Pear Tree Farm : ME? A FARMER'S WIFE?: Me? A Farmer’s Wife? abayles01@snet.net
By Conni Partridge
Mud from the
rains in the spring of March, 2013 presented sticky problems for a woman
whose father had been a wholesale florist during the 1940s. The
caladium farmer had prevented Conni from working on the floral acres in
Central Florida with his male Chauvinistic view of girls on the farm.
Conni
and Sam were married in January of 2013 and closed on the farm in
February. Trying to become a Farmer’s Wife, she plunged into the
intricate planting of tiny seeds in little cups, learned how to cut up
seed potatoes, Swept dirt from between the ancient floorboards of the
old farm house and learned the music of a college student’s rooster,
which crowed in a squealy, Bantam shriek.
A graphic designer and
writer, Conni began to pursue the market for work in advertising and
publishing to supplement farm expenses. Since job hunting requires the
seeker to dress for success, Conni wore a dress and heels.
One rainy
day, she returned to the farm and turned in the driveway. Stepping
quickly from her little Volkswagen Golf, she squished into a loblolly of
mud so deep, her high heel shoes made suction noises when she tried to
walk out of the quagmire.
The Partridges and Bertha parted company
that summer, leaving Conni with the responsibility of harvest. Sam
bought her a gardener’s go cart with big plastic wheels and a tool
chamber under the seat. Setting all crutches and walking canes aside,
Conni tackled the gardens Bertha had planted. She weeded, mulched and
watched the bees as they pollinated various blossoms. These minutes
outdoors with something to sit on gave Conni the incentive to press on.
Minutes became hours, hours became all day harvesting; she waxed strong
and brought fresh produce into her kitchen, marching across the acres
with less effort each day.
Conni picked and pickled: beans,
cucumbers, pattipan squash, beets and green tomatoes. She made apple
butter, dug potatoes, yanked turnips and carrots plus clipped various
gourds and squash, dill and basil.
Sam stayed on in Connecticut keeping up with his excavation business, visiting their farm on weekends.
He
plumbed a new kitchen sink, salvaged and installed an antique wood
stove in case the grid goes out, put new toilets in both bathrooms,
finished the closets so Conni can hang clothes on something besides
bungie cords and set up power in the garage/workshop.
The barn now
has power and the newly-built back porch will store wood for winter.
Come spring we will introduce our black Lab, Bud to a herd of pigs, a
flock of baby chicks and some heifer calves. The new greenhouse will
nurture the seedlings we will plant.
The Wooly Worm told Conni and Sam there would be a severe winter in 2013-2014.
The story continues.
You may contact Conni Partridge at abayles01@snet.net.
Friday, April 25, 2014
ME? A FARMER'S WIFE?
Me? A Farmer’s Wife?
Conni Partridge
Mud from the rains in the spring of March, 2013 presented sticky problems for a woman whose father had been a wholesale florist during the 1940s. The caladium farmer had prevented Conni from working on the floral acres in Central Florida with his male Chauvinistic view of girls on the farm.
Conni and Sam were married in January of 2013 and closed on the farm in February. Trying to become a Farmer’s Wife, she plunged into the intricate planting of tiny seeds in little cups, learned how to cut up seed potatoes, Swept dirt from between the ancient floorboards of the old farm house and learned the music of a college student’s rooster, which crowed in a squealy, Bantam shriek.
A graphic designer and writer, Conni began to pursue the market for work in advertising and publishing to supplement farm expenses. Since job hunting requires the seeker to dress for success, Conni wore a dress and heels.
One rainy day, she returned to the farm and turned in the driveway. Stepping quickly from her little Volkswagen Golf, she squished into a loblolly of mud so deep, her high heel shoes made suction noises when she tried to walk out of the quagmire.
The Partridges and Bertha parted company that summer, leaving Conni with the responsibility of harvest. Sam bought her a gardener’s go cart with big plastic wheels and a tool chamber under the seat. Setting all crutches and walking canes aside, Conni tackled the gardens Bertha had planted. She weeded, mulched and watched the bees as they pollinated various blossoms. These minutes outdoors with something to sit on gave Conni the incentive to press on. Minutes became hours, hours became all day harvesting; she waxed strong and brought fresh produce into her kitchen, marching across the acres with less effort each day.
