I had a wonderful weekend...boy it went so fast even though we got that extra hour compliments of yet another time change. Saturday we had superb shorts and shirt sleeve weather as we headed to nearby Hartsville.
Our weekend began on Friday night home baked pizza when sis arrived. We totally solved all the world's problems if only we could get everyone to listen to us... lots of chatting, laughing, eating, followed by some quiet couch potato chillin' till bedtime. It was a cool night, good sleeping weather, had me snuggled in till 8am when the dogs got me up as they always do! We headed out around lunch time...our fist stop of the day was at McLeod's Farms about a 15 or so mile drive...for a cool treat, and to check out the seasonal trims and the foods they had out for purchase! We test drove the rockers on the porch and watched travelers come and go.
Ornamental gourds, raw p-nuts and sugar cane on this table
This is a small local market conveniently located on hwy 151 that takes travelers to the coast and mostly Myrtle Beach. This is a huge family farm operation with peach orchards, pecan orchards, they grow strawberries, blueberries, corn, and other produce. They have a hay ride to the corn maze or to pick your own "punkin" which peaked last week before Halloween. We were told a lady got lost in the corn maze so we passed on doing that. (they found her)
Every color of pumpkin
all are locally grown or milled...pecans, grits,
and rice, honey, jams, jellies, chutney, all sorts of farm grown good stuff.
Some cute locally made birdhouses too...
Let's rock! No--> literally we did..lol
Once we'd had enough rocking to we hit their privately collected museum. A really awesome FREE look back in time...from the divinely restored to the rusted and cool. We enjoyed this so much I hadn't been in here in a while so it felt all new like seeing it for the very first time! I continue to be amazed that stuff I have used is now in museums...YIKES!
Our movie theater had a phone booth like this one we used to play in it, now it's in a museum and I recall weighting myself on a scale like the one on the left in this photo.
My grammy used to make shift dresses for us out of cloth that started out as feed bags like these!
One of the Peach Orchards next to the store is in fine color.
sis clowning around
Afterwards we headed to downtown Hartsville and Kalmia Gardens, a Botanical Garden part of Coker College.
A 35 acre Garden and black water swampland.
We had a really fine walk on a series of boardwalks, spying turtles at the pond, and great reflections at the Black Creek overlook.
a river cooter
The Lilly Pad and Turtle Pond
The gardens had lots of variety of Camellia in bloom which we enjoyed very much!
This could be pomegranate
This land and the antebellum house built in 1820 belonged to Thomas Hart, who donated this place to Coker College, for whom the town is named, Hartsville,
And more rockers on the front..
the center of town, taken in 2016 when Mom and I did a Town Trip
Tired after all the walking we had an early dinner in town, got home in time to feed my dogs only a bit later than they normally get to eat...had a little rest followed by a couple of Margarita's I mixed up in my home bar and once the sun set we headed out to the fire pit. A perfect balmy night just right for a little warmth while we watched the full moon come up behind the trees...it was such a great end to a great day!
Just wish all my family had been able to join us...
PEACE
Every day is a new Adventure.
What a wonderful weekend you had with your sis. I love the market place and all that farm grown stuff. I haven't had grits in ages. I always enjoy a stroll through a museum with old gadgets and yes I remember them in use in my mom's kitchen and some of the things that were in stores. Kalmia Gardens is gorgeous loved the reflections on the black water. I remember the town picture from the earlier post with your mom.
ReplyDeleteHI Jo, the time we had together went so fast! Originally we had planned to go to Swam Lake...but then the weather man said it may rain so we decided to go someplace a little closer to home so if it did start to rain we would just eat and then come home. My sis had never been to any of these spots so she really enjoyed it and I enjoyed sharing it with her!
DeleteIt does sound like a good weekend, good company, good fun and good weather. the veg displays are impressive, so colourful. It looks really good farmland around there, flat and fertile. Its the same for us when we go to museums, its "we used to have one of those" moments.
ReplyDeleteHowdy Dave! We really had a great time, we hardly ever get to just hang out...normally its rush here rush there...not this time we chilled and just took our time. In the Museum we learned a new fact about SC. It used to be known as the "Iodine State" due to the amount of iodine in the soil!
DeleteThat is a perfect weekend right there! Gosh -- I loved every single minute of this post. Wonderful Farm market, can't believe camellias are blooming (well, yes I can believe it because I've been in the South, but right now here in drippy Oregon it's hard to imagine.) Your firepit is great!
ReplyDeleteHey Sallie, I just left your blog and you sure threw out a mystery...intriguing monkey wrench...I just can't wait to see where you're going. The fire pit was a birthday gift way back in 2009 And I have really enjoyed it..even in summer I put candles in it and sit around to watch the flicker of the flames.
DeleteThis is lovely! The store and museum look wonderful, i'm not sure i'd have wanted to get out of the rockers!
ReplyDeleteI think we could have sat there all day people watching and rocking!
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