Combines off topic winter trip

[JWK]

I know if you want to travel to Florida in the first part of March there is a "Strawberry Festival" held for 10 days every year in Plant City. I think the website for that is flstrawberryfestival.com Jack

 

[shellman]

I'm located in central Kansas. Most of our worst weather will be in December and January. You mentioned about the plants, a couple days notice at Grand Island will get you a tour there. Moving south if you are into aerospace science and some of that history you have the Kansas Cosmophere at 17th and Plum in Hutchinson. lots of space and rocket stuff. V-1 and V-2 rocket, sputnik, space suits, Apollo command capsuel, space shuttle mockup, SR711 Blackbird as you enter, lunar module etc. These guys are the ones that built all the sets for Apollo 13 the movie and have restored a number of space artifacts, most notably of late the liberty 7 space capsul from Alan Sheppard. They did find a mercury head dime as he always flew with a roll of them, but could not answer the question about pilot or mechanical error that blew the hatch. Also in Hutchinson the underground salt mine museum opened last year. Have heard its a good deal. There is also a airplane museum in liberal, SAC facility in Omaha. If you are not color partial, AGCO headquarters in Hesston Kansas can also provide an excellent tour. If you tastes lean more toward agriculture there is Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska, not far from Grand Island, and further south there is a tremendous aquarium in Jenks(Tulsa) Oklahoma that is definately worth the visit. Hope this gives you some ideas.

 

[robmgrig]

If you come through Tennessee, visit the Grand Ole Opery in Nashville. The Opryland hotel is a great place to stay while you're there. if you're just into agriculture, come by my farm in West Tn if you want to see a cotton operation. Heck, I might even have my 1660 in the shop and you can help me work on it. lOl

 

[gleanermanitoba]

Thanks for the information, thats what I am looking for. I figure it will be a while before I tackle a trip like this again so trying to mix up some agriculture and non agriculture so I can say I saw as much as I could. Cotton would be interesting, I have seen some pictures but not many, For me it's wheat, peas, canola, flax, and millet with occasionally oats or barley.

 

[riceman]

I'm a little over an hour from Rob and you can swing by our place to look at a rice farm.

 

[JWK]

Mr. R. Question. I heard that TN had a drought in 2007. How have you recovered from the shortage of waterIJ JWK

 

[robmgrig]

Our soil profile is getting close to normal again. It's been so wet this winter I haven't hardly been able to get in my wheat fields. Rutted a few of them up in places. last winter and spring was dry and WINDY. had a few inches between may and june and then not a drop btween fourth of july and middle of september. All of August was over 100 degrees with records being set many days for record highs.the heat absolutely cooked our crops. Probably hurt us worse than the drought. County average on beans was 12 bu_acre. My cotton was 480 lbs_acre. 1000 is normal. Corn did better than anything (surprise). Milo was 60 bushels_acre. Wheat was 30 bu_acre due to the easter freeze. I don't think that Middle or east TN has recovered as well as we have. They were even drier than west TN. So we're looking good for this year (so far) and plus the la Nina is weakening