Jet is a rescued Mustang. She got her name because she was a "frequent flyer" in the Mustang adoption circuit.
When did it happen? When did I become so dependent on technology? Even in the country, we are not without “city luxuries” like Internet, satellite radio and a DVR. However, the other day I had to turn in my work computer for an upgraded version. I was without the machine in my classroom for only a couple of hours, but I noticed a shift in the awareness of my surroundings. I should have taken that as a sign of how my evening at home would go.
No computer. Phone turned off.
It was a beautiful evening in the country. As soon as I entered their pasture, the animal migration began: the goats head to the shed, but the horses came to me. After all, I have the carrots and they know that. After feeding everyone, I took advantage of Jet’s lingering. She let me groom her from mane to tail while Roxy stood by and simply watched. I was able to brush her thick black mane; it’s so healthy now that she is living with us and away from the horses that used to tear out chunks with their teeth. As I ran my hands down her leg to remove the fly bots that had accumulated in just one week, I noticed crimson highlights right above her hoof. Wow. My horse is not just brown. She is brown, crimson, auburn, and black. She is gorgeous. Her Mustang brand reminds me that she was captured and taken from her home, but I take her head dropped near my chest to mean that it’s okay. She let me run my hands over her eyes and scratch under her halter, and for good measure I kiss the soft flesh of her muzzle. This is it. This is what life is all about.
I’m sure none of this would have happened with a phone in one hand.
Roxy is a beautiful gaited saddle horse. She was purchased so my husband would have a horse to ride. She also holds the title of "Alpha Mare" in our small goat/ horse herd.
I wanted to write about it. No computer. I scrounged up a legal pad and took some notes. This is hard without my computer; the task can wait. I checked my email from my phone and remembered I had a DVR’d television show to watch. Technology habits sure die hard, don’t they?
Somebody, please, don’t let me forget what it’s like to live life with my hands on something other than a keyboard.
I know why gifts from the country are always homemade; there are few stores around here that sell gifts. The local co-op has a small selection, but if you are not interested in the John Deere brand, you probably need to look elsewhere. That’s why I have what I like to call a “craft closet.” It is full of discarded material, old jeans, paint, glue and just about anything else one would need to create a homemade, ahem, I mean a hand-crafted gift. All you need to get started is a pair of blue jeans, some time, and a little inspiration.
My blue jean scrap quilt won first place in the fair this year.
Denim Quilt: Old jeans + material sale at Wal-mart = fabulous denim quilt. Mine won first place at the local county fair this year. My 7th grade class made another one for my friend Angela before her husband left to serve our country in Iraq. The students brought in their out-grown jeans to use which made it extra special.
You don't have to be a wine drinker to like this little bag. I think home made jelly and jam will fit in here too.
Red, White & Brew: Well, that was the name of a party we had for Bryan when he joined the Army Reserves, but I stole it to name my wine bag made out of the leg of a pair of jeans. It had a red and white checked lining. This gift is useless if you can’t purchase wine to go in it because you live in a dry county. I guess you could name it Red, White, and Glue and include some Elmer’s. No. Don’t do that. Add a green ribbon and it magically turns into a Christmas-themed Dirty Santa gift.
aCROSS the room: I made cross pillows out of six squares of fabric, usually at least one square, or the back, is made from blue jeans. I’ve created them in three sizes. I put a pocket on the back and put a little note in some of them. They seem to be well-received by the recipients. I have several around my own house.
There's no such thing as "too many pillows!"
Recipe in my Pocket: These are pot holders made out of the pockets of, you guessed it, jeans. The pockets hold little notecards or recipe cards.
Denim Purse: I wish this had a cool name. It’s the top part of a pair of jeans. My husband, Greg, helped me put grommets in the waistband to hold a strap. I also figured out a way to install a snap so it stays closed. I line each one with whatever fabric I can find in the closet. I feel like every work day is “Casual Friday” when I carry it.
The Tag Rag. Another example of "necessity is the mother of invention."
Tag Rag: Several factors went into the creation of the Tag Rag. I was working outside in the garden. Sweat dripped in my eye. My sewing machine had been sitting idle for awhile. I was into gardening and couldn’t get enough of the great gardening quotes out there, so I embroidered one of my favorite quotes on the corner of each one. Voila! The Tag Rag was born. If you have not cut up all of your jeans for crafts, this looks great worn with a pair of them and an old t-shirt.
Wow. That’s just the “givin’” list, and that’s not even all of it. My “gettin’” list is just as great: a gallon of fresh blueberries; my Mustang, Jet; a sackful of Daylillies and numerous other plant cuttings; and let’s not forget my dog Mae, giver unknown, who has truly been the best gift of all.
