Farm Girl
This summer was a brutal mix of heat and humidity. I’ve never seen sand bars grow so large, like miniature islands jutting out into the Ogeechee River. I nurtured and watered my garden until even the tomatoes seemed to surrender under the scorching beam of the mid-July sun. Cotton wilted in the fields, the leaves weeping like a shamed child hanging his shoulders with humiliation and corn dried to a brown papery, crisp long before the ears had a chance to grow fat with milky kernels.
I made sure to text Daddy every time my Weather Bug app alerted me to even a speck of green or a growing cloud of yellow and red hanging over Grapevine Rd. Growing up a farm kid just makes you more attuned to things like weather. I noticed growing up that seasons and weather played a large part in Daddy’s mood. He calls a good rain an attitude adjustment!
It wasn’t until I was school-age that I realized not everyone had the joy of growing up on a farm. Initially, I didn’t understand the magnitude of my good fortune. I know now. It’s hard for folks who haven’t experienced life on a farm to comprehend.
Farm life as a child was begging to hold the pink, velvety piglets suckling a sow in the farrowing house, bottle feeding impatient calves rejected by their mother, picking peaches/blueberries/blackberries for cobbler, riding the old Honda 3-wheeler to check on the cows, and catching a glimpse of a family of red foxes perched atop their mounded den. Farm life included catching tadpoles in the stream made by runoff from the catfish pond, Grandaddy herding a recalcitrant bull with a carload of cousins in the “Yella” Mercury, picnic lunches of jelly sandwiches and Beanie Weenies in the shady tunnels hollowed out in the azalea bushes, and tumbling head-over-heels in clouds of white, fluffy cotton loaded on trailers destined for the gin.
Farm life as an adolescent was filled with wild and reckless driving on anything with wheels: 3-wheelers, 4-wheelers, golf carts, and a 6-wheel John Deer Gator were all preferred modes of transportation and we (my cousins, friends, and I) managed to bog down every single one in various mud-holes around the farm. Weighing muscadine grapes for loyal customers who visited year after year to pick the sweet fruit for 50 cents a person and 50 cents a pound, plucking peanuts off the vine to boil under the office shelter, and cooling-off with the jet ski in the pond behind our house are also memories. During those years l scouted cotton for many, hot summers walking every acre of Brown Farm armed with snake boots and an old revolver on my hip. And finally leaving home to find out everything that glitters is not gold, but I had a really good time figuring it all out!
Farm life as an adult is Sunday dinner at Mother’s dining room table, dove shoots at the old mule barn followed by a great meal with friends and family, my wedding day under an old oak tree, and the sadness of old things gone but the anticipation of new blessings. Adult farm life is also morning walks soaking up the land and all that it represents, as well as sitting on the front porch of my little block farm house watching the swallows dip and dive over a field of fine cotton. I still don’t feel grown. I hope the memories always make me feel like a child when I pull onto Grapevine Road.
People have often asked how my sister and I were able to work so closely in our restaurant business. I think it is mostly because my Daddy and uncles set such a fine example of love and respect in their farming operation. Farm never seemed like a noun to me but an adjective to describe our family. To me it was simply our life. The BEST life and I’m thankful.
Cornbread Layered Salad
1 head Lettuce Shredded
½ c Red Onion Diced
½ c Bell Pepper Diced
12 oz frozen Peas
1 c Sharp Cheddar
1 lb Bacon Cooked and Crumbled
1 package Jiffy Cornbread Cooked and Crumbled
Dressing:
1 c Dukes Mayo
½ c Sour Cream
½ c Vinegar
½ c Sugar
1 tsp. Pepper
Combine all the dressing ingredients and whisk until smooth. Refrigerate while assembling the salad.
To assemble salad: Place lettuce in clear bowl. Top lettuce with onion, bell pepper, and peas. Pour prepared dressing over the top. Top with crumbled cornbread, cheese, and bacon. Chill and serve.
Pork Chops with Peach Glaze
4-6 J.B.’s Heritage Pork Chops (cut 1 inch thick)
2-3 Tbs. Favorite BBQ Rub
1 c Peach Preserves
½ c Worcestershire
3 Tbs. Brown Sugar
3 Tbs. Butter
Season pork chops with your favorite BBQ rub. Grill or pan sear pork chops until cooked to desired temperature. Combine peach preserves, Worcestershire, brown sugar, and butter in a small pot and cook until preserves and sugar are melted. Spoon over cooked pork chops.
Pimento Cheese Whipped Potatoes
3 lbs. Red Skin Potatoes
1 c Piment Cheese
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Wash and dice potatoes. Boil in salted water until tender. Mash potatoes with potato masher. Add pimento cheese and stir until combined. Add salt and pepper to taste.