FP&P merges with WilliamsWrite

Keeping two blogs is a real pain in the posterior. So until further notice, Forgotten Plants & Places will be merging with my other blog, WilliamsWrite.

Thanks for reading! See you on the other blog.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: 5/23/12

My hens average nearly a dozen eggs per week—and I'm very grateful, too!

Fresh eggs from my backyard hens in a glass quart measuring cup
LaGrange, Georgia—21 Feb 2010

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: 5/16/12

They once belonged to my great-grandmother, Mae Barrett Williams

I've always adored these antique cut-glass buttons from my mother's vast sewing stash. My great-grandmother gave them to Mom when I was a toddler, adding that she'd never used the buttons on any dress she'd ever made. "The edges of the buttonholes are sharp, and wear out the thread," Maw-Mae said.

They probably date from the late 1890s through the 1920s. Mom's kept them for nearly 40 years, preferring not to use them despite major advances in sewing thread technology. We've seen many gorgeous buttons in fabric stores, but none quite like these.

Antique cut-glass buttons from my mother's collection
Heard County, Georgia—11 July 2010

Monday. Meh.

Today's post is co-hosted by my other blog, WilliamsWrite.

It's Monday, and for whatever reason, words aren't coming to me as easily as usual. Don't know why. I mean, it's not as if there aren't a lot of forgotten plants and places around here to document.

Poke salad, no Annie.
(LaGrange, Georgia—29 April 2012)

That's one of the downsides to blogging: Even if I don't feel very inspired, I still have to post new content on a regular basis. Of course, as I tell my students, there's nothing to get you inspired like writing when you're not inspired. Sounds counterintuitive, but it really works. Just as with plumbing work, you have to flush all the junk from the pipes before the clean water can flow. Write a little while, get the junk and fragmented thoughts out of your brain, and the good ideas begin to flow onto the page. Trust me.

Currently, I'm working on a couple of exciting projects—one involves a historic home, and the other involves highways. For fear of jinxing myself, I won't divulge more. But if these ideas turn out, they'll make for great reading and interesting photos.

I don't know why I took a photo of the poke salad (phytolacca americana) leaves above. I also don't know why I thought it would go with this post. But I stumbled upon it while looking for interesting Nearly Wordless Wednesday pictures, and then started humming "Poke Salad Annie." My late father sang that song all the time. Okay, so he knew only part of the first verse and the chorus, but he still sang it.



Heed the Alabama Extension Service's warning, though, and don't carry any poke salad home in a tote sack.

Let it rain!

Weather.com Doppler radar shows storms moving in (9 May 2012)

It's delightfully stormy here today. After a rather dry couple of months—uncharacteristic of a Southern spring—we've had quite a bit of rainy weather over the last week. Thank goodness! The plants were already beginning to look droopy. Local lakes, which I watched refill with water during January and February, seemed to be slipping back down again. But I think they'll be all right after the inch or two of rain we've had lately.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: 5/9/12

Once ripe, they made the best homemade peach ice cream ever.

Tiny green "baby peaches" on the ancient peach tree in my mother's yard
Heard County, Georgia—25 April 2010

Previously featured in "The Little Peach Tree That Could"

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: 5/2/12

I reuse commercial egg cartons to store my own chickens' eggs.

My little brown hens lay brown eggs. And pink eggs. And suntan eggs. And café-au-lait eggs.
LaGrange, Georgia—4 August 2011