Spring in my Memphis gardens

Now that spring has finally decided to stick around, I am finding it hard to focus on much other than gardening. My new backyard garden is tilled, planted with sugar snap peas and hopefully poison ivy free.

My new backyard garden

The very flimsy garden fence seems to be all the deterrent Zeb (the dog) needs to steer clear. The seedlings I started over a month ago are leggy and almost dead. I need a grow light.

Incredibly leggy tomato starts

I decided to try square foot gardening in my raised bed. This bed is dedicated to salad greens, chard and kohlrabi so I’m succession sowing each row a week apart.

Square foot gardening in the raised bed

My asparagus survived the winter and are starting to send up new shoots. The swiss chard, which was the rock star of last summer’s garden, has started sprouting as well.

Swiss chard and asparagus shoots

I also get to garden at work, at least for the next few months. Our summer exhibit at the Pink Palace is Wicked Plants, which was put together by the North Carolina Arboretum and is based on Amy Stewart’s book of the same name. My boss decided that he wanted to add a live poison garden to the exhibit, and, since I’m the one who realized that we needed to start ordering plants a month ago, I’m in charge of plant procurement and propagation. (Incidentally, today’s post is brought to you by the letter p.)

Sweet peas for the Pink Palace’s poison garden in this summer’s Wicked Plants exhibit

I’m spending a lot of time with my hands in the dirt these days. I’m still making it up as I go, and I love it.

The Cemetery across the Street

Dear Memphians,
If you’ve ever driven past the cemetery at Central Avenue and Lafayette Street and thought, “I wonder what that’s about,” read on:

palacesocial's avatarThe Pink Palace Family of Museums

If you drive west on Central Avenue towards the Memphis Pink Palace Museum, you may notice a small cemetery at the corner of Central and Lafayette Street immediately before you see the museum’s fence. This graveyard was in use well before Clarence Saunders bought the land for his palace.

Buntyn's Station Map

In the 1870s, this area was outside of the city limits of Memphis and known as the Ridgehigh section of Buntyn’s Station, a railroad stop on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Buntyn’s Station was a large area of land that stretched east to west from Highland Street to Buntyn Street and north to south from Central Avenue to Park Avenue. Farmers who settled near Central Avenue and Buntyn Street began to call the area Ridgehigh. Buntyn’s Station was a town in its own right, and Ridgehigh was the town’s farthest settlement. The center of this neighborhood became Ridgehigh Baptist Church at…

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That time I made finger paint…

My kid loves to play with his food. Spaghetti, oatmeal, partially mashed peas–if he can smush it on his tray, he’s happy. I was home with him yesterday and decided that maybe it was time for him to try out his smearing skills with some paint.

A very quick internet search led me to many recipes for homemade finger paint. To be clear, I didn’t make it myself for any noble environmental reason or out of safety concerns. I did it because I was bored. Turns out two parts water to one part flour cooked over a low heat will turn into very respectable finger paint after about ten minutes of occasional stirring. Once it thickened, I added some salt and divided it up into reusable baby food containers. Then I followed the recipes on the back of my food coloring to make them different.

Colorful homemade finger paint on an equally colorful tablecloth

My toddler was intrigued. He was also hungry.

Eating the paint while looking at mom’s example

I got to paint while attempting to convince him to try. He decided that the orange paint tasted best. All in all, a respectable use of time by all.

Letting him eat dirt

Spotless. Pristine. Bored.

These are not words I use to describe my son.

Messy. Dirty. Inquisitive.

These are the ones I am more apt to employ. Never have they been more justified then yesterday. We moved azaleas from my grandmother’s house to our front yard. They will get the sun they need, and the front of our house will get some much needed change. Moving bushes means digging holes. Holes mean piles of dirt.

It is a special day in a child’s life when he discovers the pleasure of dirt. It squishes. It can be piled and dumped. It can go back in and then come out again. We could have trapped him in his playpen, but then he would have missed these important discoveries. We both watched him crawl around the grass and make new friends with the neighbors and their dogs. We looked on as he pulled down pots of dirt and cruised toward piles. And neither of us moved fast enough when he put a handful of it in his mouth.

We told him no, and he went back to playing. Then he did it again because he’s still a baby. Eventually, we took our slightly muddy boy with dirt caked under his nails and streaks on his face inside for dinner.

Perfect. I suppose that’s the other word I use.