Conni picked and pickled: beans, cucumbers, pattipan squash, beets and green tomatoes. She made apple butter, dug potatoes, yanked turnips and carrots plus clipped various gourds and squash, dill and basil.
Sam stayed on in Connecticut keeping up with his excavation business, visiting their farm on weekends.
He plumbed a new kitchen sink, salvaged and installed an antique wood stove in case the grid goes out, put new toilets in both bathrooms, finished the closets so Conni can hang clothes on something besides bungie cords and set up power in the garage/workshop.
The barn now has power and the newly-built back porch will store wood for winter. Come spring we will introduce our black Lab, Bud to a herd of pigs, a flock of baby chicks and some heifer calves. The new greenhouse will nurture the seedlings we will plant.
The Wooly Worm told Conni and Sam there would be a severe winter in 2013-2014.
The story continues.
You may contact Conni Partridge at abayles01@snet.net.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
On Mischief and the Spoken Word
Zat
Yourn?
By
Conni Partridge
Aka
Adora Mitchell Bayles
My
thesis is what exposure to different languages, dialects, regional speech
patterns and peer English language correction on the school playground have
done to shape my life and develop my attitudes and communication skills. It all
began with a puzzling conversation I had with a young student in the elementary
school I attended as a child.
“Zat
yourn?”
I
turned to look into the handsome face of a little Cracker boy, the first I’d
ever encountered. His blue eyes twinkled with fresh, little boy interest.
“What?”
I said. I watched as he placed a small hand on my brand new bicycle I’d
received for my ninth birthday.
“Zat
yourn?” he repeated. His little boy sweat wafted to me as I said again, “What?”
“ZAT YOURN?” he screamed.
This
was my forst encounter with the Florida Cracker dialect.
My
parents both spoke educated English and our school encouraged the use of
correct English on the playground. Peers corrected peers. Learned students
corrected dialect students and often teased them.
Cracker
students often rebelled at correction, probably because of their parents’
fierce rejection of ‘em ‘ere rich people’s way of talkin’. Who knows where their language originated?
Old whip-cracking cattle men came from wiry Spanish stock and clung to the old
sounds their ancestors made, corrupting what remnants they could remember of
words handed down through generations of just surviving on the land. Chicken
Perlau (Chicken and rice), Joner (a bad omen) He do? (does he?) Mixed with
slave words, old English and Conquistator Spanish, the Cracker dialect has
become almost a language all its own. Plumb up yonder (all the way to the end),
Pickininny (piqueña, Micosukee child) Marshtackie (Spanish pony, descendants of
the Conquistadors’ horses.
Sometimes
I picked up on this “language” and even learned some of the Pennsylvania Dutch
words that snowbirds brought in winter to our Central Florida tourist town. I
invited a Pennsylvania girl into my home. “I dare’snt,” she declined (I don’t
dare). My father laughed and mocked her. When I learned to make my voice go up
in a question, I was surprised to hear my Pennsylvania classmates go down to a
period when asking the same question! Learning early on that there was a
difference in regional speech, I began to imitate dialects and even tried to
speak like an Englishwoman I’d seen in a movie.
Growing
up in a small southern town where black people were expected to live on the
other side of the tracks, I learned, early on., their language was different.
The white collective opinion was that “colored people” were not smart enough to
speak correct English.
As
a child, I learned a deep respect for a people whom my parents had tried to
teach me were inferior. With my own ears, I picked up the sweet sounds of a
black woman ordering meat in perfect English. At age eight, I found myself
tucking away a bit of knowledge: Not all
black people are inferior.
A
genealogy assignment required me to ask my mother about my ancestors. She told
me very little but, among others, she told me briefly of my Spanish heritage.
This
knowledge sparked my interest in the Spanish language course offered at my
school. Most students took the course because it was supposed to be an easy
credit. One of my classmates, Raymond, whose mother was from Cuba, argued
constantly with the teacher.
As
for me, Spanish was a language to be learned thoroughly and used. Consequently,
I observed the arguments between Raymond and Mr. Mullen with keen interest.
With
his Alabama guppy mouth way of speaking, Mr. Mullen spoke the worst Spanish I
have ever heard. Alabamans talk with their lower jaw bumping their upper jaw
and they look like guppies. With Raymond’s years as a child growing up in the
back booth of a Cuban restaurant, his mother a waitress, his uncle a chef, and
his siblings’ bilingual interactions, he initiated some hilarious arguments
between himself and the drawling professor.
