Charleston, SC Trip - Touristy Stuff

In addition to some great ag tours we had plenty of time to visit some of the local tourist spots. Charleston has tons of history as well as great spots for outdoor fun!

We landed in Charleston about noon and headed to the hotel.

First item of business, EATING! Normally I'm not much for seafood, except when on the coast where its fresh and they know how to make it! Mark is trying a raw oyster for the first time. I was brave and tried one too. They didn't taste as bad as I thought, but I don't like the slimy, chewiness they have, so I don't recommend them. :)  We also had grits, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I bought a grits mix at the market and made it for the kids when we got back. It wasn't a hit. :) 

Our kids would love to have this fountain in Osky!

Our hotel was right by Charlestons famous outdoor market. They had lots of vendors selling all sorts of things from clothes to food and tons of handmade crafts. 

Our first night there was the night of the super moon. I found a place doing a evening/moonlight kayak tour so we signed up. It was the first time we had been kayaking and I loved it! 

My view from the front of the kayak.

A ship wreck we checked out. We also saw dolphins but my pictures weren't very good.

We took this ferry ride to Fort Sumter. 

Fort Sumter is were the opening shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861. 

This is Fort Sumter today. It bears only a superficial resemblance to it's original appearance. The once multi-tiered structure was pretty much destroyed during the Civil War. 

Mark and I in front of one of the canons at Fort Sumpter.

We have speed "Bumps", Charleston had speed "Humps". 

Hyman's Seafood Co. was a popular restaurant we ate at. 

Mark another thing of the bucket list for me, I made it to the Atlantic Ocean!

I love the Atlantic, it's warm and not full of seaweed like the Pacific.

A view of the pier we hung out on.

Charleston has many beautiful churches. No building can be taller than the highest church steeple.

Many have very old cemeteries outside.

We also visited the slave museum. It was interesting, with lots of reading. The museum was located in a building where they auctioned off slaves. 

Another thing I liked about Charleston was the architecture. I personally wouldn't want to live this close to my neighbor but I'm glad some people like it. :)

Charleston SC Trip - Ag Tours

Last week Mark and I had the opportunity to go with 120 other farmers to Charleston South Carolina . It was a wonderful time! We enjoyed making several new friends and seeing how they farm  in the south. This post is our ag tours. I plan to do another with our "touristy" stuff soon. 

Our first stop was two brothers that farmed cotton, peanuts, corn & soybeans together. The picture above is cotton. We asked what it cost to rent land and they said around $35 per acre. They average around 130 bushels of corn per acre and 150 is good. They don't pay much for cash rent however, spraying 10-12 passes on a crop adds up in a hurry! 

This is their cotton picker. Two 750 lb bales of cotton to the acre is their break even crop.

Bert showing us is peanut field. Peanuts is their money maker. They thrive in poorer, sandy soil where the  other crops don't.

A sideways view of the peanut field. These are Virginia peanuts, the kind you roast and eat out of the shell at baseball games, not the peanut butter kind.  

Next farm was Jerry's, he grows 1400 acres of tobacco, which is huge for tobacco! They also have strawberry's, butter beans and several other veggies that they grow and sell at their farm stand. We missed the butter bean harvest by one day. Jerry's wife told us they have people as far away as Florida come to buy butter beans.  

 This is the tobacco flower that gets removed so the plants energy all goes to the leaves. They have crews of migrant workers come in and do this work. Cash rent prices for tobacco fields are higher, up to $125 per acre. Since tobacco is labor intensive and they are always in the field working with large crews of people, landowners charge more for rent.

These are the tobacco harvesters. They make four passes harvesting. They start picking the bottom 25% of the plant leaves, which are the lower quality ones, then the next go around the middle 50%, finally the last top 25% which is the higher quality leaves. 

After the leaves are harvested they dry in these "mobile home" looking boxes.

This is their greenhouse of little tobacco plants.

The dried tobacco leaves have sand on them so they go into a big drum to turn and get cleaned off.

The last farm of the day was a tomato farm. They raise 50 acres of tomatoes! The big thing in tomatoes right now is heirloom tomatoes. They have 74 varieties of  heirloom tomatoes. Mark and I appreciated how each of the farmers we visited thanked the Lord for their farm. Greg especially, he told us how their business has been blessed since they closed on Sundays. Check them out here. 

