Columns

Let’s get shakin’ Here we are y’all!! We have sprung forward, we are feeling the warmer days, and not so welcoming the mosquitos. We are right in the midst of crawfish season!!!

Big boils for fundraisers and crawfish festivals are getting geared up.

Over the years of crawfish boils, I have seen almost everything thrown in a boil and honestly, that’s one of my favorite parts. Everything from your standards of corn, potatoes, onions, sausage, and mushrooms. But there’s so much more, maybe even some you haven’t tried.

DeSoto Extension Agent

You Don’t Have To Finish, Just Get

Started

The trees need to be pruned, the lawn needs to be cut, weeds need to be pulled and new mulch needs to be put out. The blueberries need to be picked, the aphids have ambushed the aster and you need to side dress the vegetables.

So your garden is a mess, and you just don’t know where to start. We’ve all been in this predicament at some time or another. Mark Twain said it best when he said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

A Scratch Cherry Pie

Most of you who read my columns know that, although I love to cook, I am “Pastry Challenged”. In fact I am “Gravy/Sauce Challenged”, too, but that doesn’t pertain to this column. That’s why you may be curious about the title. Most people think of a “scratch done” dish as one done completely by a recipe with your own ingredients in your own kitchen. AND because I couldn’t do a real scratch cherry pie if my life depended on it I bought a Sara Lee frozen cherry pie at Brookshires. Now I DID scratch the side flap of the box it came in to open it and I DID scratch the cellophane wrapping to remove it before baking so that’s my take on a Scratch Cherry Pie. It sure does taste good, too, especially with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top while it’s piping hot!

Tomato, Bacon & Onion Spaghetti

When it comes to growing tomatoes, I can almost never have enough. My goal is to have plenty to enjoy fresh, but also to put up enough to use through the winter months.

Still, with the delicious flavor and versatility of tomatoes, it’s difficult to keep from just using them fresh from the garden. In addition to slicing them, we also enjoy dicing a few up to use in meals.

Since a garden can keep you busy during the summer, we try to find fast meals to prepare. That way we can keep working longer and won’t need as much time to cook.

One of my favorite go-to ‘fast food’ meals is Tomato, Bacon, and Onion Spaghetti. You can start dinner one minute, and 30 minutes later be sitting down to a delicious meal!

Never let “I Can’t” be in your vocabulary for when you have self doubt, or no one else will believe in you. You must first believe in yourself before others do. How would you know what you’re capable of if you don’t even try?

It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you don’t want to. If there’s a goal you wish to accomplish channel your energy into doing so. When you do you will see that by trying it wasn’t difficult at all.

The mind is a powerful instrument. If “I Can’t” becomes your thoughts, the mind will adapt to that in which you think. Just go for it and tell yourself there is nothing you can’t achieve. Once this is planted in your train of thought it becomes your reality.

Let’s get shakin’ It’s Spring y’all and it’s time to clean up that grill, and maybe even look at an upgrade.

Spring and Summer grilling in the South is about as southern and natural as a glass of good, sweet tea. I can remember as a kid when southern Winter jumped into Spring. We all know down here it’s usually a jump, one day it’s cold and then it’s not and you realize that cold day was the last one. It’s ‘bout to be HOT.

Try This Amazing Life Hack For Ungrateful and Picky Eaters

Every family has a picky eater, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. I was the picky eater in my family, and I developed several tricks for making my plate look like it had less food. Then I grew up, discovered the salad bar at college, and never looked back.

I managed to produce my own picky eater but I wasn’t concerned. I knew he’d grow out of it just as I did. In the meantime I gave him a multivitamin and moved on. But I know a lot of moms worry about picky eaters, or get frustrated with them. I understand that-I really do. I also know that we all get frustrated when our kids complain about the meals we serve. The meat tastes yucky, the mashed potatoes are touching the carrots, no one is feeling the meatloaf tonight. I cannot take credit for this amazing trick to solve this age old issue-I must defer to my friend Kristi.

The cedar tree lined campus of the Mansfield Female College, the first female college west of the Mississippi River, doesn’t seem to the logical place for the ghost of a Confederate soldier but there he resides roaming the halls of the once tranquil college administration building which is now a Museum.

The Mansfield Female College opened in 1855 by Reverend Henry Coleman Thweatt of Virginia and the Reverend William E. Doty of Caddo Parish, La. The Rev. Thweatt served the College as President for many years and is even said to be buried on its campus. MFC offered a wide range of subjects including the Normal Department, which is now called the Teaching Department, English Literature, Fine Arts and a vast array of other advanced subjects. Students from many states attended such examples being Mrs. Ella Earle Sheppard from Mississippi, Mrs. Fern Lemming from Pennsylvania, Mrs. Mabel Williams from Arkansas, and many others.

Mac and Cheese

While most of us make macaroni and cheese the easy way by using the Kraft Blue Boxed long-time favorite I think we all know that the truly best is the oven-baked that Mom made. I love it but have tried and tried to re-create it and, as readers of this column know, have failed miserably. Many times.

The truth about beauty, ones beauty isn’t judged on how their physical appearance looks but it’s that what is within is how beauty is measured, for if one is beautiful outside but not as beautiful inside it can make you ugly, not from a physical standpoint but from a character standpoint, for the most beautiful smile can hide the saddest heart, if a car is beautiful on its outside but the inside is no good than it is no good, if a tree is full of leaves but the inside is hollowed and rotten it will eventually fall, love itself comes from within not outward, so when you’re beautiful inside it makes your outer beauty even more attractive, there are many of us that will look at others that may not have the satisfaction of knowing how beautiful ones physical appearance may get them an abundance of material things but those who are so beautiful from within is adored by others, not only for how warm their hearts are but also for the kindness of the words they speak and it’s nothing more b