Made it back from Tennessee. Was a nice little drive actually although the rain was a bit annoying and marred the viewing of the landscape. I had never crossed the Mississippi at Dyersburg before nor traveled through that bit of country between Memphis and Nashville either. Very pretty country much like Missouri although the hills aren't as severe and the underbrush isn't as thick. I noticed a few cotton fields hadn't been harvested yet either. First time I seen em ready for harvest like that which was interesting.
There were three things that caught my eye. One, like Missouri Tennessee seems to suffer from the same fate of rural sprawl. Seems like there is no place you can stand without being within a mile of a house. Many of them new, where someone has bought an acre or two and built a MCMansion so they can say they are country living. The vast rural areas of my youth are long gone it seems just about everywhere.
Two. There is some type of tree I couldn't identify but I started seeing it on the Tennessee side of the Mississippi. It's trunk and branches looked like a Pine but it had no leaves on it and didn't appear to be dead. I was assuming it was a Deciduous tree and not just standing dead Pines but I am not sure now. There appeared to be some flooding over there maybe they were Pines that had died.
Three. There is some type of ground cover that appears to be grass of some type. It wasn't planted in rows like Winter Wheat is up here nor was it low lying areas where it might have been Rice. It was a bright chemical green color, almost like a glow stick green. It really caught the eye.
A couple of other interesting things were the bright yellow bales of cotton wrapped up in bales the same size as hay around here. I always thought the cotton was placed in those huge square bales. I wonder what the round bales of cotton weigh?
I was going to stop and steal a cotton plant that had been left behind after harvesting but the field edge was too muddy.
When I got back to the Small-Hold the water tanks were all frozen so I been busting the ice up. I need to get the tank heaters in today and finish up the Winter preps although the long term forecast is for no more freezing temps the rest of the week.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!
From your description, sounds like a larch tree to me.
ReplyDeleteJeff
Anon - Never seen one myself and I don't know if they grow in Tennessee.
DeleteThey sound interesting though what I read about them.
We have larch trees they look like pine but lose there needles in the autumn, the glowing grass sounds interesting :-)
ReplyDeleteDawn - It might have been some form of Wheat just casted or disc'd in instead of drilled like I see it around here. Maybe the fertilizer they used is making it such a odd shade of green.
DeleteNot sure if Larch trees grow there. There were a couple of good sized stands of them in some flooded areas. I have never seen the type before.
I'd love to travel these parts of America and see it for myself one day. I bet it's interesting seeing the changes over the years as well, not always for the better might I add!
ReplyDeleteKev - No it isn't always for the better. Many of the places I am going now I traveled over quite a bit 20 to 30 years ago. I can remember stretches of highway were you wouldn't see a light for miles that are now lined with houses almost like a suburb. Houses built on lots that would have made people laugh at you 26 years ago.
DeleteLots of cotton ready in North Carolina. I have only seen the square bales, but you can pretty quick find reference to the tubular (round) variety on the internets.
ReplyDeleteTennessee seems to have been on the cutting edge of dystopian suburban sprawl. Take care, the urban dysfunctionalities, thanks to HUD, are found well outside the urban core.
Russ - I haven't been down that way during the cotton harvest in well over a decade. All I ever saw before were the square bales mentioned but these bright yellow ones were kinda cool looking.
DeleteI am hoping HUD will go the way of the Dodo when times start getting really hard.
Some ice here but nothing much to bust yet. Sounds like the grass might be the rye grass as they call it here, I don't think it puts up stalkes like regular rye but is a yellow green when the sun hits it. They have chinese radish and some kind of small pea looking plant mixed in with it they year.
ReplyDeleteSf - Now that is interesting I never thought about a rye grass and I have never seen it that I know of. Sounds like that is a real candidate. It was an almost yellow green bright chemical type green....
DeleteI am now almost finished with all the Winter preps except the bee hives. Still have 2 more power cords to run to the last two tanks and a cross brace to drain hoses after use. Suppose to be way above freezing this week here though.
I don't have a real good photo showing it glowing but I sent one to your email that kind of shows the stuff.
DeleteWhat an interesting post, and how well you describe what you saw.
ReplyDeleteIt is a shame about urban sprawl. When I used to live in the UK acres and acres of orchards near us were covered over with a massive housing development which made my heart ache every time I drove past. And in the house we lived in just before we came here to France the same was probably going to happen......we had lovely woodland at the back of the garden and it was sold for development just as we left. I am glad we got out when we did. There isn't going to be any development around us because we are on a flood plain!
Vera - I know it is a shame. Twenty years ago I could have stood in my front yard naked and if I saw someone chances are it would have been a family member. These days there are subdivisions within eyesight and houses nestled in everywhere. The field across the road was laid out for development back in 07 and 08.They had the grader there and the roads laid out then when the housing market busted they stopped. I am now dreading the day they decide to try it again.
DeleteWe haven't had any frozen troughs yet. I just bought heated water bottles for the rabbits this winter. My farrier did one of those energy tests on his water trough heaters and said they use almost $1 of electricity a day. Sheesh! You'd think they would be more efficient than that.
ReplyDeleteLisa - No doubt. One of these days I need to figure out what I will do about stock water in a total grid down situation during the Winter. I got the delivery worked out although I still have some work to do on it but the freezing part is still an issue. If it happened today I guess I would be breaking ice every hour or so :(
DeleteEach one of those rounds weigh between 5000 and 5500 pounds and they load 4 of them onto the module truck to haul them to the Gin.
ReplyDelete