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Saturday, October 6, 2007

Pumpkin Patch with the Girl Scouts

This was a trip organized by the main office - which was a good thing since Sis ended up being the only girl from our troop that decided to go. I was not really looking forward to it...the description said pick a pumpkin and go on a hayride.  Well, it was that and so much more.  We all met up at the central location and split up into groups.  From there, we went to different sections of the patch and learned different things!


Our first section was the actual pumpkin patch - they told us how they planted the seeds, how long it takes to grow and showed the girls the several steps in going from seed to pumpkin.  They then got to pick a pumpkin (they had a choice - a sugar pumpkin or 3 munchins). Sis chose a sugar pumpkin so we can make a pumpkin pie with it (EEK!).  From there, we went to the story telling.  The girls heard the story of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. It was a really cute story about being different and it's ok to be different.  Then they talked about the differences in pumpkins, winter squash and gourds. After Spookley, the girls went to the cotton house.  Thy learned how cotton grew, how it was harvested -they go to see one of the big cotton bags, feel the cotton boll for the seeds in the cotton.  There were pictures of how it goes thru the mill and how it ends up (as our shirts!) and there was also a bit about how most cotton now days is generic - meaning it is made by machine - not grown - due to boll weevils. This part, I didn't know.


There was a petting zoo of sorts there and that was our next stop. The ladies that worked there pulled some of  the animals out of thier cages so the girls can pet them. (Well, the pig stayed caged!). The girls all were told to make some noise by clapping and stomping (basically scaring the poor thing) to get the male turkey to gobble.  It took a while, but he did it  - it was pretty funny!  After all of the animals, we went up the hill to the sorgum field.  One of the guys showed us how they harvested the sorgum cane and put it thru the press to get the juice out.  Once the barrel was full, it was snt down the hill to the cooker.  It takes a little over 6 hours to make a batch of molasses.  Since they were very busy, they didn't have the cooker heated, sowe got to see how it wored and try it out. 


Our last stop there was the hay ride -which we found out that it was not hay, it was straw! It was a long morning, and we had a great time and we learned so much!

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a wonderful day! I love Spookley the Square Pumpkin - reminds me that I need to pull it out for the kids!

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  2. My coding was different. I don't have any area that says begin blogging area. I tried several things and the only thing I ever managed was to get it right under my posts beginning....


    I may tinker more with it later...


    (It really isn't that big of deal..


    I tried several different templates too on my test blog, but like I said your coding is different from mine and also from any of the other templates I looked at that HSblogger offeres.


    Thanks anyway I appreciate you trying.

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  3. Christa - If I could I'd hop a plane to Arkansas and make a pumpkin pie with you gals - I have the ingredients to make a pumpkin and an apple and just have not gotten around to making it. - Charity

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  4. Not sure why that came up anonymous from me...

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