Steam powered sawmill in Harkey Valley. Image donated by Freda Martin Cossey.
The Seed and the Story is a partnership with the Courier newspaper serving Pope and Yell County, Arkansas. This weekly column explores folklife, oral history, and community in central Arkansas, particularly the Yell County area where the column originates. Columns are often written in partnership with the McElroy House: Organization for Cultural Resources and Community Action and humbly attempt to bridge intergenerational themes in the region.
Columns typically run ever other Sunday in the Courier and are also published here on the Boiled Down Juice. Below is a list of columns published over the years.
Columns by Date:
February 15, 2015: A New CSA, Garden Project Update, Pecan Workshop, Caregiver Workshop, and More.
February 2, 2015: Kabat-Zinn and the Importance of Caregiving and Intergenerational Connections
January 20, 2105: Muzzled Oxen Part 4: Malaria and Tornados
December 23, 2014: Something for the Kids: Simple Salt Dough Ornaments
December 14, 2014: “Ella’s Song: The Importance of Coming Together as Caregivers
October 27, 2014: McElroy House Pie Stories: A Tale from Two Sisters
October 14, 2014: McElroy House Harvest Run Family Stories
September 28, 2014: Community Sings and Square Dances: Muzzled Oxen Part 3
September 14, 2014: Prayer Shawls and Homemade Quilts
August 31, 2014: Muzzled Oxen:Reaping Cotton and Sowing Hope inn 19201 Arkansas, Part 2
No columns for the month of August. Column returns August 31st!
July 20, 2014: American Revolutionary: Grace Lee Boggs
July 6, 2014: Muzzled Oxen: Reaping Cotton and Sowing Hope in 1920s Arkansas, Part 1
May 18, 2014: Decoration Days in Yell County, 2014
May 4, 2014: McElroy House to Partner with CAAH (Conserving Arkansas’ Agricultural Heritage)
April 20, 2014: Rachel Carson’s Birthday, Butterfly Resources, New Column Dates
April 6, 2014: Meet the Growers: Violet Bullock (Partnership with the McElroy House)
March 30, 2014: Trail of Tears 175th Anniversary
March 23, 2014: Created Equal Film Series
March 16, 2014: Rosemary Recipe to Welcome Spring
March 9, 2014: Stone Songs on the Trail of Tears
March 2, 2014: 50 Years After the War on Poverty: ARVAC and Local Stories
February 23, 2014: Ina May, Anna Mary Sykes and Midwifery Stories
February 16, 2014: Remembering Pete Seeger
January 22, 2014: Wildflowers and the Discernment of Weeds
January 15, 2014: Meeting the Gardeners: The Sigles (Partnership with the McElroy House)
December 25, 2013: An Update on LID Workshop (partnership with McElroy House)
December 18, 2013: A Mighty Pecan
December 11, 2013: No column
December 4, 2013:Learning from Leaves
November 27: Midwife’s Tale and Oral Histories
November 20, 2013: Yonder Mountain: An Ozarks Anthology
November 13, 2013: Creation of Hot Sprigs Public Lands
November 6, 2013: Meet the Growers: James Obie Wood (Partnership with McElroy House Garden Book)
October 30. 2013: The Beauty of Mustard Greens
October 23, 2013: Economy, Democracy, and Enlarging Ideas of Localism.
October 16, 2013: “What Could Be the Meaning or Use of Such Love?”
October 2, 2013: Meet the McElroy House Pie Makers
September 25th: Arkansas’s First All Female Local Government
September September 18, 2013: The United People’s Co-Op
September 11, 2013: Growing Wild Mint
September 4, 2013: Singing Schools: Encyclopedia of Arkansas Music Part 2
August 22, 2013: Pies for Pavement and the Creation of the McElroy House Community Center
August 15th, 2013: “Single Pens, Saddlebags, and Dogtrots: An Online Exhibit from the Shiloh Museum
August 9th, 2013: The Seed of Sally Good’n: A Black Family of Arkansas 1833-1953
July 31st, 2013: Industry in Arkansas: Harvey Couch Part 2
July 25, 2013: Trains, Phones, Electricity: Harvey Couch, Part 1
July 17, 2013: Low Impact Design and Why It Matters
July 10, 2013: “No One Here Should Ever Go Hungry:” The Work of Harmony Gardens
July 3, 2013: Summer Reading Series: Arkansas Butterflies and Moths by Lori A. Spencer
June 26, 2013: Equality, Hoover’s Ideas for Land Reform, and the Flood of 1927
June 19, 2013: Summer Reading Series: Right to DREAM
June 12, 2013: Fallen Limbs and Fighting Drought: Using Hugelkultur in the Garden
May 29, 2013: Arkansas Toad Season
May 22, 2013: Summer Reading Series: An Arkansas Folklore Sourcebook
May 15, 2013: From Here to California: What’s Your Family’s Migration Story?