My
love for languages began to flourish in that class with students’ various
degrees of interest, a girl extracting earwax with a pencil eraser, a boy
pitching tiny bits of bubble gum into girls’ hair, classmates acting silly, the
Florida heat, hormones raging, Raymond waving his arms and shouting Cuban
proverbs. None of these things disturbed my learning curve when it came to
pursuing the new language. And I absorbed a little Cubanese in the process.
I
was a poor student in high school. Kids and teachers alike yelled at me for
asking silly quesrions and mis-pronouncing words, such as po-littics. One day, I had to speak in class. I used the word,
“satisfactory.” My classmates chorused loudly, “Adora! Where did you learn that
great big word?”
I
went home crying and told my mother. She hated it when the kids made fun of me.
It was almost summer. Mama said, “You will look up two words every day, all
summer long. And you will read one article a day in the National Geographic.”
That
discipline opened a whole new world of language for me! I neer stopped at two
of Webster’s definitions. My
curiosity took the reins and drove me with my new appetites for definitions of
hundreds of words and for new means of expression.
I
learned, above all, that happiness is an informed brain and a higher means of
communication than the mundane blather and constricted mentality of a small
town.
Yes,
I had learned to strive for excellence!
I
went on to graduate high school, excelling in essay writing and working hard to
learn as much Spanish as I could.
When
I was in college fifty years ago, I had already had two years of Spanish and
had learned to speak English with a very convincing Spanish accent. I met a
handsome student who was taking courses at Florida Southern college in Lakeland
to supplement his master’s degree at John’s Hopkins. What a catch he would have
been, if he’d had a sense of humor! Flirting, we exchanged names. I was Adora
(roll that r) from “Sous Amettica.” Every time we met in the commissary we
would sit together and flirt. This poor guy was absolutely charmed by my long
brown hair, flashing dark eyes and Latina persona.
I
told my friends about the mischievous game and was sitting with them when he
entered the commissary one day. He came to speak and I talked sweetly in my
Spanish accent. My friends shouted with laughter.
When
I saw his puzzled expression, I explained, in my most southern of drawl, that I
was an American. He walked away and never spoke to me again.
This
prank led to other, funnier trick playing, which I developed into a science,
all because my developing language expansion was opening broader new horizons.
Not only did I play pranks, I began to play on words with people who used big
words out of context, and would challenge them.
“Don’t
eat no food what done fell on the floor, you’ll get hysterphobia,” a Tennessean
said to me.
Hyster, the root for
womb, gave me hilarious ammunition. “You mean I’ll be scared to get back inside
my mother’s belly if I eat off the floor?” Their angry reaction was always
titillating.
Many
Tennesseans are unable to pronounce a diphthong,sounding
two different vowels side-by-side. Ruin is run. lesbian is lesban. Past tense
for ruin is runt. (You mean the least one of the litter?)
I
married an Appalachian. I should have known better. His dialect was the most
bizarre mixture of misused words and fractured grammar I had ever heard. He did
not speak English. He spoke Tennessee. His word for illegitimate was
illiterate, deliberately was delli brately, wedlock was whetlock, chichés were
all mixed up and meaningless and rich people were “Higher than thou art. His
favorite slogan was, “Them that has, gits.”
By
this time I had been exposed to new dialects, dabbled in Russian and French,
and tried tro practice my Spanish with whomever I could corner. During a long
marriage, my husband enriched my repertoire of the widely-used Appalachian
dialect until I had mastered this colorful lingo.
When
I began to write my first historical non-fiction, “Wagons South!,” which is
based on the truth about my own family, I researched old census records. There,
to my enormous delight, I found that mysterious Spaniard, Cora Mitchell!
Cora
came to life under my excited hand and I conjured a hi8gh-spirited female
character who outshone my intended protagonist—my own mother. Cora was my great
grandmother. I never knew her. According to the census, she was born in New
Orleans to parents who had immigrated from Spain. I patterned her speech after
what I considered a first generation American who grew up without schooling on
the wharves of New Orleans, learning what she could from the natives and from
her Spanish parents. I have heard rhis kind of street English in second and
third generation Italians who lived in thickly-populated Italian immigrant
neighborhoods and had never really become Americanized.
Armed
with my collection of regional attitudes and nuances of speech, plus thick and
thin dialects, I played with my characters until I had written a rollicking
saga of three families with one goal—to settle in Florida for a new life. Each
character has his own speech patterns and verbal color.
