granola oil

Like most southern women of my era, I learned to fry up things in a hot greasy iron skillet, even in the dead of summer...maybe especially so then because that's when the garden comes in. My mama canned a whole shit load of green beans with home grown dill and garlic cloves back in the day. She also managed to save enough sweet corn and purple hull peas for special occasions like Thanksgiving or somebody's birthday. Like it or not, there was always a ketchup bottle in the picture when we gathered around their table. I've got pictures to prove it.

Thanks to Rachel Ray and the health gurus, I've switched to EVOO as my oil of choice. There are fresh herbs growing in pots out back that get watered most every day. And there are little salad 'maters growing out of concrete blocks, a tribute to my father's agricultural genius. BG loves them, especially when mixed with basil and garlic left to sit in the frig for a week or so. I may have to buy some bigger ones to make that special spaghetti sauce unless daddy decides to share from HIS concrete blocks.

As I was heading down the basement steps to look for seven dust the other day I spotted this ginormous snake skin on the concrete ledge to the left. Dude usually hangs it from the tree out back about this time of year so I can only imagine that he's down there slithering around trying to find a cool spot. Thank goodness we've got the doors blocked with rolled up towels. If ya'll hear a scream, it's me when I get the next utility bill for this old house. I imagine that's when I'll finish the packing and move on.

One of the heirs seems to have an interest in the history of how he came to be a co-owner of Pecan Lane and the surrounding acreage. He and my brother and I met in my kitchen last fall to go through the mounds of paper that were on daddy's office floor in the upstairs where nobody ever goes. Once upon a time, all five of us slept up there. I had my own room just like my brothers did. Our parents slept in the UT room in separate beds and snored to high heaven. That was before I ever even heard of tylenol pm as a sleep aid.

I reckon it all worked out. We're all still kicking with another baby grandgirl on the way due right around her brother's birthday in late September. That circle is still unbroken. Far be it from me to be the one to make a fuss and get people all pissed off about life. It's always been thus and so.