The next time you are in the giving mood, consider a hand-crafted creation. Just keep at least one pair of your jeans intact to wear on the weekend.
"Packing Town" (Stockyards) to open October 1, 1910 - CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW, PARTIAL ARTICLE ONLYEat Your Grape Nuts! - CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW
Demonstrations at the State Fair - "...Corsetry is a fine art"
Note: There were approximately 5-10 "tonics" for various ailments on sale through the newspaper. All "proven" and "not imitations like the others."
Bob Waldrop - President of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative
Good morning friends. Today’s RDC Friday morning shout out goes to Bob Waldrop, co-founder and long-time president of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. We’re working on a full length essay about his life growing up in Oklahoma, his teenage journey to California and subsequent sojourning to Utah, Kansas City and ultimate return to his Oklahoma homeland. We hope to have the completed piece out for you next week. I sat with him for two hours during our interview and felt like we had just scratched the surface of who this man is, and the capacity he has to love those around him.
Bob has a dedicated and passionate mission to connect the citizens of our great state with each other in order to build a community network of wholesome, organic and locally grown or produced food: Producers and consumers working together to build sustainable and satisfying, relational food systems not easily interrupted by more national events or various wrinkles in the larger systems.
You go, Bob Waldrop! Thanks for all you do…we look forward to sharing our full-length essay about you and your work very soon!
P.S. Remember…Rob will be treating you with a sports essay around noon today. His last essay on Kevin Durant’s character received an especially high readership. And, speaking of readership…THANK YOU to WordPress.Com for featuring the RDC in their “Freshly Pressed” section yesterday. Like I shared with our author group and FB friends: Who knew barf bags could be so interesting? Take care – and have a great weekend!
I’ve had a pair of “his and hers” bright canary yellow satin Western shirts in a picture frame on my wall since my mom gave them to me as a housewarming gift in 2006. Odd gift, right? They belonged to my great grandparents.
Ben and Nancy Barr ride their paint horses down Main Street in Minco, Oklahoma during the 1950's.
With the help of a few black and white pictures and a phone call, pieces of the story have slowly come together over the years. My great grandparents participated in a rodeo club around Minco, Oklahoma in the 1950’s. They rode in parades and rodeos in small towns around the state. At some point, they were too old to ride, so the horses were probably sold. It has been said that my great grandmother kept her custom-made saddle carefully hidden under her bed, a reminder of a special time in her life. The saddle was one of her last memories of the horse it belonged to before she finally sold it too.
The pictures are black and white, but I can see the beautiful patterns on the paint horses my great grandparents rode. I envision the horses to be black and white, and I can only imagine how spectacular they both looked in those canary yellow shirts trotting down Main Street. The smell is there too. That’s right. Tobacco from a pipe smoked my great grandfather, Ben Barr.
I have been told that I am a lot like her. We both love all animals, and I am just discovering my love for gardening. However, there is one way we are different. The treasures she left for me are not hidden under the bed. They are displayed prominently in random places around my house where I can use them or enjoy them daily. The reminders are not painful. They are happy. A history.
My history.
The shirts came out of the frame last night, and we rode into the Boots And Spurs Ball like we were on those paints. I am not sure I will ever have the opportunity to ride in a parade or carry a flag in the opening ceremony of a rodeo, but I can wear a canary yellow shirt. My husband can wear one too.
And we did.
Julie and Greg Allgyer sport her great grandparents' Western shirts at the Boots and Spurs Ball, a benefit for Special Trails.
For the past two weekends, it’s the question I’ve heard over and over again. What’s the score? I gaze out over our “home field” pondering the answer.
"Today, I gave the dog a bath and my husband did just about everything else."
It’s fall and college football has begun. Points are a big deal on the football field, but in a household, score keeping can cause all kinds of interference. The days are long gone of me listing all of the jobs I completed on any given day. Today, I gave the dog a bath, and my husband did just about everything else. Luckily for me, he is not keeping score. I think I would be behind.
Joe Namath said, “Football is a team game. So is life.” Whether you are a husband and wife living in the country or four girls sharing a rental home, living together takes teamwork. We have just got to remember that we are all playing for the same team.
Editor’s note: For a full review on Ludivine OKC Restaurant, please visit HERE.
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There is a line in The Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya says, “Let me ‘splain. No…there is too much. Let me sum up.” Well, I feel the need to ‘splain – not summarize.