I
chose a nom deplume using my maiden name as a middle name to identify myself to
the many people who’ve known me as Adora Mitchell through the years. This
tri-name sets me apart, giving me uniqueness.
Also,
with this collection of dialects, hick talk, brogues, high school Spanish and
bits and pieces of foreign languages, I have enriched my own language enough to
fall into virtually any pattern of speech with ease.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
How to Leave a Crazy Marriage Without Feeling Guilty
How to Leave a Crazy Marriage Without Feeling Guilty
I wrote a book about it. "Defection at 60, I left dinner on the stove and ran away from home" is the story of my life. It tells of the struggles of a young girl growing up in a man's world. Re-inventing myself several times over a period of 80 years, I learned to overcome the idiocy of Male Chauvinism, that unreasonable arbitration that so many women put up with.
I am offering this beautiful book for the reduced price of $20.00 along with FREE shipping. (Amazon.com has it listed at $29.95.) I will personalize and ship the book. Please give the name you want in my personal autograph "to you" plus your name, address and zip code.
Excerpt from the book:
“Shut up and eat your
supper.” The words bounced lightly from my lips as I blurted my newly-learned
assertiveness at my husband.
The old tyrant had just
spit another one of his gripes over my cooking. I was leaving the table to fill
another serving bowl of my delicious cuisine. When he started in with his
incessant complaining, I told him quietly, matter-of-factly, without anger—to
shut up.
His shock was apparent;
he turned his head, stared at nothing for a moment, then put his head down and
began to eat.
Oh, my gosh! He really did shut up! I thought, excitedly.
For nine long months, I
had attended an assertiveness training class under a psychiatrist’s orders.
After fourteen years of t
his crazy marriage, with vague hopes of solving the
mystery of its failures, I had visited a Family Counseling Center in Pinellas
County, Florida – free. But with a long line of poor families waiting for
assistance, my assertiveness counselor had threatened to expel me from the class.
One of my classmates, Debra White, a very articulate radio speaker, took
assertive courage and remarked, “Adora, you can’t do your grocery shopping on a
vacuum cleaner!”
Debbie had been
listening to my misadventure with my husband and the unwanted purchase of a
Rainbow vacuum cleaner.
The salesman had
presented the contraption to us as an air purifier. Cougar was a heavy smoker
who constantly complained about the air and always huffed and puffed when the
Florida humidity aggravated his smoky old lungs. So his excitement and hyper
jabber accelerated until I had to leave the room.
“Adora!” he expulted,
“It’s an air purifier! It’ll make the air better in here! We’ll be able to
breathe easier! We’ll…”
The two men tried and
tried to get me to sign for a payment contract. I wasn’t even working. What did
they want with my signature? I was a non-smoker so I found it hard to
understand his poor lung capacity. It would’ve been cheaper for him to quit
smoking. Doubly cheaper. He’d save by not buying cigarettes and by forgetting
about buying a very expensive appliance.
I went to bed.
At eleven-thirty that
night, Cougar entered the bedroom and wakened me. “The man is still waiting for
your signature, Baby!” He always called me Baby when he wanted something from
me.
I caved in. I signed
the paper.
In my next
assertiveness class, I announced my failure to say no to the persuasive
salesman and to my husband. I had held out a long time. Classmates rattled my
cage from all sides. Well, it felt like a cage. That was when Debra made her
remark. She clamped both hands over her mouth.
“Don’t do that, Debra!”
I said quickly. “You speak your mind, say what you think! Don’t ever hold back.”
I might have taken the same advice.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Pear Tree Farm : My Dog BudA year ago, I got married. It never occu...
Pear Tree Farm : My Dog BudA year ago, I got married. It never occu...: My Dog Bud A year ago, I got married. It never occurred to me that I would become a farmer's wife. Now I "are one!" I le...
My Dog Bud.jpg)
My dog, Bud is the sweetest dog ever. He is so attached to me that I am surprised he was willing to ride in the small farm trailer, pulled by Sam's rusty antique Oliver tractor. The dog had such a fit when Sam put me in the Hitachi excavator they had to tie him up while I learning to dig a trench with the big machine. There's no room even for a cat in the cab of this thing but Bud was so determined to get in with me they helped him climb onto the tracks and shoehorn himself between me and the controls.Conni
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