The Smith's on the Range: October 2008

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Ames Plantation

I am so behind in posting pics from last week. To my surprise, my sister asked me why I haven't blogged this week. It made me feel great that my family is reading my blog.

Last weekend we went to Grand Valley to spend the night at my grandparents' house. They were happy to see their great-grand kids. I wished they lived closer so we could see them more often.

The next morning we got up and visited the Heritage Festival at Ames Plantation in Grand Junction, TN. The kids had so much fun! When we parked, we came up to a booth to pay and then took a ride on a school bus to get to the plantation. I think this was the highlight of Brayden's day. This was his first time to ride the "big cheese."

Once we got off the bus, we were greeted by ladies dressed in outfits from the Civil War era. They had a lot of tents demonstrating how things were done back then.

The first tent we came to was selling homemade ice cream. Who could pass that up? They made using a John Deer engine.

We saw everything from handmade instruments, milking goats, making yarn using a spinning wheel

and how to make homemade lye soap.

It was very educational and fun!

As we were going from booth to booth, Brayden spotted a big tractor pulling a large wagon giving people rides around the plantation. I thought the bus was the highlight of the day! Here in the picture he climbed on the fence to get a good look at the tractor.

After convincing Brayden that we will ride the tractor later, we found an old cabin you could walk through. Some ladies were cooking using cast iron stove. He helped churn butter for them. He loves butter on everything!

They had a small crop where you could pick your own cotton and run it through a cotton gin to separate it from the seeds.

Then we were off to see how brooms were made. We rode a wagon pulled by these beautiful horses.

They had a whole buch of tractors for Brayden to gaze at. In this picture, he is pointing to the one he likes the best. Ashton rushed off to see the horse logging. Ashton and her love for horses! I have to admit it was pretty neat to watch them pull the logs on to the wagons.

They had a Civil War re-enactment of the shooting the cannon. They shot the cannon off every 30 minutes. It was pretty neat to watch. We finally ended our day with riding the tractor that I promised Brayden that we would ride. He was in heaven! (I wish I got a better picture of us on it though!)

Thursday, October 9, 2008

New Presidential Candidate... It's someone we know!

There's an effort to elect an unknown random person as President... and it's someone we know!

Watch this online video about the surprising new nominee:

http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=370617&altf=Upn&altl=Tifmupo

Jot back a note to let me know what you think!

Fall is in the air...

Today I decided to take the kids to Jones Orchard to pick apples and pears. Brayden loves to eat apples, skin and all. Ashton loves to eat pears for an afternoon snack. I thought it would be neat to go pick their own fruit instead of buying store bought. The weather was perfect. Just enough of a breeze to keep you cool. We picked Arkansas Black Apples and Keiffer Pears. Ashton and I decided to make this a family tradition to do every year since we had so much fun. I got some great photos of the kids in action.