"Look how cool!!! I put him back under the tree and covered him with leaves. They pupate underground for as long as a year or 2. I decided I didn't want to babysit a pot of dirt that long. I didn't want to repeat the infamous tadpole incident! (had tadpoles in the living room all winter). Sometimes having a soft heart is too much trouble."

~ Bridget

Pea Patch News after the flood

Until Friday, June 11, 2010.…….

We are all fine….varmints included. G found a cow on the levee after the water went down and we think it belongs to the FFA at Caddo Hills school….
The water was over our bridge and, of course, over all the fields and the road from the river to our driveway (almost half a mile). The creeks were for the most part fordable. I was in the “mule” and made it through them as long as I had a running start.

We have about a mile and a half of fence down. I told Topher to practice his best Tom Sawyer act and try to persuade all our friends that it would be so much fun to come up here. Instead of lollygaggin’ around, they could build fence!!!!!

The worst part of this was the loss of life and is has been horrendous……but not as bad as first thought. Too many kids lost……heartbreaking.
There has been one really GOOD result from all the horrible stuff…..
WE know how much our friends and relatives think of us…..I have spent the last 2 days on the phone (my ear is bruised) with the wonderful people that we have known and loved all these years……….. and we appreciate every one of you!!!!!!!

Thanks so much for making a catastrophe a lot more bearable…

And, as always, you all know that the 4th of July is coming, and we’ll be here to greet you with open arms. We still have floor space for blow-up beds. I f you want a motel, you’d better let me know!!!!

Love,
All Us Pea Patchers

How the Pea Patch got its name

Every year Dick Standridge and his brothers, Joe and Mack, took their “Pappy” Sam to the Ouachita Mountains for their traditional family squirrel hunt. Yes, a squirrel hunt….important only to them and later to the rest of us.

After several years of camping haphazardly on the banks of the Little Missouri River, Dick decided that we needed a permanent place on the river away from all the people that Uncle Joe referred to as “asphalt cats”. So he enlisted the help of their cousin, Ira Blevins.

Ira called him in late February in 1969 and Dick, Buena and Joe met him on the Little Missouri River near Langley, Arkansas, where he had found 40 acres for sale. As they ate their lunch on a tree stump next to an eight acre field, they commented that it wasn’t big enough to raise cattle, but it would make a nice little pea patch.

Two years later Dick found a place with enough acreage to raise all the cattle that he could muster and we turned our attention to the Big Pea Patch. So here we are ….on the Caddo River in Caddo Gap enjoying country life at its finest……and quietest………