An Irish Memphian

My latest post for the museum’s blog about our system’s most famous Irishman:

palacesocial's avatarThe Pink Palace Family of Museums

In the nineteenth century, many Irish citizens immigrated to Memphis. The poorest of these lived in an area of downtown known as the Pinch District. The name is credited to Mr. Craven Peyton, an early Memphian, who called the area “Pinch gut” after noticing the near emaciated look of the inhabitants. However, not all of Memphis’ Irish immigrants were the working poor.

Eugene Magevney

Eugene Magevney was born in County Fermanagh, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States in 1828 before settling in Memphis in 1833. He opened a school for boys and eventually lived in a boarding house run by the McKeon family on Adams Avenue. In 1837, he purchased the white frame, six-room home for $2,500 (roughly $60,000 in 2015 dollars). Magevney continued buying real estate and purchased a pasture at the current intersection at Main and Union in 1839. As the city grew, he was able to sell the…

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Being brave

My little boy is learning how to be brave.

He wants to let go and take steps away from what is safe, but he gets scared. He wants to venture off and play next to the slightly bigger kids, but he gets timid. He watches and learns and waits until he’s figured out the outcomes. And then, maybe, he will make a move. Or maybe he will sit back down and decide that the play steps are a little too tall or he feels a bit unsteady on his feet.

So yesterday, I was happy when he came out from behind my legs at the Booksellers at Laurelwood. When he reached far for the table and walked over to a little girl. When he cruised from me to the big girl who was sitting on my right. He put his hand on her knee and looked startled that it wasn’t me. Then he smiled. Because he was brave.

2015-03-10 10.13.03
The baby in the mirror is always brave.

Our Collection by the Numbers

We have so many interesting things in our collection at the Pink Palace. Here’s a run down:

palacesocial's avatarThe Pink Palace Family of Museums

Pinewood Derby Car Pinewood Derby Car

Here at the Pink Palace we have a large permanent collection of artifacts related to the Mid-South’s cultural and natural history. Like all accredited museums, we have a collections policy that lays out our procedures and responsibilities for acquiring, protecting and using the objects in our care. One question that we are frequently asked is how many artifacts we have. The answer is an estimated 84,000 objects. Here’s a quick rundown of the categories:

Minerals, rocks and fossils44,536
Zoology, invertebrate6,092
Records/documents5,319
Botany4,669
Currency3,620
Chipped stone, pottery, shell, bone2,956
Culinary equipment2,766
Clothing2,393
Medical equipment2,122
Hardware1,675
Zoology, vertebrate1,159
Recreational equipment1,072
Books/periodicals1,030
Furniture928
Military equipment690
Advertising media646
Jewelry and token items454
Paintings, prints, etchings, murals373
Communication equipment313
Weapons202
Sculptures, pedestals, vases201
Transportation195
Architecture130
Measures99
Musical items

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Stop the junk

I love getting mail. On occasion my niece mails me one of her paintings or a person I met through LibraryThing mails a postcard. My grandparents always, without fail, mail me a homemade card for my birthday. So I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I love getting real mail.

Conversely, I hate junk mail. It wastes my time disposing of it, and it wastes the paper that it’s printed on. I especially dislike pre-approved credit offers. If I want a credit card, I am smart enough to do research on my own. I decided that it’s time to take charge of this situation. Here are the websites I have enlisted to reduce the clutter in my mailbox:

  • Catalog Choice is a free service that helps you request which catalogs you would like to stop receiving. As junk mail gets to my house, I open the site, search for the catalog, fill out the information exactly as it is on the envelope, and Catalog Choice files my request with the company. On occasion (I’m looking at you Yellow Pages), the company in question makes you fill out a request on their own website. However, Catalog Choice still makes a record of your request that you can access.
  • I’ve also signed up with DMA Choice (Direct Marketing Association) to remove me from direct marketing lists like campaign postcards.
  • To stop getting credit card offers, I added us to OptOutPrescreen.com. This site adds you to a list that opts you out of firm credit and insurance offers for five years. You can be permanently taken off the list, but you have to mail in a form that includes your social security number. That gives me the heebie jeebies, so I’ll just re-opt-out when I start getting them again.

None of these sites can get you out of everything. There are loopholes that can allow companies that you do business with (like your bank) to mail you offers. If you happen to be a Bank of America customer, you know that they will frequently send you offers for credit cards. The good news is that you can also opt-out of these requests through their privacy page.

I decided that it is well worth my time to put in a small amount of effort now to keep clutter and extra paper out of my home. It’s better for me, and it’s better for the environment. Win.