Growing up in rural Oklahoma as a youngster meant I was exposed to a life different from my current suburban context. My father was tri-vocational. He worked at FAA for his day job, he and my mother operated a small Angus cattle farm during the evenings and weekends, he did electrical wiring jobs for occasional money and ran a small business with his friend called B&C Enterprises. Dad was the “B.” My maiden name is Bomgardner. B&C enterprises operated a transportation service to and from FAA every work day, bought scrap gold and jewelry to send to the refinery for a small profit, and perhaps other ventures I didn’t even comprehend.
Morel mushrooms are a rare treat to find in wooded areas or creek banks in Oklahoma. Dredge them in a very simple light egg batter, then saute in olive oil, add salt and pepper - you'll have a heavenly tasting side OR center of your plate.
We usually traded my grandfather one of our steers for one of his, thus not eating our own beef (we frequently named our cattle), but beef we knew was raised in an acceptable way. We ate eggs from our Bantam (we called them Banty) chickens and harvested honey from our beehives. We gathered dandelion greens and poke salad off the land and gathered Morel mushrooms from the creek beds. And, we raised much of our food in a garden. An “Organic Gardening” garden.
“Organic Gardening” was one of the magazines my father received in the mail for much of my formative years. Every year, my father would order a load of cotton hulls to be delivered to our garden. They would sit on top of the soil all winter long breaking down with the moisture of the snow, and in the springtime before planting he would turn it all under to begin the growing process once again.
There are GOOD Sand Plum years, and NOT SO GOOD Sand Plum years. 2010 was a decent year for them.
My mother canned vegetables with a pressure cooker. My grandparents raised corn in a section of their land that we harvested every year. We picked sand plums to make jams and jellies, and picked blackberries when they were in season. Our neighbors’ parents had a large strawberry patch that we were allowed to harvest. My grandfather raised watermelons. My uncle in Tuttle and my aunt in Bethany had an apricot tree. My great-grandmother in town had a pear tree. We had an orchard where we raised sweet and tart cherries, peaches, plums and apples.
My brother and I used to play a game where we would ride our small Yamaha 50 under the cherry tree during harvesting time. We would reach out with one hand and grab a bunch while cruising under the tree at top 50cc speed, then stop to see how many cherries we had scored on that particular run.
We purchased milk from our neighbors and a friend in town who had a dairy. My parents made their own yogurt with their yogurt maker. We sometimes make sumac lemonade or tea when the red velvet sumac on our property pollinated at the end of the summer. We cut and bailed the prairie hay we fed our cattle. We purchased bales of alfalfa from local farmers for supplements.
A trip into town to eat at a restaurant was fairly rare. I usually ordered a bologna sandwich or a corn dog when that happened…that was “fancy food” to me. Ah, youth…
I’m sharing this information with you because it might better help you understand why I’m using this space on the RDC to give not just one but TWO shout-outs this week to the soon-to-open Ludivine restaurant in downtown Oklahoma City. I’ve now watched every one of their eleven 4.5 minute videos posted on their YouTube channel. In each segment, they highlight a vendor they have built a relationship with in order to bring the food raised in Oklahoma to the table of those who eat in their restaurant.
"Sunchokes" or Jerusalem Artichokes
My heart warmed while viewing them. We used to raise “Jerusalem Artichokes” in our garden at home. They’re using “Sunchokes” (same thing) in their restaurants. One of the videos shows the pains of gathering Sand Plums and discusses the rewards of why you would do such a thing. And most of all – there are people across Oklahoma who Ludivine has connected with carrying on a tradition of raising organic, nutritious, fresh and wonderful treasures in our precious Oklahoma soil. They seem to be committed to helping you feast on their crops or products that they prepared in a loving and conscientious way.
Here’s to you, Ludivine, for documenting your developmental journeys and relationships with your growers and vendors. And here’s to you, Wagon Creek Creamery, Two Tomatoes Farm, OM Gardens, Regional Food Bank, Avalon Seafood, Willie’s Ribs, Coop Ale Works and Urban Agrarian. (We mentioned Peach Crest Farms earlier this week).
Thank you twice. Thanks for all you do, all your plans and for all you hope to be.
Good luck! (Click the picture below to visit Ludivine’s YouTube videos).
Thank you, Ludivine Restaurant, for making short videos highlighting local growers and the products you use. Thank you, Oklahoma Food Cooperative, for helping share the story and share the love.
All three of you rock. Keep up the great work, Red Dirt Kelly
There is a certain spin that living in the country puts on hobbies. We have to work with what’s available to us or travel to a nearby city to get it. A Teddy Roosevelt quote sums it up best: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” I have dirt, and I have decided to do what I can.
