SUNDAY STROLL - MUDDY POND

Yesterday we got busy cleaning and clearing and planting our little plots of flowers and food, having decided we wanted Rhubarb in our mix of garden stuff, we had to go searching for the plant. Tennessee is not ideal for this cool weather produce, but we have been here 12 years and really missed those homemade Rhubarb Custard Pies. So off we went in search of a hopeful source for this wonderful pie plant. We live in the country and headed farther afield out into the rugged hills and vales of our mountain top.

We were going to see if the Mennonites who had moved from the north country of Pennsylvania had a southern tolerant Rhubarb plant we could buy for our garden. The community is called Muddy Pond and has a humorous story attached to the move from the north.

It seems these strange Yankees came to rugged Tennessee to search for cheap land and fell in love with the hills and hollows of an out of the way place where the terrain was almost straight up and down. The local landowners considered the land worthless for farming and used it to turn hogs loose in the spring to forage and then be rounded up in the fall for slaughter. The locals had a good laugh as they thought they had pulled a good one over on the hapless 'carpetbaggers' who probably would fail at taming the wilderness and have to go back north, a defeated group. The religious community had the last laugh (if they are willing to smirk a bit) because many years and much labor later they have a thriving farm community that attracts all of us outlanders to their stores, farm products and wood porch furniture. They are actually a thriving tourist attraction as well as the prosperous farmers they become in whatever part of the country they choose to cultivate.

Our first stop was the Greenhouses and we got our Rhubarb. That made us happy. I already had shopped at the Monterey Garden Club plant sale and our local Hardware store so we didn't need more plants for now. But you can't walk away without browsing a little.

Next stop was the leather shop where DH took his ease while I played Photographer.

I was so caught up in the buffalo pulled Amish Buggy that I didn't even go inside to inhale the fine leather fragrance and admire the saddles and all things leather that lure the Tennessee horse crowd in the door.

The general store has bulk foods and Fried Fruit Pies and I always stock up while I am in the neighborhood.

We still had a mission to finished because DH also wanted to plant some Sorghum seeds. Sorghum for the unenlightened is a sweet cane that can be pulverized and squeezed for the juice that is then boiled like Maple sap and rendered into a syrup or molasses. It is -nectar of the Gods - to many a southern 'born and bred, died in the wool, butter'n'biscuit with Sorghum slathered all over- maven'. It is DH's desire to be able to grow the cane and be able to break off a section for the sole purpose of chewing the cane and savoring the sweet juicy morsel.

I sure hope it lives up to his childhood memory of what it tasted like.

After procuring his wonderful seeds from one of the farmers we were headed home to put our precious plants and seeds in the ground.

Thanks for coming along for a tour of our countryside.

To see more and to stroll more visit Aisling's blog to see who else is out and about.