Land Between the Lakes
May. 18th, 2007 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragoness_eYesterday, we drove up to one of my favorite recreational areas, The Land Between the Lakes. We made a day of it and hit the usual stops: The Home Place, The Elk and Bison Prairie, and the Nature Station.
The Home Place
... is a couple of rural Tennessee farmsteads, re-created as they were around 1850. They are operational farmsteads, growing heirloom varieties of crops, raising antique livestock breeds with the methods used back then. They also make use of the farm produce as would have been done back then, spinning wool into thread, making cloth on the loom, smoking the meat, drying tobacco, putting up the corn in cribs, etc. It's both an educational site, and dedicated to the preservation of heirloom breeds and varieties. (You can buy antique varieties of vegetable seeds in the gift shop, btw. There's some interesting stuff not seen around outside of private gardens--i.e., not in grocery stores.)
Yesterday, one of the volunteers was plowing a cornfield. I'd never seen a horse-drawn plow in operation, so we stood and watched for a while, and the plowboy lectured us on what he was doing and why. He had two white Percherons out in the field; one was actually harnessed to the double-share plow he was using, and the other was tied to the fence "just to keep the other horse company, he's actually a lousy plowhorse. Good at pulling carts, though."
Bob, the horse that was a good plowhorse, had legs that were set straight and very close together. He could walk along a row of corn quite nimbly, without wandering and stepping on the young corn. Jake, the other horse, had bowed rear legs, and we were informed that because of that, he tended to wander at the plow and stomp the rows.
I also learned some about lamb's ear, tansy, yarrow and various other herbs.
The Elk and Bison Prairie
...is a large area where the native prairie habitat is being restored, along with the elk and bison that once roamed western and central Tennessee. You can drive through it and see elk and bison, if you are lucky. The elk tend to be elusive brown blobs a mile away across a field, or something caught briefly in the sunlight while slipping through the trees. The bison are usually much easier to see; they frequently lounge in herds near the road.
They have a lot of calves this year. The calves were adorable; they were close enough to the road to watch one nursing, and other one stood by the road and stared at us, like he wasn't certain if he should challenge the car or not. The parents were a bit scruffy--still shedding their winter coats.
Woodlands Nature Station
The Nature Station is a zoo-type place, with animals that cannot be released into the wild that are local to the region (i.e. rehabilitated but too damaged or too used to humans). They also have a butterfly & hummingbird garden, though it was too early in the year for it to be in bloom yet. The feeders were swarming with hummingbirds and goldfinches, though.
We got there in time for them feeding the eagle, the vultures, and the red wolves. We saw the coyotes, which are bigger than I expected--one of the Red Wolves had a pattern very much like the coyotes. The other one, the female, had a white face and much darker body, and the white face looked quite spooky. There are also fallow deer, wild turkey--I see those in the backyard regularly here, white-tail deer, the bobcat,and a collection of hawks and owls...
It was a lot of fun, though spring up here has everything that I'm allergic to in bloom.. but you don't want to hear about my sinus congestion. :-)
The Home Place
... is a couple of rural Tennessee farmsteads, re-created as they were around 1850. They are operational farmsteads, growing heirloom varieties of crops, raising antique livestock breeds with the methods used back then. They also make use of the farm produce as would have been done back then, spinning wool into thread, making cloth on the loom, smoking the meat, drying tobacco, putting up the corn in cribs, etc. It's both an educational site, and dedicated to the preservation of heirloom breeds and varieties. (You can buy antique varieties of vegetable seeds in the gift shop, btw. There's some interesting stuff not seen around outside of private gardens--i.e., not in grocery stores.)
Yesterday, one of the volunteers was plowing a cornfield. I'd never seen a horse-drawn plow in operation, so we stood and watched for a while, and the plowboy lectured us on what he was doing and why. He had two white Percherons out in the field; one was actually harnessed to the double-share plow he was using, and the other was tied to the fence "just to keep the other horse company, he's actually a lousy plowhorse. Good at pulling carts, though."
Bob, the horse that was a good plowhorse, had legs that were set straight and very close together. He could walk along a row of corn quite nimbly, without wandering and stepping on the young corn. Jake, the other horse, had bowed rear legs, and we were informed that because of that, he tended to wander at the plow and stomp the rows.
I also learned some about lamb's ear, tansy, yarrow and various other herbs.
The Elk and Bison Prairie
...is a large area where the native prairie habitat is being restored, along with the elk and bison that once roamed western and central Tennessee. You can drive through it and see elk and bison, if you are lucky. The elk tend to be elusive brown blobs a mile away across a field, or something caught briefly in the sunlight while slipping through the trees. The bison are usually much easier to see; they frequently lounge in herds near the road.
They have a lot of calves this year. The calves were adorable; they were close enough to the road to watch one nursing, and other one stood by the road and stared at us, like he wasn't certain if he should challenge the car or not. The parents were a bit scruffy--still shedding their winter coats.
Woodlands Nature Station
The Nature Station is a zoo-type place, with animals that cannot be released into the wild that are local to the region (i.e. rehabilitated but too damaged or too used to humans). They also have a butterfly & hummingbird garden, though it was too early in the year for it to be in bloom yet. The feeders were swarming with hummingbirds and goldfinches, though.
We got there in time for them feeding the eagle, the vultures, and the red wolves. We saw the coyotes, which are bigger than I expected--one of the Red Wolves had a pattern very much like the coyotes. The other one, the female, had a white face and much darker body, and the white face looked quite spooky. There are also fallow deer, wild turkey--I see those in the backyard regularly here, white-tail deer, the bobcat,and a collection of hawks and owls...
It was a lot of fun, though spring up here has everything that I'm allergic to in bloom.. but you don't want to hear about my sinus congestion. :-)
