Tabla de contenidos para July/August 2024 en Grit

“Hold on to what is good, even if it’s a handful of earth.”—Isapo-Muxika (Chief Crowfoot) I love summer. I even enjoy the heat—bit of a necessity, being that I live in deep East Texas and it’s pretty much always hot and humid. Some of the best parts of summer are the moments when I get to escape my normal day-to-day stuff and go fishing, hiking, or camping, but my absolute favorite moments are our family dinners. Every weekend, in summer especially, we host our children (both young and adult, born to us or adopted), grandchildren, neighbors, and folks we consider family, and we make a huge dinner and simply spend the day existing—we eat, play cornhole, crack jokes, roast marshmallows or apples, catch fireflies, and just generally have a great…

The modern era of blogs, websites, and glossy magazines have given us an unending, indefatigable supply of information, photos, and opinions about gardening. Never has more information been so widely available. A side effect of this visual onslaught, however, is that most everything looks, well, perfect. Weedless gardens, blemishfree produce, and picturesque baskets of rainbow-hued garden abundance gleam from every corner, making it seem like gardening is always easy, successful, and Instagram-worthy. In contrast, we may find ourselves with underproductive food plots, pestriddled produce, and a sense of failure and disappointment. The real world isn’t a stock image; it’s a lot more nuanced, a lot more interesting, and a lot less perfect. It can be easy to get down on yourself and get the “I must not have a green…

Beyond the convenient boxes, jars, and jugs at the grocery store is an unseen world of food transport on a massive scale. Enormous amounts of food are freighted from growers to packers to factories and distributors, and they don’t come in cutesy little packages. No, we’re talking containment on a giant scale, with 275-gallon totes of cooking oil, 55-gallon drums of syrup, or 5-gallon buckets of sliced jalapeños traveling their seldom-noticed routes alongside you on the freeway. This article isn’t about the complexities and nuances of the food-shipping industry, however. This article is, instead, all about the containers that make food-moving possible. You see, once those massive totes, barrels, and buckets have been relieved of their contents, they can be repurposed for endless uses on the homestead. These giant containers…

My grandmother has been receiving GRIT for many years and has been very kind in passing it on to my family. I enjoy looking at the pictures and reading the articles. I’m 11 years old and am in sixth grade and was inspired to write this poem by my own calves and their “zoomies.” I’d be very honored if you’d consider publishing my poem. EVALYN ELISE KRAEGERNEBRASKA Evalyn, Thank you so much for your poem! The editors here at GRIT absolutely love it and are so glad to know you enjoy our magazine. We’d like to encourage you to keep writing and nurture that budding love of words. Maybe one day, you can join our awesome team of writers and write your own articles with us! We think you deserve…

Growing up, I always heard people say “it takes a village” when raising children. As an adult, I’ve come to realize it doesn’t just take a village to raise babies — it takes a village to raise up a quality community full of homesteads and farms. And feeding that community good food ensures folks will help when homestead projects need doing. Learning to cook for large gatherings can be a challenge for some. But here are two Southwestern-style meals that are both delicious and feed many. And what’s a good country gathering without a sweet treat to enjoy at the end? My personal favorite dessert for large gatherings is apples with a brown-sugar dip that’s simply hard to refuse. It pairs well with both main dishes. It’s also a great…

Every farmer wants to get away once in a while. But leaving tender garden crops, valuable livestock animals, and intricate daily routines can make a vacation from farming almost impossible. While some farmers, particularly vegetable and flower gardeners, are able to escape during the winter months, those with livestock or year-round growing seasons can’t simply leave the farm. Finding a farm sitter is one way you can get some rest and relaxation away from the daily grind, and having a farm sitter in your contacts will also ensure your animals will be taken care of in an emergency. How Do You Find a Farm Sitter? Connecting with a good farm sitter can be difficult. While rural areas may have an abundance of people well-qualified to care for a farm, many…

Meteorologists will tell you that weather radar is the best tool you can use to predict rain or snow in the next few hours—and they’re not the only ones who can use it. It’s not that hard to understand, and the internet gives you access to weather radars 24/7. It can even warn you about impending thunderstorms and tornadoes. RIDING THE (MICRO)WAVES First, let’s talk basics. “Radar” is an acronym for “radio detection and ranging.” A radar set consists of a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter sends out a pulse of energy (microwaves have replaced the original radio waves). If that pulse hits an object, a tiny fraction of that energy is reflected back. A receiver—the familiar radar dish—captures this energy. The signal is amplified and transformed into an…

It’s on your calendar—that hike. And whether it’s a short, full-day, or multi-day trek, you’ll want it to be safe and enjoyable. Here to provide survival and emergency essentials is Royce Jones, a wilderness patroller of the Mount San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness, which is located on the mountain that overlooks Palm Springs, California. His wilderness training and over 800 miles of backpacking have resulted in immeasurable hiking experience. Jones emphasizes that even the simplest, easiest, and shortest trips afield can quickly turn into a major challenge—even a life-threatening one—because of changes in weather, injury, getting lost, or Mother Nature’s whims. “Not being prepared can be a disaster,” he says, and you can’t rely on just “luck” or the thought that it’s “only” a short day out. “Can you…

It’s funny how the simplest things can trigger indelible memories. I was grocery shopping recently and passed neatly packaged, shucked corn on the cob in the produce section and immediately thought about the part corn played during my childhood on our family’s dairy farms in Mississippi. My grandmother had one in Independence, and we had one about 30 miles from her in Horn Lake. Unlike the densely planted fields you see today, corn was planted in remarkably straight rows back then, spaced far enough apart for my sisters and me to play hide-and-go-seek. Stalks would tower above us like a magical jungle, a reprieve from the oppressive sun. We often learned more about life from our hands-on experiences on our family’s farms than we did from textbooks. We knew that…

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