Little Magpie

chasing shiny objects

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The Dumpster Roses

I come from a long line of rose raisers. This makes it sound as though there is an art to it - and there probably is - but I think rose raising is somewhat comparable to dough kneading and child rearing: the less over handling you do, the better things turn out. My maternal grandmother's roses were ramblers - they arched over the doorway of the old house and made their way to the edges of the windows as though to peek inside. Similarly, my grandmother was a little bit of a worry-wart, ... View Post

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Forgotten Arkansas: Paraclifta

I'd heard my Dad mention Paraclifta a number of times through the years, and his passing comments always intrigued me. What was this place that had been completely wiped from the map where once there had been a thriving town? I kept telling myself I would dig into it. Finally, I had my shot when Dad and I took a recent road trip back down old highway 71 together. I've written a past ode to 71 - much of my childhood was spent in the small towns along it. I'll share more about this particular ... View Post

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The Care & Feeding Of The Good House {Home Tour}

Blogger Home Tour This post originally appeared on Arkansas Women Bloggers as part of the blogger home tour series. Warning: this may not be the stereotypical home tour. In fact, it's really more of a love letter on the care and feeding of The Good House. I hope you don't mind.  We have loved this house. For well over a decade - two thirds of our married life - we've loved its expansive porch, the shady canopy of its old trees, its peeling paint and uneven hardwood floors. We are ... View Post

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Channeling Hemingway in Arkansas

In the last post, I shared a bit about the town of Piggott in northeast Arkansas, where I was fortunate to spend several days last spring with a friend. I've always had a little bit of an affinity for doing random things with random people or putting together an event or social gathering that throws all sorts of differing personalities into a living, breathing experiment. While my husband is the scientist, I love the results of observing human beings in my own hypothetical laboratory. In this ... View Post

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The Biggest Small Town in Arkansas

The charming town of Piggott (population 3,774) sits on the edge of Crowley's Ridge looking eastward toward the Delta, and it's surrounded on three sides by Missouri.  Happily for Arkansas, though, it's all ours. When my pal and I made off far too late one evening in an easterly direction toward Piggott for a writers' retreat at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center last spring, we had no idea the journey would take us two hours longer than we planned (be forewarned and ... View Post

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801 Eleventh Street

We pulled through town and turned off the main thoroughfare, crossing the railroad tracks as we’ve always done and driving up the hill. . As it has for well over a century, the little old house sat there stoically as life moved on around it.  Surrounded by streets on all three sides, it is its own little island fortress in the heart of a small town in Arkansas. Mena was incorporated in 1896, and the little old house witnessed the vast majority of the town’s ebbing and flowing as it soldiered on ... View Post