20 Sep 2016 Learning to live off the land

by Jan Spann

Loree Leslie is a spitfire. Growing up in a military family in the 50s and 60s, Loree’s mom took her and her brother back to her grandmother’s home in Louisiana during her dad’s deployments and most every weekend when he was home.

“It was the best experiences of two worlds,” said Loree. “We had a modern military life and then the completely different one at my grandmother’s rural home. This country bayou family taught us skills like milking a cow, churning butter and tending the garden. They believed that you eat what you kill and were experts at fishing and hunting in the river and bayou.

“No TV, telephone or ‘run to the store’ stuff. I attended a nice large new elementary school on the base and a one-room country schoolhouse in the country. We walked to school on the base, rode in a logging truck to school in the country.”

Loree’s family lived off the land in all senses of the phrase.

“My grandmother never wasted anything,” she said. “Meats included wild turkey, deer, duck and other game as well as anything that came out of the bayou. She had the first canning machine for tin cans in the Parish. She would hold classes at the Home Demonstration Club on how to use tin cans to preserve food. You could put a whole cooked chicken in a can and seal it up! They milked cows, raised all kinds of poultry and planted a large vegetable garden each season, which added to the food supply. She had two pantries which were full of jars or dried sacks of fruits.

“A large smoke house with a fire that burned low continuously was always full of hams and bacon. I still have some of the lumber out of the smoke house. It still smells like smoke! In the attic, she had flour sacks spread out on frames with drying apples, peaches and pears. Many times I would find them in my lunch sack. I remember hog killing, dressing out dozens of chickens and game. Extended family would come and make it a day of visiting and working. Everyone had their jobs in the process; even the children were involved learning how to do something.”

Loree’s family lived at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, and she graduated from White Hall High School. She attended several colleges and had lots of fun until her dad challenged her to make a 2.0 or get a job. Loree graduated from Henderson University with a home economics degree and a master’s degree in education from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She met her husband, Bob, in high school, and they recently celebrated 55 years of marriage.

The couple lived in Hot Springs during their first seven years, during which time she taught school and served as temporary County Extension Agent for Garland County. Bob was a football coach for Hot Springs High School and drove to Little Rock to attend night law school. When he graduated law school in Fayetteville, the family built a home down a gravel road on the river near Redfield, where Bob and Loree planted their first garden.

“Bob loves to garden, and he plants like a truck farmer, so we always have a generous harvest,” Loree said. “We taught our children how to plant and care for a garden, raise chickens and rabbits and take care of pigs and horses.” Skills learned from her grandmother and also her county extension job helped as she began canning and freezing the bounty.

During the next three decades, Loree completed her course work for a Ph.D. in educational psychology at Vanderbilt University, but came home when Bob ran for State Representative, so she did not finish her dissertation. She spent 32 years with Achieve Global International, traveling the world working with clients in the military and pharmaceutical industries. During this time, Loree experienced different cultures and foods. She brought home seeds and plants to add to her gardens as well as new recipes to try.

In 1985, Loree and Bob settled on two acres off Highway 286 in east Conway because Bob had a law office in Little Rock and she was working at Acxiom. “It was just easier to be on this side of town for him to hit the freeway and get to work. It was all rural out here then. There was a huge dairy in front of our house. Then they changed the road and made the paved highway as it is today. We chose this land because we wanted to continue to be able to have a large garden and fruit trees. We had no close neighbors and were not in the city limits.”

Their children attended college in Conway; John at Hendrix and Beth at UCA. Beth and her husband, Mark Andrews, an AETN director/producer, have four children. When Conway’s Baptist Hospital opens, Beth will serve as its medical surgery information associate. They have Tabor, a second-year college student; Greg, who was born with major heart problems and attends Conway High School along with his brother Chris, who is a junior at CHS; and daughter Caroline who attends Ida Burns Elementary School.

Loree and Bob’s son John and his son Orion live at home with them. John works at the Hampton Inn, and Orion is a college student in Tennessee. John also has his own leather working business and teaches classes for Tandy in Little Rock.

Both Loree and Bob are Faulkner County Master Gardeners. One of Bob’s projects is the teaching garden in front of Freyaldenhoven Nursery. Bob has duplicated in his own garden how the teaching garden uses raised beds with crops grown closer together with an irrigation system. Their home garden includes summer goodness such as squashes, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, purple hull peas, eggplant, okra, corn, onions and potatoes.

Loree has a kitchen garden just off the back patio where she raises her herbs and special items like heirloom tomatoes and peppers. In addition, they have a 10-by-12-foot glass greenhouse where they winter plants and also start seeds for the spring planting. “We hang the cherry tomato plants upside down in the greenhouse at the end of August, and they produce until Thanksgiving,” said Loree.

She notes that her food preservation skills are finely tuned after years of doing it. “I have a big pantry with three canning racks filled with ready to eat fruits and veggies. I have my methods and recipes pretty well set, and they have proved to be tried and true. I have had some miserable failures and learned some fruits or veggies we like better frozen and some we prefer canned. Most importantly, I quickly learned that labeling each jar with date preserved and ingredient is critical. We have three freezers: one for meats, game and fish; one for our homegrown fruits and veggies; and one for commercial products and anything we need extra space for.

“I love to see young women buying Mason jars and canning supplies in the grocery store. Sometimes I stop and talk to them. They want to learn about food preservation and canning so they can help provide their families with healthy homemade foods. The most asked question I get is about where they can take canning lessons. Many ask for my phone number so they can call and ask questions or get help.”

Loree buys only Louisiana Gulf seafood, and she and Bob have deer meat packaged by their favorite butcher. The family dresses out ducks and other game, and they package fresh-caught fish themselves. She gets fresh eggs from her niece in Greenbrier. She loves judging the canning section at the county fair and likes to see the 4-H students bringing in their produce products to be judged.

“We can’t control everything, but we can control what we feed our families, and when we eat out of our gardens we know how it was grown and what has been put in it,” Loree said. “It is my hobby and my labor of love. It is not work; it is my joy to be able to share good things with my family and friends.”

A Conway resident, Jan Spann has been gardening for 20-plus years and has been involved with the Faulkner County Master Gardeners for 11 years. She and her husband, Randy, have five children and eight grandchildren.