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.
