Just a Piddler

How tending what was left behind turned into a homegrown business

Words by Hannah Real Smith | Image by Justin Hunter

Wood Thrush, Crested Flycatcher, Tufted Titmouse, American Goldfinch, Mosquito...

Wait… One of these is not what I signed up for.

This mix—the beauty of songbirds calling during golden hour alongside the humidity and ever-buzzing mosquitoes of South Skyline Drive—is exactly how flower farming often feels: the expectation of peace and beauty contrasted with the reality of back-breaking mornings and the stress of the uncontrollable.

As I reflect on how I got here, here being Kalyx Flower Co., a five-acre micro cut flower farm offering high-quality local blooms to local folks at a local price, it’s tempting to say I ended up here because “the flowers called to me,” or some other bit of fiddle-faddle. And maybe they did. But if I were a betting woman, I’d bet it had a whole lot more to do with growing up in the middle of rural Alabama than anything else.

Like many of you, I was working before I even realized it was work. Over time, I’ve found that there are two types of families: those who work to play, and those who work to work. Neither is better than the other. Mine was the latter, and work we did. We had acres of gardens, fields of hay to cut and bale, and rows of corn to harvest and store in the barn loft come fall. In winter, we worked cattle, trapped beavers, and cleaned fence lines.

We worked, but we rarely worked alone. Most of the time, there were herds of us picking peas, shucking corn, driving hay rakes, making lunches, delivering Dr. Peppers and Nutty Buddies. Whatever the task, we were surrounded by good company, the best of it. And when one job was finished, well, there was always more to do.

Much of that work for me happened at the feet of my grandmothers. They guided and encouraged me while I weeded their gardens or pruned their shrubbery. They believed that flowers were best enjoyed in the yard where God made them bloom.

You might think that growing up in a work-to-work family would make me crave the opposite. That I’d want to bask in the fruits of the labor from my “real” job, teaching English to Jasper kids for over ten years now. But that’s not how it went.

Once I bought my little fixer-upper on South Skyline with plenty of land to keep me busy, I did just that. I fixed. I piddled. When I finished one thing, I started on another. Eventually, I realized I had piddled myself right into the kind of work I was raised on—gardening, tending chickens, and loving every bit of it. The bird songs and mosquitoes that kept me company each evening as I hoed rows of tomatoes, callusing my hands and clearing my mind, became part of the rhythm.

I got into flowers the same way I got into the rest of it, by accident. When a worker dies, someone else has to carry on the work. And I piddled myself right into being that someone.

When my Gran passed, I dug up her irises and lilies and amaryllis and peonies and brought them to Jasper, settling them into Walker County’s clay-packed soil. I did the same when my Mamaw passed. Then the calls started - women asking if I’d come dig their flowers because they could no longer piddle. Their bodies were tired from the work.

So, I went. I took cuttings, dug bulbs, gathered seeds. And I piddled. I made space for the flowers these women had treasured. And I loved the work of it. It felt like being back at their feet again, learning what they knew about flowers and about living with them.

Eventually, I realized there was too much beauty to keep to myself. So Kalyx Flower Co. became the next piddle that turned into the best work I’ve ever known. Alongside those inherited gifts from the women who came before me, I now grow all sorts of blooms: fancy flowers like tulips, ranunculus, and dahlias, and memory-laden flowers like gladiolus and chrysanthemums.

Even when there are more mosquitoes than songbirds, I couldn’t be prouder to work with with flowers. But they don’t really belong to me.

I’m just the piddler. 78