Cotton Baskets, Pea Hull Jelly, and Homemade Butter

Posted by ginger On Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Before we got to Oxford for the festival, we decided to go visit the Amish community close to Pontotoc again, especially since we were going right by there.  And one of the great things about the drive was seeing all this crimson clover in the median and alongside the road the whole way:


Just like last time, there were signs alongside their driveways so that people would know what they had for sale:

We stopped at the house with the signs above and got:

Dill pickles, sorghum molasses, chow chow, pickled beets, muscadine jelly, and pea hull jelly.  Yes!  Pea hull jelly!  Don't see that every day... 

The house with the sign below for baked goods is where we got the cinnamon rolls and the apple pie:

We didn't go to every single house, but I like hand-lettered signs so...


Inside this workshop were all kinds of baskets.  We bought two from this gentleman last time...

This time I bought this big basket - it looks like an old cotton basket - and the man said that's what most people call it.  I was thinking it might be nice to hold toys in, for Shug's room:

At the house with this sign:

We got homemade butter (actually I bought homemade butter at two different houses because I love the idea that someone out there is still milking a cow and churning butter):
It is *delicious*!  Really-really delicious.  Mmmmm.

Oh, and about a month ago, Av's mom and dad went and picked up the two bentwood rockers that we ordered from the Amish gentleman from the community in Ethridge, Tennessee.  Love these!:

Double Decker Arts Festival

Posted by ginger On Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Last year was our first time at Double Decker Arts Festival in Oxford, and we have vowed to go every year from now on.


Last year I went on & on about how great Stephanie Dwyer's bottle trees are (ooooh this bottle tree arbor/arch too!!) - we actually got to the festival pretty late in the day and she had sold out of just about everything!  Isn't that great!?  

She's making these metal magnets now too, one for Shug and one for the baby (thank you!!):
She's going to be coming to Alabama soon and we're going to get together for a girl-lunch at one of Frank Stitt's places.  Can't wait!  

Oh, and you know how Felder Rushing is one of my favorite people?  He's got one of her bottle trees in his yard now.  The BB King Museum has one of her bottle trees, and sells them in the museum shop, too!  All her retailers are listed here.

The other thing we picked up at the festival was this sweet cheese ball server from Pace Pottery:
My friend Amy from North Mississippi is a collector of Jennifer Pace Wilson's pottery so I couldn't wait to see everything Jennifer brought to Double Decker...and when I got there, she literally was also almost sold out of everything, too!  It was a good thing I was able to grab this - I *love* it!  Oh, and the clay she uses is dug from a creek in Faulkner's Woods in Oxford.  Nice.
Already looking forward to next year!

Making Moss Pots

Posted by ginger On Monday, April 27, 2009

I've seen moss pots - just simple little pots with a sweet little mound of reindeer moss - displayed in some of my favorite magazines and catalogs lately.  I got these terra cotta pots at an antique shop several years ago and decided to try it:


All it takes is a bag of reindeer moss, available at craft shops, and styrofoam balls that will fit in the top of the pot.  Hot glue is used to adhere the pieces of moss to the top 3/4 of the ball (no reason do to the whole thing since the bottom area won't be seen once it's inside the pot):

Some of the pots I had were too wide at the bottom for the top of the styrofoam ball to peek out of, so I just used some paper at the bottom to raise it:

Placed it in snugly, and...:

So happy with these! 
Next, I'm going to try "painting on" real live moss onto pots so that they actually grow the moss.  It's done with buttermilk (I know!  But really, buttermilk.) and I've seen it done before but never tried it - maybe next week!

---
Tomorrow: Double Decker Festival!

Magic City Art Connection

Posted by ginger On Friday, April 24, 2009

We went to the Magic City Art Connection today - here are a few pics:

This is a temporary installation by Christopher Fennell, a sculptor who makes use of materials that would otherwise be discarded forever:

There's a pic of a bus shelter he made from three different old school busses, in Athens GA, here.

I wound up not taking too many pics, but this was an artist I don't remember from before - S.A. Habib.  Some of these paintings had little fairy lights incorporated:

Looooved what John Lytle Wilson was showing, Bethanne Hill too.  We came home with this wonderful-wonderful piece by Martha Beadle - it's Jonah and the whale:
Martha's work is just so original. She had so many other great pieces - I especially liked one she had with Tallulah Bankhead on it too.  Nobody does what Martha does...anything like how she can do it!  Can't wait to put this up in Shug's room.  

One of the best parts of the art show was the art pieces submitted by schools in the area.  These wings:

and these wings: 
...were by students at Erwin HS.  There's a pair of wings made from spoons at the Mobile Museum of Art and what these students were able to accomplish is equally as gorgeous.

This one, called "Pencils Down" made of #2 pencils was made by students at the Altamont School:

...and this one, called "Carmadillo" is by students at the Alabama School of Fine Arts:





...as well as this one, called "Re-formation/deformation".  It's second-hand clothing over a wire armature:

Nice.

What To Do This Weekend

Posted by ginger On Thursday, April 23, 2009

This weekend there's even more to do than last weekend!


There are several really-really great things going on this weekend.  I think we are going to try to do all of them although we're really going to miss the Interstate Mullet Toss at the Flora-Bama (especially since Av liked doing the Polar Bear Dip there so much a couple of years ago!).  Here goes:

  • Panoply in Huntsville (ooooh I wish they had a listing of all their artists but I know it is going to be great *and* one of the artists who definitely will be there is Debra Riffe (Debra I will see you for sure!))

The Magic City Art Connection in B'ham - especially:
  • Kris Golden (pottery)
  • Obie Clark (pottery)
  • Chris Clark (3d mixed media)
  • Jim Bradley (3d mixed media)
  • Steve Terlizzese
  • Robert Taylor (metal)
  • Oh, and Corks and Chefs (where you sample food from 10 chefs) is worth it!

