Bama Girl

Kissin' Cousins

Copyright Donna Duke Morrison

Donna Morrison Fine Art Collection & Commissions

She has always been a country girl at heart.
Our daughter Savannah just emailed me an essay she'd written about our move to Alabama. She's a freshman at Auburn University, majoring in horticulture (pomology, if you want to be precise - it's the branch dedicated to the cultivation of fruits). She's been growing things in backyards for as long as I can remember, including a nice little cotton crop in Florida (not the easiest thing to do). She's whip-smart, and she's a very talented writer.
Her essay brought up all kinds of memories of time spent in Delta, and the inevitable tears when my country girl had to return to the city. I think (like me) she's always carried a little red clay everywhere she's traveled.
Both of us left behind wonderful friends and family in the Tampa Bay area, and we miss them. But the weather here suits us just fine (I always felt a little like a plant that had been moved a bit too far south, wilted and occasionally trampled by Yankees. No offense. I know and love some perfectly wonderful Northerners, but we were living in a tourist town.) Moving to the country wrought some amazing and wonderful changes in my daughter, just as it did in me.

Savannah and I would both quote Jimmy Buffett: I have found me a home.

She still fishes sometimes, but she's pretty darned busy these days. This photo was made at a family reunion in Delta. That brim never stood a chance.
She is going to feed the world, I am sure of it.

I have watched her grow into a beautiful, self possessed young woman in these mountains.

 

Savannah and her dad tended furiously to a wisteria plant in our Florida back yard. It simply would not blossom.

It is planted here now. This year, like Savannah, I am sure it will bloom in Alabama.

Love from Delta.