate". And the correct way to prune, fertilize, plant, etc. In the past I just cut off small limbs and stuck them in the ground or a pot and rooted them. Now with my "new found" knowledge, there's no telling how many plants I will have this time next year! Jim is going to help me build a green house this spring. Actually we will enclose my potting shed and turn it into a green house.

Gladiolas

Lady Banks 

I am posting some photos taken in our yard this past summer. Some were planted from seeds from friends (pink and lavendar hibuscus). The glad bulbs were obtained from Fred's (our local department store). The bulbs fell out of packages and were scattered on the floor. I asked if I swept them up, could I have them and they said "yes". I had the most beautiful gladiolas last summer. I took several bouquets to church and to shut in's.


The yellow Lady Banks rose bush was so top heavy it fell to the ground last spring and we left it on the ground until it finished blooming, and then pruned it heavily. I rooted this rose when we moved to Elba. It was given to me by my cousin Joe and his wife Martha. She died from pneumonia soon after we moved here, so I call it "Mott's" rose.

The pink climbing rose dates back to Savannah, GA over 200 years ago. I have rooted so many from my root stock which I got from a friend in Albany, GA many years ago. The Autumn clematis came from a neighbor's yard.

The lavendar and red hibiscus plants came from seed I planted last spring. I have a bag of seed to plant this spring and share with others. The little yellow coreopsis are so easy to grow.

Coresposis

They come back every spring and bloom all summer if you keep them "dead headed".


The Autumn Clematis vine starts over every spring. I cut it back to the ground in the winter. The blossoms fill the air with perfume in the fall. The blue hydrangea came with us from Albany, GA. I have rooted so many from this bush. The white gardenia was rooted from a small limb I broke off of a bush at my brother's house in 1997. I broke a limb from the bush pictured here at our farm and planted it in our yard and it is almost 5' tall and so many blooms on it last year.

Gardenia

Autumn Clematis

Yes, we have no bananas!

Remember the Chiquita banana jingle of the 50's and the Banana lady? I love bananas and thought our banana tree would produce big stalks of the sweet yellow fruit. But alas, all we got were giant green leaves. We could almost see the tree growing as it towered over the porch this summer. We had to cut the lower leaves to walk underneath the bush. We planted it just 3 years ago from a small bulb that Mr. Lawford gave us. Banana plants look like giant onions with the same root design, just a lot bigger. The trunk of the plant is mostly water and can be cut across easily with a sharp knife. The giant leaves make a nice sound when the wind is blowing through them. I felt like I was in the tropics when I stood on our back porch and looked up at the giant banana tree. It made a nice shade underneath.

Today we decided to dig up the giant tree and replace it with a smaller plant that likes to grow in the shade and damp soil. Haven't decided yet what that plant will be.

Digging up the massive tree was not an easy task. We dug dirt away from the base of the tree but the roots were so intertwined we couldn't move it at all. Jim finally got an ax and cut the stalks apart and then we were able to dig them up. The stalks were killed back by the frosts we had this winter and we used a kitchen knife to slice them off to the ground. Then we piled the water filled "tree trunks" out by the street to be picked up by the city.  We placed the tree roots in containers and dumped them in a gulley behind our property. I tried to give them away but no offers. People pay a lot of $$$ for banana bushes at the plant nursery.

I think the secret of our giant banana tree was that the soil was always wet because there was clay soil underneath and when it rained, water drained on this site and the clay soil held water for a long time.


I lived out my fantasy of the little Sambo story of my childhood of tigers chasing each other around the banana trees until they melted into butter for little Sambo's many pancakes.  I have a copy of that book someplace. It was one of my favorites.

Flowers, and more flowers

Tomorrow I will be traveling with a group from Enterprise to the Atlanta Flower show at the World Congress Center. I have been to flower shows in other large cities, including the big one in Charlotte, NC. I am always amazed at how they can fill large buildings with so many beautiful flower designs and exhibits. I can hardly wait to go.

You see, I am a flower junkie. Even fake flowers are pretty to me. This started at a very early age. My grandmother had beautiful cabbage roses and they smelled so good. And the sweet smelling sweet shrub that she would allow us to pick and tie one of the little maroon colored blooms in the corner of a handkerchief that we could put in our pocket and take out occasionally to rub across our nose and smell the sweet smelling sweet shrub.

One of my favorite times of the year when I was young was to go to the woods to search for wild violets in the early spring. There were many little white violets near the creeks, but our goal was to find large, taller purple violets. We would pick a handful to bring home to our mother who put them in a tea cup filled with water.

When we retired in 1996 and moved to the farm where I grew up, I started looking for violets. In 2002, we cleared some land near a stream where I remembered seeing large purple violets, and the next spring I came upon this big bed of those beautiful little flowers. Immediately I took photos to send to my sisters to let them know what I had discovered.

Pizza Pie

Do you remember the first time you ate pizza? You might if you are over 60. Most people think pizza has always been around. Not so! I remember in the early 1950's hearing Dean Martin singing: "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore". That song set America singing and eating pizzas. I had never heard of "pizza pie" and I thought he was saying "piece of pie" and I didn't know what "amore" meant. I liked the song and the lively tune. Then one day I discovered what he was saying and I laughed.