I showed up to my first Master Gardener meeting with a green paper folder with a few sheets of paper inside. (Green, you know, for plants? ) There was a total of four participants in the meeting and we all had to stand and tell our names and what we hoped to get out of the program. The lady across from me just wanted to grow some grass in front of her house. The boy behind me was with his mother. He was going to include this as part of his home schooling science curriculum. Ahh, sweet. Then the scene changed.
I was handed a commitment page to sign for 40 hours of community service. I turned around to ask the boy to borrow his pen; he glared at me clearly annoyed that I had forgotten mine. I turned back around to find that a four-inch binder with twenty separate tabs had been placed in front of me. Neatly tucked inside was my first take-home test, ironically, on dirt, known in this extension office, as “soil.” The boy quickly threw his hand in the air and started asking about due dates then weaseled his way into a conversation about eagles with the lady who just wanted to grow grass in her front yard. This young boy had just established himself as a weed trying to take over my flower bed.
This boy has been planted in my Master Gardener class for a reason. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I know what I’m going to get…exactly what I put into it. You don’t have to be a former president to hand out words to live by. Julie Allgyer, future Master Gardener, sums it up best: “Bloom where you are planted.”
Here is my Habanero Pepper plant. As you can see, I need to make a couple of recipes - one for the weekend, and one for the freezer!
I do not like habaneros peppers. I don’t like to pick them. I don’t like to can them for habanero pepper jam to spread over cream cheese later in the fall. I always forget I’ve been handling them and then scratch my nose or rub my eyes; horrific running around in circles ensues: “Argh – my nose! My eyes! Ahhh!” When I’m out picking them I make a mental note, “Use gloves, or go wash your hands immediately.”
I always forget.
So, are we clear? I don’t like habanero peppers. What I DO love, though, is a jerk chicken marinade recipe that is so good it even makes me tolerate growing the peppers…really, just for this one recipe. I give the rest away. There are people out there who eat them, even raw. My eyes are watering while I’m typing this entry!
So, this Saturday morning post is to remind you that Jamaican Jerk Chicken can be a hearty AND lower fat item for your outdoor grilling. And in case you’re trying to use up any extra habaneros left in your garden, even better.
Remember, tomorrow is “Silent Sunday.” We hope you enjoy our Photographs of the week and our new masthead featuring the Oklahoma State Fair while we take the day off from writing. We’ll see you back with new essays on Monday.
From the Red Dirt Chronicles Contribution Group to You and Yours…Have a safe, happy and enjoyable Labor Day weekend.
Sincerely,
Kelly, Julie, Rob, Mark, Rachel, and our soon to be coming on board or one time contributors
(Click photo to go to “AllRecipes.com” for my favorite Jamaican Jerk Chicken Recipe)
Jamaican Jerk Chicken for Labor Day Grilling ~~YUM!
It’s a Saturday. The nine-to-fivers are reveling in the covers that hide the dawn’s glare this A.M.
Purple Martins found a home out here at the ranch just one week after it was built.
But not us. My husband and I begin our weekdays before some people go to bed, and the weekend is no different. Like every household, we have things to do. OUR problem is that usually we have each created our own lists (hidden in our own minds) and have divided the chores out between us without telling the other about the plans. It could be a problem if we let it. We don’t.
I stopped picking the last of the tomatoes to watch Greg lower the Purple Martin house to get it ready for the winter and ultimately next spring. He joined me in the melon patch to check on our first watermelons. We are both amazed at how much fruit our only two melon plants have produced. I made a mental note to put the tomato cages up for next season. He set up the sprinklers to water the yard. I fed the kittens. He fed the cats. I carried my coffee across the pasture to give the horses some carrots. They knew it was not my usual time with them, and they seemed grateful.
Turning the corner on fence painting.
There is always so much to do out here, but neither of us seem to mind. We have stopped to sit on the backporch to have some coffee. Greg remembered that the front gate doesn’t latch. We have got to fix that. It’s added to the list. Before noon we will have added as many chores as we have completed this morning. Maybe he’s right next to me; maybe he is across the pasture. Either way, we are content to divide and conquer our chores for today, so we can spend the evening……together.
There is something special about girls from Oklahoma. We are…different.
I realized this after browsing through a real estate magazine at a local restaurant and noticing a photo of a girl who went to my high school back in the late 70’s. She was currently a local real estate agent living about thirty miles from me. We had not been good friends in high school and didn’t have a junior high slumber party memory to share, but somehow I knew that when I called her, she would remember me. She did.
Shortly after contacting her, my husband and I were invited to her home for a Sunday lunch. We had a fabulous time and I have since seen her on several other occasions. I even stayed overnight at her house (not exactly a slumber party, but it will do) when a two-day workshop took me to her city. We had dinner and talked about growing up in Chickasha, Oklahoma.
