Hill Country Living
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By Coulter Fussell
I just cranked up my house heater for the first time this fall and it felt great. I only needed to raise the heat by about two degrees for the house to reach standard room temperature, so the turning on of the heater was more ceremonial than anything.
I could have easily just grabbed a sweatshirt and saved some money instead but I was yearning for the familiar smell of an old house furnace. For many of us, that first smell of the house heater each year signals the official arrival of the new season. The waft of the house heater is our pumpkin spice.
My overeager dive into all things autumn related has led me to make a myriad of soups. Every Sunday, while all of y’all are at church, I’m celebrating the universe via stock pot. So far, I’ve made a classic chicken and cabbage soup, an exotic curried lentil soup, an old school okra-sausage gumbo and some sort of new-fangled spinach and tofu situation. Might not revisit that one last again, not gonna lie. But, all the rest were exactly what I want in a soup: warm, cozy and a good sidecar for grilled cheeses and cornbread. After all, what’s the point of exercising wise decision making and restraint by partaking in a healthy, low calorie homemade soup if it doesn’t secretly act as host-food to carbs, cheese and butter?
The weather really felt like fall this past Saturday night during the annual Art Crawl. What a lovely evening in Water Valley! As far as I could tell, there were people out and about all over town. I can’t actually give a first-hand account of the fact that the whole town was crowded as I didn’t exactly do the “crawl” part of Art Crawl. I did more of what one might call an Art Sit – as in I went to Megan Patton’s historic Creekmore House on Panola Street, sat down at her front lawn table and never left.
I did, though, get to watch everyone go in and out of her house for a few hours which is all the entertainment I need, honestly. My contribution to Art Crawl was exercising the high art of people watching. The whole action of the Art Crawl event is very akin to a Halloween for adults, what with all the walking from house to house for treats of various sorts. But also where everyone’s costume is “Person Going to An Art Crawl.”
I certainly appreciate that the Art Crawl existed at numerous stops all over town and if the other stops were anything like the Creekmore House stop then I declare the entire thing a highly successful event! And I can’t wait until next year when I may or may not visit another Art Crawl location!
Lastly, the real Halloween is coming up soon! Halloween is arguably the best day of the year in Water Valley (no offense to watermelons.) I look forward to seeing the whole town –plus all our cute little folks – out and about again. I promise not to hand out soup.