I remember the first time I ever had pizza. Some friends invited us to have dinner at an Italian restaurant in Wurzburg, Germany one evening in 1954. They suggested we try the pizza pie and I wasn't sure I would like it. I had planned on ordering Italian spaghetti. One bite of the delicious cheese and tomato mixture on hard bread was all I needed to get hooked on pizza.

We came back to the US in the summer of 1955 and soon we started seeing pizza on menus of restaurants in Kansas where we lived for awhile. I think maybe soldiers stationed in Europe, especially in areas near Italy, loved pizza and brought the idea back to the US. When our boys were small, we made pizza from Chef Boyardee kits. We would mix the crust and knead it out on the round pizza pan and add the sauce from the box. I always added extra cheese and sometimes cooked hamburger meat or sausage. When they were older, growing up in Paris, TX, there were pizza restaurants and I stopped making the box kind.

Now we are living in a small town without a pizza restaurant and I have resorted to buying frozen pizzas, and again adding extra ingredients. Our favorite is Tombstone pizza.

And everytime I start to take a bite, I can hear Dean Martin singing that song "When the moon hits your eye, etc." and I chuckle.

Aunt Bob

My mother had 4 sisters and 2 brothers and a half-brother. She was one of the oldest. Her older sister was named Mary Barbara Smith, and we called her "Aunt Bob". Here is a photo of the older children. Standing next to my mother Ruth, in the back row is Aunt Bob (on the right). The boy in the middle is William Joseph (Joe Bill, who died May 2007 at age 90), on his right is Ida who just turned 89 and the baby is Nellie Faye who died in 1985. Younger children were Amos (Pete) who lives in Elba and the youngest was a girl, Martha Ann (Polly) who died in 1992.


Now back to Aunt Bob (Barbara). She is probably the one we all remember best because we saw her more often.


At an early age, she started staying with our Papa Smith's sister, Daisey Winston who was an invalid following a stroke.


My earliest memories was of Aunt Bob was when we would visit her at Aunt Daisey's house and observe how she cared for Aunt Daisey.


I couldn't understand anything Aunt Daisey said, but Aunt Bob knew exactly what she wanted. They lived in a big house with a porch across the front where Dorsey Trailers now has a paved parking lot. Aunt Bob and Aunt Daisey spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch every morning and afternoon. There was a vine creeping up to the roof that provided shade from the sun. I remember that it was called a coral vine and had pretty pink blooms. I have a vine just like it and it brings back memories. Aunt Bob lived with Aunt Daisey for many years, until Aunt Daisey died in the 1950's.


By this time Aunt Bob was in her early 40's. She moved into a house nearby that Aunt Daisey's sons gave her, and her parents (my grandparents) lived there with her. She decided to become a nurse and entered nursing school in Dothan to be come a practical nurse. She graduated from nursing school and went to work in a Dr's office in Elba.


Then she decided to get married to someone she had known all her life, Roy McDowell. He was in WWII in the Pacific and when the war was over he came home and started working for the Ala Highway Department. We all thought it was neat that Aunt Bob had a boy friend. Neither had ever been married. So in their early 50's they decided to get married and the wedding was held at Aunt Daisey's son Roger's new brick home. In the meantime, her father had died from a heart attack and her mother was living with her. After Aunt Bob got married, her mother (my Mama Smith) went to live in the new Elba nursing home and she loved it there. She had friends around all the time. She lived to be 91.


Back to Aunt Bob. Uncle Roy died in 1975 with leukemia, a few years after their marriage. Aunt Bob had become friends with his sister MaryMcDowell Newton and the two of them became very close friends and where you saw one, you saw the other.

Aunt Bob loved to do handwork. She could crochet and knit and made all of her nieces sweaters and doll clothes. She made dresses for me and my sisters. I'll never forget the dresses she made for me to take to college. She helped me make my formal for the prom one year and for that I was so happy. We lived in the country and rode the bus to school. Sometimes I would walk to Aunt Bob's house after school and spend the night, especially when there was something taking place in town that I wanted to attend. My friends would come by and pick me up.


After we all grew up and moved away from Elba, we would always go to see Aunt Bob when we came back home to visit.


Aunt Bob checked herself into the Elba nursing home one hot day in August in the early 1990's when her air conditioner stopped working. She just packed her suitcase, called a taxi and never came back. She called to tell me her new address and new phone number.  She asked if I would come to Elba (from Albany, GA) and clean out her refrigerator!  Of course I did, and cleaned her house.  I thought she would be coming back soon, but she never did.  The house was flooded in March 1998.  


Several years later, Aunt Bob began to have heart problems and in October 1998, her heart just stopped beating one Sat. afternoon. I was with her at the hospital and left to go to a Grimes family cousins' dinner, to see everybody and told her I'd be back later. She died while I was gone, with my sister-in-law Carol in the room with her. She just closed her eyes and went to sleep, without a sound.


Aunt Bob was buried beside her husband in Evergreen Cemetery in Elba.  