  • really and truly too many to mention - Stephanie Dwyer, who makes those wonderful bottle trees, bottle arches, and other metal creations, will be there.
National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, TN

Yay!  Can't wait!

Bloomin' Festival and Lake Art

Posted by ginger On Wednesday, April 22, 2009

This past weekend, we went to the St. Elias Lebanese Food Festival in B'ham, the Bloomin' Festival in Cullman, and Art on the Lake in Guntersville.  


At the Bloomin' Festival, we saw icons (I think these were by Charles Chandler):

Bowed psaltry by Dave & Paulette Lewis:

Cigar box guitars by Steve & Missie Webb:
I asked if they had seen the Max Shores documentary on APT last week on cigar box guitars and they were actually in one of the scenes!

Oh!  And there were a couple of girls there that I *loved*!  I've had an idea for a while now of taking fence panels and making them into garden benches (it's a little hard to explain but I plan to make one in the next month or two) - well, these girls used antique bed frames to make their garden benches!  Oh, I love it!  

So cute!  I have their card downstairs, so if you want to contact them, email me (ginger ---AT--- deepfriedkudzu ==dot== com) and I'll send it to you.  Their prices were reasonable, too.

The festival is at St. Bernard, so we went inside the abbey church.  I grew up in Cullman, so I've been inside a few times, but Av and the boys had never and I really wanted them to see how pretty:


After we left Cullman, we headed over to Art on the Lake in Guntersville.  It seemed a little more crafty than arty.  There were lots of people buying things, though, so it may have just been me that didn't find anything crazy-good.  One of the nice things they were doing, though, was that they had one of the lures like the 'Hooked on the Alabama River Lure Tour', like the ones we saw around Montgomery, and they were asking people to come up and help paint it: 

For lunch, we went to Crawmama's, where we haven't been in at least five years.  It was really good.  The baby had a fun time:

Those royal reds sure were good:

...and Shug got to sit in the crawfish chair!

This coming weekend are a couple more *wonderful* art festivals we'll be going to...yay Spring!

Earth Day, Arbor Day, And Baby Trees With A Past

Posted by ginger On Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Today is Earth Day and Arbor Day is this Friday, so I was trying to think of something we could do, and something the boys could enjoy too (of course they're so little...but anyway...).  I was considering the American Forests Historic Tree Program.  It's where they ship the offspring of famous trees.  

This is a pic I took the last time we were at Oak Alley Plantation.  Saplings from one of these live oaks are for sale too!  They also have trees from the live oak at Brown Chapel AME in Selma, where MLK and supporters gathered for their walk across the Edmund Pettus bridge to Montgomery.  
I'd love to have one of the live oaks as well as a Patrick Henry Osage Orange,  a Robert E. Lee magnolia, and an Elvis weeping willow from Graceland...

---
Steve Bender, the Grumpy Gardener at Southern Living, posted recently about the six plants he can't live without.   When I met him a couple of months ago, he told me that he's had deep fried kudzu and that he liked it...and kudzu showed up on his list (it was #6, but still)!  Anybody that that puts kudzu, spanish moss, and native azaleas on their list of plants they can't live without is my kind of person.  He's also on Twitter, if you're twittering.  Southern Living is on, too.

Formula

Posted by ginger On Monday, April 20, 2009

When Shug was born, I had to supplement one of his feedings each day with formula (we used the Similac Organic ready-to-feed), and I somehow managed to get several cans of sample formula in the mail.  This time around with the new baby, I not only got more cans of sample formula in the mail, but a couple of diaper bags (one from my gyn office and another from the hospital, both free without my asking) with more formula choices and a couple of other things.  Since I'm not going to be using these, I brought them over to one of the women's shelters in town and they were so happy to get them!  

I'm going to encourage others in my Mommy groups to do the same thing, and I'm going to check with Similac and Enfamil about donating some formula to the shelter as well, on an ongoing basis.  If anybody knows anyone at either of these companies so we can network a bit, please email me at: ginger :::AT::: deepfriedkudzu {{{dot}}}com.  Thank you!

Mt. Nebo Faces

Posted by ginger On Friday, April 17, 2009

In Carlton, Alabama there's Mount Nebo Church - it's pretty much in the middle of the forest, and it's not very easy to find (if you're interested in going, email me: ginger AT deepfriedkudzu ...dot... com - I have the directions saved).  This is the road leading up to the church:


At the end of the road is a gate, so you'll need to leave your car there to walk up to the cemetery and church.  

The cemetery has some interesting monuments:


But the thing that makes this place so special is that some of the monuments have death masks.

The monuments were done by Isaac Nettles, Sr. 

This monument is for his wife.  I think her name was "Korean".  The faces that appear here are not of her but of their three daughters:




It's a little hard to make out, but it says "Mother was born Jan 1894 (???) died July 6, 1933".  I may have not made that out completely correctly but I think that's it.

Another monument Mr. Nettles did at Mount Nebo is this one:
It's another that's hard to make out, but I think on the left side it says "Angel", across the top "Ezella", and on the right "Nettles".  

There are a couple of other monuments Mr. Nettles was supposed to have done that I could not find.  I think that this one ...but I'm not sure at all... might have been one of his creations.  I hope-hope-hope this was not a victim of vandalism:

The way Isaac Nettles did these death masks is that he had the people - while they were still living - press their faces in a box of sand.  From that impression he would pour concrete and use paper and wire to make the finished mask.

The monuments have been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Last year, the county newspaper had an article about a man's dog digging up a bust similar to the ones at Mt. Nebo.  There may be more in other parts of the county that just aren't well-documented...

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