In the days when my grandparents, Levi and Edna Latty, were on their farm at Etta, my grandfather looked forward to the January thaw, those few January days when winter paused to take a deep breath and remember that spring would soon be on its way. During the January thaw, Pappy would hitch his team […]
Nov 14, 2024
Rain, a Hundred Years Ago
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We’ve had wonderful autumn rain lately and it has been a blessing. This morning, I’m thinking backward about a hundred years and imagining what it might have been like at the Levi and Edna Latty Farm, my grandparents’ farm, in the early part of the twentieth century. It would be dark on the farm at […]
Oct 10, 2024
A Staple of Life
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Sometimes when I’m tired or just want to relax, I pour a cold glass of buttermilk. It refreshes like no other drink. My family, sadly, does not share my enthusiasm for buttermilk. But, I inherited the taste for it from a long line of ancestors–southern, that is. When my mother was a child, the farm […]
Jul 30, 2023
The Cornfield in the Moonlight
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The Cornfield in the Moonlight by Blanche Manos The cornfield in the moonlight, when the shadows dance and sway Is not the same at midnight as it is throughout the day. The field is hushed at midnight; the world has gone to sleep, But the cornstalks nod and rustle at the mysteries they keep. Who […]
Mar 28, 2023
My Grandfather’s Barn
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My Grandfather’s Barn My grandfather’s barn leans to the south, The weathered old logs are gray. The tin roof is rusted and dented and busted; The wind blew the doors away. But once that barn, filled with freshly-mown hay, Was a dark, sweet-smelling retreat. The straw in the loft was wonderfully soft, A hideaway, […]
