Tabla de contenidos para March/April 2025 en Grit

“When you know who you are; when your mission is clear and you burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will; no cold can touch your heart; no deluge can dampen your purpose. You know that you are alive.”—Chief Seattle ■ I hold this quote close to my heart. I’ve scribbled it into all of my planners, notebooks, and even an actual book or two. Recently, Chief Seattle’s words have called to mind something a dear friend told me: “You pursue all things with grit and grace.” The determination to see things through and the strength of character to stand your ground—that’s the definition of GRIT, and what I hope you’ll find in the pages of this issue. Former park ranger Chiggers Stokes untangles the complicated world of knots (Page…

When someone asks Jack Martin, the owner of Hockaday Handmade Brooms in Selmer, Tennessee, how long it takes to make a broom, he strokes his beard, grins, and replies, “Five months and 45 minutes.” Making brooms is in Martin’s blood. In the 1800s, his great-great-grandfather, Wick Hockaday, moved from the Carolinas to west Tennessee in search of a better place to raise his family. He bought some land there and became a homesteader. But it was Will, his son, who started raising broomcorn (Sorghum bicolor). And Will then took the next step in creating the family business: invention. Being a creative man, Will saw a newspaper photo of a broom-making machine—the type that attaches the broomcorn to a wooden handle—and then, using discarded farm equipment, he built it and a…

My boots crunch through the first heavy snowfall of the year. I make my way through a woodland path and into the tidal marsh, a sharpened sickle in hand. Stems of reed plants lay bare, billowing in the blustery breeze. It’s reed-harvesting season once more. I collect a series of stalks in my left arm as I use my right to swipe the sickle through the reeds. The cuttings create piles of reeds, called “fathoms,” about as large as I can reach my arms around to carry. Each fathom yields three or four bundles, or “yealms,” that I’ll use in the spring and summer months to thatch our cottage’s roof. My infatuation with thatch started during a backpacking trip across Britain and Ireland with my now-wife, Sara, in 2014. We…

The season of lambing, calving, and other livestock births is upon us. If you show livestock in 4-H, you’ll need animals born in the heart of winter so they’re sized up by summer fairs. This isn’t for the faint of heart. And youth in agriculture have to balance breeding programs and the often-chaotic birthing season with school, extracurriculars, and more. As a 4-Her myself, I decided at age 14 that I’d take my projects to the next level. To me, that meant not only raising market lambs, but also building my own breeding program, starting with just two ewes. If the cold isn’t enough, disaster-loving sheep always seem to pick an inconvenient time to lamb, whether that’s in the middle of the night or during the school day. With dozens…

■ Though I have a limited repertoire of knots, as a retired park ranger, I have strong opinions about when and how they should be used. On a warm August day in 1975, I stood in moving, waist-deep water in a side channel of the Potomac known as Catfish Hole, practicing a swift-water rescue maneuver as a River Ranger. We National Park Service (NPS) personnel and VIPs (volunteers in the park) practiced a this maneuver I’d developed using a specialized knot. Many knots can prove lethal in swift-water situations because of strangulation, entrapment, or knot failure. I’d developed a system of quick releases, haul teams, and throw lines. Honestly, I was a mediocre paddler and climber, so I pondered the limitations and potentials of rope rescue in a swift environment.…

It wasn’t easy for an 8-year-old boy to find work in Marceline, Missouri, in 1953. I knew that the Marceline News had paper delivery boys, so I went to its office and asked to be one, but I was turned down. I found an ad in Boys’ Life posted by the GRIT publishing company, wanting to hire boys to deliver its weekly GRIT newspaper. There was just one problem: The minimum age to be accepted as a GRIT paper delivery boy was 9, and Mom would have to sign for me. Still, I asked my mother if she’d sign for me, claiming I was 9. Even though I was a year younger, she thought I was capable and signed. So, we filled out the order form, mailed it in, and…

Share your visual perspective! Post your photos at www.Facebook.com/GritMagazine, tag us on Instagram (@Grit1882), or email us at Letters@Grit.com. Share your best shots, and we just might select one of your photos for a future issue of the magazine.…

