Peaceful Pastures Farm Trip, Part 3

Index:

Part 1	The trip down...	A Farm Tour	Around the Farm	Pets and Barn Cats
Part 2	Fowl	Horses	Swine and Cattle	Sheep, Goats and Guard Dogs
Part 2	Pics from my first trip	Misc Photos	Video of the farm	West Nashville Market
Part 3	Insects	Edgar Evins SP / Center Hill Dam	Natchez Trace Parkway / Merriweather Lewis Burial Site	Orlando Meat Meets

Meriwether Lewis Grave Site on the Natchez Trace Parkway...

Insects

I took a type of zoology class in college once. Rather than all the phylums and orders, we decided there were three classifications of animals. The soft and squishes, the hard and crunchies, and the warm and furries. Pretty much every living animal fell into those three categories.

Well, these are a few hard and crunchies. One of Jenny's friends was able to identify the wheel bug. The katydid was on the window of the visitor's center at Edgar Evins. I was there a few minutes before opening, and was just looking around when I found it on the window.

Oh, I really hate hard and crunchies. Gives me the willies. ;-)

Insects

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Edgar Evins SP / Center Hill Dam

Edgar Evins State Park Map. Click on the image for a larger view.

If you're going to go to Peaceful Pastures for more than a day, you have two choices for lodging. The first, is a Comfort Inn in Gordonsville, Tennessee. It's okay. It's a Comfort Inn. It's usually pretty busy, since it's the only hotel for miles. It's a few years old, but it's in pretty good shape.

The other option are the cabins at Edgar Evins State Park. Edgar Evins is the top of a ridge, which doesn't look like a ridge because the Center Hill Dam has flooded the bottom 175 feet of the hill. The reservoir right now is artificially low, since the Army Corp of Engineers is doing work on the dam to stop some "seepage". So if the dam should go, I'm already above the water level. :-)

I should first mention I was here during the off-season. As a matter of fact, weekdays during this time is 50% off. The first day I got here, not a soul was around, and if I didn't find a couple of employees about to leave at the marina, I wouldn't have even been able to find where the key to the place was.

Not that it mattered, the room wasn't ready the first day I arrived. Dirty towels in and on the bathtub, and all the bedding was thrown onto a chair in the corner of the room. So my first day, I'd give this place zero stars.

This would have made a great setting for a horror flick. Grey, overcast, no leaves on the trees, no other people around (not even Rangers, as far as I can tell) and everything seems to operate from 8am to 4:30pm.

After a conversation with the park staff the next morning, they made the room ready and I moved in the next evening. It's no longer overcast and gloomy, other people were there, some boaters. They're drinkers, not axe murderers. The smell of charcoal from their grill is comforting at the least.

As soon as you're in the door, you have to decide whether the stuff you have should go upstairs or downstairs. I've already climbed up the side of a hill, and my legs tell me that with every step. Ah well, it won't be as bad as a couple of days from now.

Downstairs is the bedroom, double beds. Upstairs is a full kitchen and living area, with DirectTV and a HDTV. Off the opposite end from the door is a balcony about 30 feet off the ground. The place is built on the side of a hill, and it is much higher off the ground at the back.

One of the problems I had was with the heat. The heater is on the top floor, so the bedroom below is cold while the second floor is hot. The thing that compounds the problem is the thermostat is on the lower floor, so it's hard to regulate the temperature on the top floor. I'm sure this isn't a problem during the summer.

I'd say it's better room than the Comfort Inn in Gordonsville, and it about the same distance from the farm. The drive is a bit more fun, but amenities, such as food is non-existent. The closest place for food is really Gordonsville, right around the Comfort Inn. Go figure.

Sorry for the mess in the pictures. I should have cleaned the place up a little before the shots, but well... In any event, there was no housekeeping at all during my stay, but had plenty of towels and soap.

You pass right over the dam to and from the farm. It's a TVA dam, and does supply power to the surrounding communities. It's seeped ever since it's constructions, but a series of sinkholes that formed has prompted repairs.

Edgar Evins State Park and Center Hill Dam

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Natchez Trace Parkway / Meriwether Lewis Burial Site

Please see the Natchez Trace Parkway for more pictures and details on the National Road.

I did the Natchez Trace Parkway in 1998 from Natchez to Tupelo and 2000, from Nashville to Tupelo. My 2000 leg of the Natchez Trace was on a crappy, overcast, drizzly day, and if there was a nice day, I'd like to go drive a few miles of it. In particular, Meriwether Lewis' grave site at Grinders Stand.

I've been to a lot of the Lewis and Clark sites, mostly in 2006, where I was meeting PiC in Seattle, and I/we would go to Fort Mandan, Pompeys Pillar, Cape Disappointment, Fort Clatsop, the Columbia River Gorge, and other Lewis and Clark sites.

The Meriwether Lewis site on the Natchez Trace Parkway is sort of the final chapter in the Lewis and Clark story. I have some picture of the place from 2000, but it would be nice to upgrade those...

Natchez Trace Parkway

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Loveless Cafe

We would visit other places on the trace, and take it back to Nashville. We get off the end of it, and Jenny spies the Loveless Cafe, where a lot of country stars got their start. We stop for Lunch. The food was amazing. I had the BBQ pork with fries and the best cream corn I've ever eaten. Jenny had the Country Ham with a real easy over egg, with Fried Green Tomatoes and mumble... Biscuits, which come with every meal, were great. I wish everyone make biscuits like that. :-)

I bought some ham at the gift shop, and the stuff is great. Might have to mail order some...

Loveless Cafe

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Epilog

It was an interesting few days, from new goat births to leading horses around like dogs to chicken in trees. It's not something you run into in Chicago. Well, not every day, anyway. I didn't get everything done on Jenny's list, but it was a looooong list. I got the important stuff done.

I did get a frozen turkey, and a cat. Louie. The orange cat in the pictures. I was wondering how he'd do all the way home. After the first hour and a half, he started to fidget. I stopped at a rest area, leveled his carrier a bit more and put in a thicker beach towel, and he slept all the way home. We're talking 8 hours.

He's integrating with the rest of the household, and is turning into a... cat. Imagine that. Figaro is not happy. Imagine that. But they're getting used to it.

Between the leftover BBQ pork from the Loveless Cafe, to picking over the smoked duck carcass to finishing the last two slices of that really evil chocolate pecan pie, I didn't have to cook for two days... ;-)

I, Figaro, Louie (and Mom) did think the Peaceful Pastures turkey was delicious.

Orlando Meat Meets

Okay, they're really not called the Orlando Meat Meets. They're actually the GA/FL Deliveries, where you can place an order with Peaceful Pastures, and meet the Big Yellow Penske Truck in certain places around I-75 from Georgia to Tampa, and in Orlando to pick up your order. (Click here for more information.)

Jenny and various helpers makes these deliveries three times a year. Orlando is the last stop they make because that's where Disney World is! But I digress. I've been to two of these, one in August 2011, and one in December 2011

The Peaceful Pastures Orlando Meat Meet, August 17, 2011

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