Hog Killing Weather

When I got up this morning, I looked outside and the ground was white with frost and the temperature was in the low 20's. I murmured to myself, "it's hog killing weather". How many times I've heard my granddaddy say that on cold winter mornings. I'm so thankful we don't have to kill our own hogs to get our meat for the winter!


I remember those hog killings as if they were yesterday even though they were 60+ years ago. Hog killings at our place usually took place around Thanksgiving or soon after. I don't know how they predicted weather to know when there would be a cold, dry day for this event. Neighbors would start gathering to help with this all-day event very early in the morning. One spring one of our sows had baby pigs and there was a cold snap and one little pig almost froze; in fact his tail did freeze, and fell off! Daddy brought the piglet home and we put him in a pen at the edge of the yard and fed him, and of course petted him and he became a playmate. That is until he (Charlie) grew up and started uprooting mama Wilson's flower beds. We had to leave him in the pen after that.


During the summer he grew up and became very large. In the fall I heard talk that he might be selected for the hog killing and I was so sad.
Found this photo on Google On the appointed day, I stayed home from school (pretending to be sick) to see if they were going to kill Charlie. And they did! Shot him right between the eyes, and proceeded with the hog killing ritual. I don't think I ate any pork all winter that year. Hog killing was necessary to have food during the winter. You can go to these websites and read all about how it took place.
http://www.geocities.com/thurlane/hogkilling.html http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnweakle/Hog_Killing.htm


We had a smoke house which was a small wooden building without a floor. There was a fire pit in the center of the building and hickory wood was used to keep the fire going at all times when there was meat hanging from poles suspended from the ceiling. The meat was "smoked" to cure it. My favorite part of the hog was thick bacon, fried crisp and sausage links. Mama Wilson would make whipped cream for us to eat with our sausage and I remember how good that was. I don't think I would like that combination now. I didn't like scrambled eggs and brains or hogshead, or some of the organ meats.


What I did like were the crisp crackling's left in the big black washpot when the fat was melted into lard for cooking. Mother would make cracklin' cornbread. Some of the fat left over was used to make lye soap. They seemed to always find a use for everything. They even cooked the pig's tail and feet.

My First Permanent

When I was in the 5th grade I begged my mother to let me get a permanent wave and cut my red pigtails off. I wanted short curly hair for a change. I didn't like having my hair combed and braided every morning before going to school. I think she relented and let me get a permanent so she would be relieved of having to comb and braid my hair.


I found this photo on Google
and it looks just like the
machine in the beauty shop where I got my first permanent.
The instrument of torture stood tall in the corner of the shop. There were wires or electric cables hanging from the top of the pole and metal clamps on the end of each of the long cords. After having my hair shampooed, the beauty operator put an awful smelling liquid on each strand of my hair and wrapped it in foil strips, rolling it up and putting the clamp over the roll. I just knew I would be electrocuted when she turned on the switch. I still remember holding on to the arms of the chair when I heard a sizzling noise which was the steam evaporating when the heat was applied to my hair. The odor of the solution almost made me faint. But I just knew I was going to be beautiful when it was all over. I watched the ladies underneath the tall hooded dryers as they smoked and read True Romance magazines. I was out of my "environment" and felt so grown up. I was alone during this experience. My Aunt Barbara took me to the beauty shop and told the beautician that she would return for me later. I was very apprehensive that something would happen to me but I tried to be brave. When the timer went off, she began to remove the clamps, unroll the foil papers and led me back to the shampoo bowl to wash the foul smelling lotion from my hair. I was afraid she was also washing away the curls I wanted so badly.


But not so! I looked in the mirror and I could not believe what I saw. To my horror all I saw were dark red curls that looked like snakes crawling all over my head. I almost cried when she used a comb to pull through the tangles. She then rolled my hair into little spit curls and held them in place with a metal bobby pins, which burned my head when I had to sit under one of the funny looking dryers and left to toast. I remember how my ears and eyes burned, and was concerned about the odor and wondered if it would go away any time soon.


When the dryer buzzed, she came and led me to a table with a mirror. She removed the bobby pins and started to comb my hair. My head felt as big as a basketball! I had never seen so many curls on one head. I had wanted curls but not this many. She looked me over and smiled at her
"creation". I tried to smile but all I could think of was would anybody recognize me!


I remember my daddy coming to town to pick me up at my aunt's house, and he tried so hard not to laugh. He had begged me not to get my pretty red curly hair cut and permed. We went home and the next day when I got up I tried to comb my hair and it was so tangled and matted I had to get mother to help. We worked and worked to get it looking decent so I could go to church, but to no avail. She let me miss church that day and we worked some more with my hair, trying to straighten it a little. The machine literally burned my soft curly hair and it looked like dried corn silks, and was so frizzy. It was weeks before my hair was long enough to get all the damaged hair cut. I never asked for another permanent. I have only had 3 or 4 more perms in my lifetime, all making my hair frizzy. Mostly I wear my hair cut short and naturally curly. I only go to the beauty shop to get haircuts these days. No more perms for me.