Sorting cherry tomatoes after picking. Much of their labor is done by migrant workers. 

They were packaging cherry tomatoes while we where there. 

Fun photo opportunity outside their store. :) Our last stop for the day was the USDA vegetable lab. I didn't get any pictures because we didn't get to see anything they were doing, just heard about their projects in a meeting room.

The next morning we headed to American' s only tea plantation, The Charleston Tea Plantation. We toured the factory and took the trolley for a ride around the tea fields. 

The tea going through the 20 hour plant to package process.

Rows of tea plants. These bushes live up to 600 years and are naturally disease and pest resistant. Deer also don't like the bitter taste of the leaves. They aren't considered organic because they have to use a commercial  fertilizer. It would take 1.5 feet of chicken manure on the ground to get enough nitrogen and they didn't think tourists would enjoy that. :) 

  

A very slow moving tea picker. This machine was custom made and only goes 1.5 mph. It was fun listen to our group of farmers brainstorm about how they could make it faster and more efficient. They only harvest the top 3 inches of leaves for tea making. 

We enjoyed a picnic under some beautiful old trees. I wish I had these in my yard, although we would probably have more broken arms! :)

4-H Farm Tour & Projects

This week Ethan's 4-H club hosted a farm tour. Several of the families in our club drove around the countryside to five different farms to see animal projects. We saw lots of chickens, which I enjoy, bees sheep, dogs, horses and a return bottle calf. We were blessed with beautiful weather and delicious picnic to end the evening!

 Our place was the second stop, here everyone is trying to see Ethan's sheep.

The sheep weren't interested in being on display and hid in the corner. Ethan did his best to get them to come  out. :) Glad we have a month to work with them before fair! 

There were a bunch of kids!

You had to watch were you stood in this barn, chickens in the rafters are a dangerous thing! 

My nephew with one of my favorite chickens.

Just a nice group shot.

My nephew showing us his return bottle calf. 

Allison taking a ride on Mark. I think he picked out the right shirt for the evening. :)

I had some leftover glass etching cream from a craft we did with our moms group. I realized that Ethan had  a Cadet badge for glass etching and it could double as a 4-H fair project. So he had a friend over and showed them how it worked. 

It is considerably different showing mothers near my age how to etch glass vs. 10 year old boys! :) They did well and are happy with their projects. I hope to find a couple more "art" things for Ethan and Amelia to do before fair and my dad hopes to teach Ethan some woodworking by building a garden box with him. 

Mothers Day and the Rest of May

Here's a few May pictures to get caught up.

We had a birthday party for Mark's Grandma, and took some family pictures as part of the celebration. Here's Mark's siblings and cousins with Grandpa and Grandma.

Next was Great Grandchildren with Grandpa and Grandma. 

Elijah seems to be our accident prone child. He's had stitches, glue and now a broken arm. Here's the story. He's been bumped up to riding part of the big motocross track at our place instead of his own "kid track". Well, he was riding with Mark and crossed the track in front of him, T-boning Mark, and breaking his arm. :( He's a trooper, so at least if he gets hurt often he isn't crabby or whinny about his situation.  :)

I wanted to get a picture with the kids for Mothers Day before church but time didn't allow. So after getting home from the hospital with Elijah's broken arm we got our picture. 

Anton is my little helper lately. He had the job of putting the bean seeds in the ground here. 

Elijah's helping one armed.

I asked Allison "How did you get so dirty?" and Anton pipes up, " She had dirt on her face so I helped her." Um, I'm thinking you made matters a little worse buddy. :) 

The cats caught this cute little bunny. I heard it screaming and saved it. Thankfully Amelia was already in bed or we would probably had to keep it. :)

Another reason to get the landscaping done soon. The kids are making forts with our supplies! Its just a matter of time before the wreak something. :)

Ethan's chapel team participating in the last field day event. I can't believe he'll be a fifth grader next year!

Amelia's chapel team won the field day activities! Here she is during the last relay. 

The kids got out at noon the last day of school. So we grabbed some lunch and helped dad plant beans for a little while. (No one was very interested in my picture, as you can tell.) :)

It seems like forever since it's been dry! Crazy Iowa weather!

Allison keeping watch over the beans.

Just a cute father/daughter snapshot.

With all the rain we've been having, it was nice to see the sun pop out and see beautiful double rainbow.

Elijah's first cast, filled with signatures!