May 8, 2013: Mother’s Day Corsages and the Peace Movement
May 1, 2013: Seeking Meaning in Decoration Days
April 24, 2013: Living Out the Land Ethic: The Campbells in Pope County
April 17, 2013: Community News Columns and Harmony Gardens
April 10, 2013: Online Resources for Mayflower Oil Spill
April 3, 2013: Turkey Buzzards, Groundhogs, and Other Signs of a Late Thawing Spring
March 19, 2013: In the Logging Woods of Yell County: Stories from the region’s timber boom.
March 6, 2013: Don’t Forget This Song: A History of the Carter Family in Graphic Novel Form
February 20, 2013: Democracy, Dialogue, and Community Action: Truth and Reconciliation in Greensboro, by Spoma Jovanovic.
February 13, 2o13: Russellville CAAH Seed Swap
February 6, 2013: Dardanelle, Ola and Southern by Clifton Hull
January 30, 2013: River Oaks Press and the Mount Magazine Rural Record
January 23, 2013: FRESH guide to Local Food in Little Rock
January 16, 2013: Intergenerational Gardening
January 2, 2013: A Student’s Story of Green Tomato Pie (partnership with ATU)
December 12, 2012: Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr.
December 5, 2012: Arkansas Master Naturalists
November 28, 2012: Town of Ola (Partnership with the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture)
November 21, 2012: Birta and Highway 10
November 21, 2012: Thanksgiving Traditions and Food
November 15, 2012: Early Documentation from Sulphur Springs
November 8, 2012: Sustainable Growing in the Region/McElroy House Update.
October 31, 2012: Rerun of column from 2011: Coming of Autumn
October 24: Dwight Mission (Partnership with Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture)
October 17, 2012: Meeting the Chickens, an Update on the McElroy House Garden Book Project
October 10, 2012: A Changing Landscape and the Creation of Lake Dardanelle
October 3, 2012: Studs Terkel, Will the Circle Be Unbroken
September 27, 2012: Spider Lilies, Signs of Fall
September 19, 2012: Samuel S. Taylor and the Federal Writers Project Slave Narratives (FWP Part 5)
September 5, 2012: Federal Writers Project Part 3: Slave Narratives from Arkansas
August 29, 2012: WPA Guide to 1930s Arkansas and the Federal Writers Project (Part 2)
August 22, 2012: WPA Guide to 1930s Arkansas (Part 1)
August 15, 2012: Bodark Trees (Partnership with the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture)
August 8, 2012: Controversy and the Forest (A Review of Trees Part 2)
August 1, 2012: Photography and the Creation of the Ozark-St. Francis National Forests
July 25, 2012: Violet Sory and the ARVAC Crafts Co-Op.
July 18, 2012: The Ghost of the Ozarks by Brooks Blevins
Reader Submission: Photos from 1920s Sorghum Harvest in Harkey’s Valley
June 27, 2012: Daddy’s Money: A Memoir of Farm and Family by Jo McDougall
June 20, 2012: Bringing Nature Home Part 2: Butterfly Gardening
June 13, 2012: Bringing Nature Home Part 1
June 6, 2012: Imagining Phytoremediation in Our Backyards
May 30, 2012: Meadowcreek Roundtable
Bob and-Ocie Alexander Gravesite, Needmore Cemetery Decoration-Day-5-13-12. Image submitted by Karen Alexander-Stoeckel.
May 33, 2012: Locally Grown in Pope County
May 16, 2012: The Familiar is Fascinating
May 9, 2012: Channelling the Tradition of Gleaning
A Reader’s Pilgramidge to Needmore Cemetery: An Update
May 2, 2012: Visiting Decoration Days: A Pilgrimage from California to Arkansas
April 25, 2012: Alive Inside Documentary and What Can Be Done Where Your Are?
April 18, 2012: Paths of Tradition Bearing
April 11, 2012: ARVAC and VISTA, Folk Arts, and the War on Poverty in Arkansas
April 4, 2012: Tatum, Wild Foods, and Medicine in Our Own Backyards
March 28, 2012: Garden Stories Book and McElroy House
March 21, 2012: Learning From Students and Folkstreams Films
March 7, 2012: Sulphur Springs
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