Agro-Tourism

My son and daughter-in-law came for a visit this weekend.  The purpose was to get together with family and enjoy each others' company, but it turned into something of a tourist type weekend.  My daughter-in-law grew up in Evergreen Park so she has not had many rural experiences.    Saturday we went to our family farm near Valmeyer.  My Grandfather planted and grafted a number of pecan trees on the farm.  Because the seasons have been somewhat fast forwarded this year, the pecans are starting to drop already.   My daughter-in-law had never had the experience of picking up pecans, so we took some time and gathered maybe two pounds of them for her to take back.   She also spotted some black walnuts on the ground.  I cracked one and she decided she would try a few of them too.  This morning she got the experience of removing the green hulls from the black walnuts.  The worms in the hulls bothered her a little bit. 

This afternoon we went to Broom's Orchard near Carlinville for their fall apple festival.  The Broom's are masters of Agro-Tourism.  For their big weekend festivities, they had a craft show, games for the kids, hayrides to pick your own, a band, a petting zoo, food, and lots of agricultural products on sale along with their staple products, apples and pumpkins.  I was amazed at the turnout.  I mentioned that to a friend in a craft booth and she said the crowds are always good.  I am accustomed to stopping by on weekdays when there is no crowd.  While I am sure the agro-tourism enhances the revenues on the farm, it is also a great way to provide an educational opportunity for people who are not so close to the land. 

I have to add, that it appears that soybean harvest will get a good start this week.  Most leaves are dropped on a lot of fields.  We saw one combine harvesting soybeans near Litchfield.