There are many other Oklahoma women who continue to touch my world: an OSU sorority sister bumped into me in the middle of Reading Station in Philadelphia, a classmate stopped by to have a quick dinner while traveling I-40 to a new chapter in her life, a lady at the convenience store wearing an Eskimo Joe’s T-shirt held my place in line, and my former principal, who is hoping to find her way back to Oklahoma, molded me into the writing teacher I am today. My former principal is also expecting her fifth grandchild, a girl named Preslee, who no doubt will reap the benefits of being raised as an “Okie.”
So here’s to Preslee, who has no idea how lucky she is about to get, and all the other women who qualify. You know who you are.
An Oklahoma Girl From Head to Toe
Sun-bleached or shiny black locks like a horse’s mane
Lake-blue eyes, or as dark as night on a rural road
When it comes to character, Oklahoma girls reign
With inner and outer strength, they will always carry their load
Lips that whisper a song just when you think you’ve forgotten the tune
Shoulders that can bear the weight of her worries and yours
Beads of sweat on her back from the Oklahoma heat in June
A loving heart beating strong and fast like an eagle soars
Legs that can carry her to her destiny, however long
Feet barefoot or not, walking toward a horizon of blue
Are you looking in the mirror? Do you see someone beautiful and strong?
By birth or at heart, you may be an Oklahoma Girl too
Yesterday, I couldn’t wait to get home. But as eager as I was to see my own home on a Friday afternoon, I was looking forward to an evening away from home on Saturday night…with someone who really knows how to appreciate coming home.
I met Bryan Hayes about five years ago. I had just started teaching at the school where he worked as PE coach. He did not appear to fit into the coach role. He had long hair and looked like he really hadn’t done a push up in awhile.
As a couple of school years came and went, however, I learned more and more about my friend. He could play the guitar and willingly brought it along with his mellow voice and beautiful wife to many late night functions.
He didn’t just play the guitar. He had a BAND: Bryan Hayes and the Retrievers… not so odd of a name when you know that Bryan is an animal advocate. He has a home full of rescued Labs of all shapes and sizes.
One day Bryan came to school without the rest of his hair. I thought that maybe he had gotten into trouble somehow, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Bryan had joined the Army National Guard. This spring while most of us were living somewhat normal lives, Bryan was in Iraq. This son, husband, uncle, friend, singer, and teacher was busy making sure we had a safe place to call home.
Tonight Bryan and his band stood on a stage and humbly entertained friends and family. Wait. No. He entertained family. Bryan Hayes, our brother, is home.
(Click the picture to watch Bryan and the Retrievers play “Lonesome Soldier.”)
Bryan and the Retrievers playing "Lonesome Soldier"
My husband Greg and I are celebrating our 6th successful year in the country. The success is measured simply by the fact that we are still both alive and still married.
After two years of sharing a trailer with his father-in-law and four years getting our log cabin just the way we want it, I decided I didn’t have enough to do this summer. Hence, our garden was born.
It is still unclear to me why a gal whose first salads consisted of only lettuce and French dressing would want to start a vegetable garden. I even have a story of how, at an early age, I successfully hid Brussels sprouts in an air conditioner vent to avoid eating them.
The bottom line is that I didn’t do it for the food. I did because I had two key elements: time and space.
A fabulous garden was designed by yours truly that would not only be productive, but would also look like a work of art to any small plane traveling over our area. (See graph below)
I filled the soil with all the goat and horse poop I could get my hands on, harvested directly out of our pasture. I planned, researched, and studied the Farmers’ Almanac, but nothing was happening. (Meaning, the plants were just sitting there. So GROW, already!)
One Saturday morning I walked outside to find my beautiful plots of lettuce, peppers, and peas redesigned into rows! My husband Greg had been busy.
Note: I do NOT have a graph to show the modified version of my garden.
Before I knew it, however, I had a crop. As the summer progressed, we consumed all of the lettuce that survived. Next, I gently added one cantaloupe, one watermelon, and cucumber plant.
Why only one of each, you ask? Well, my pepper plants are filled with enough peppers to rival any Christmas tree look alike contest. I can only make so many bacon-wrapped, filled with cream cheese poppers, and the tomato plants are speckled with green balls ready to ripen at any minute.
Selling some of my veggies seemed to be the next logical step. I made a sign, put it out by the road, and waited. As it turns out, however, the older clientele can’t really eat peppers. Trust me. I heard all about it.
Shortly after returning home from my “farmer’s market” trial excursion, it was back to the internet to explore another adventure: canning.
As it turns out, canning really isn’t all that difficult if you’ve got two major elements: time and space.
Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.