Small Town Texas Back when I was a kid, we lived in a little house on a hill in Bettie, Texas. Mother always kept a garden, and the neighbors agreed she had the prettiest strawberry patch. My sisters and I would get in so much trouble for sneaking Mother’s strawberries (though we tried to blame the rabbits that we tried to catch). On Saturday evenings, Mother and Daddy would read GRIT to us after dinner. Once I was old enough to read it myself, I’d climb a tree with the newspaper stuck in my pocket, settle in, and read it a few times each week. Now, at 74, I look back on those days with a smile. We didn’t have much, but we had our family and our little community.…

ANNUALS • Baby blue eyes (Nemophila spp) • Blanket flower (Gaillardia spp.) • Blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna) • California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) • Candytuft (Iberis amara) • China aster (Callistephus chinensis) • Clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata) • Common baby's breath (Gypsophila paniculata) • Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) • Flax (Linurn spp.) • Gilia (Gilia spp.) • Godetia (Clarkia amoena) • Lavatera (Lavatera spp.) • Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) • Mallow (Malva spp.) • Mallow-wort (Malope trifida) • Meadowfoam or poached egg plant (Limnanthes spp.) • Mexican aster (Cosmos bipinnatus) • Nasturtium (Tropaeolum spp.) • Phacelia (Phacelia spp.) • Sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) • Tickseed (Coreopsis spp.) PERENNIALS • Alpine rock-cress (Arabis alpina) • Alyssum (Alyssum spp.) • Bee balm (Monarda spp.) • Canterbury bells (Campanula medium) • Carpathian harebell (Campanula carpatica) • Catmint (Nepeta spp.) • Checkerbloom (Sidalcea spp.) • Coneflower (Rudbeckia spp.) • Cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) • Fern-leaf yarrow (Achillea filipendulina) • Fleabane (Erigeron spp.) • Forget-me-not (Myosotis spp.) • Fuchsia (Fuchsia spp.) • Goldenrod (Solidago spp.)…

Intelligent, hardworking, and even-tempered with a gentle disposition, the colorful Choctaw pony is a strain of the Colonial Spanish horse. While held in high esteem by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and anyone who has worked with the ponies, they’re unfortunately listed as Critical by The Livestock Conservancy. The Choctaw ponies that exist today are descendants of animals that survived a trans-Atlantic journey and the forced relocation of the Trail of Tears. Therefore, these animals are tough, strong, and willing to perform a variety of tasks. Ponies Past The ancestors of the Choctaw people and horses indigenous to North America lived together during the Pleistocene. Evidence shows that horses were hunted 13,000 years ago for their meat in the Southeast. Whether through overhunting or climate change, horses went extinct at…

I grew up in a neighborhood where my dad was known as “Mr. Fixit.” Back then, repairing our broken items was an accepted practice—a completely different view from today’s world, where consumers are fighting for the right to repair their own electronics, farm equipment, wheelchairs, and other goods. Today, instead of heading to the local hardware store for replacement parts, our diverse collection of electronic devices is being discarded or, in some cases, “recycled” into ever-higher mountains of e-waste. Often, these items could easily be repaired if aftermarket parts were available. Reuse, Recycle, Repair Imagine purchasing an electronic device for $1,000 or more, only to find out that the screen has a small crack in it a mere two weeks after the warranty has expired. You may attempt to contact…

Spring is the transition season from winter to summer. Temperatures rise, but cold outbreaks remain possible, especially in early spring. As for weather patterns, spring is the transition period from the winter storms and fronts to the more tranquil, high-pressure-dominated summer weather. Summer precipitation is mainly convective, with showers and thunderstorms developing in the warm, humid air. Spring can bring severe weather, strong thunderstorms, and even tornadoes as still-potent winter fronts interact with the increasingly warm, unstable air ahead of them. The majority of tornadoes in the U.S. occur in spring. Some areas can see spring flooding as melting snowpacks swell streams and rivers. When does spring begin? Traditionally, the first day of spring is said to occur on the vernal equinox, which is on March 20 this year for…

Keeping a farm or homestead running is an often-pricey labor of love. But when disaster strikes or you start a new venture, it pays to know the programs and experts you can turn to for help. Many disaster-and diseaserelief programs are available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development program’s local offices and Farm Service Agency (FSA). Some require you to have a standing policy, some don’t, so always read the eligibility requirements before applying for anything. Finally, many grants and programs have January deadlines. We’re sharing these opportunities now so you can check application close dates and plan in advance to get in the running. GRANTS Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG). These grants offer small farmers and ranchers capital to produce new products, expand marketing, and increase income.…