Skip to main content

Renewing our experience at the Guadalupe County Ag Center

Image
By

 I think the Guadalupe County Ag Center conscientiously changed their business plan and it may have worked well.  In years past, the organizers of this section of the Pecan Fest did not charge admission to the Ag Center and provided a turkey dinner for $8.  Then they changed to an $8 admission fee with an $8 turkey dinner.  Of course, last year, they were frightened off by the virus, so nothing occurred.  This year, with vastly improved display facilities in the so-called Red Barn, they did not charge admission but had a $15 turkey dinner.  So, you can see, they are searching for the sweet spot in attracting visitors and bringing in some cash.

Rodeos, agricultural fairs, and 4H exhibits put rural, farm and ranch life on display. We like to visit these events, especially to witness the enthusiasm of young people involved in outdoor and farm related activity. The Guadalupe County Agricultural Center is one of the favorites.  From our experience at any of these ranching and farming events some of the visitors are city people who walk around in flip flops trying to sidestep the manure and look at the displays as if they were visiting a museum as if none of this was real, but only on display for their amusement.  Other events, such as this agricultural center north of Seguin, apparently attracts those who are living the life which is on display.  The ag center just off Hwy 123 north of Seguin is a place of real life displays by volunteers of the local ranching and farming community. We didn't see many urbanites this day.

The Red Barn has been expanded with a new wing devoted to the Pecan growing business of the County.  The new wing is off to the right of the main hallway of exhibits--the main hallway shown in the following photo.  The Pecan Room is off to the right and the farm equipment straight ahead and the fantastic collection of old tools off to the left.  

Main Hall

Off to the right in this photo is the vendor booth of WW Farms where they sell pecans (new crop is not in yet) pecan oil, and pecan flour.  They also had for sale cookies made with mostly pecan flour (they were good tasting).  We plan to visit their farm for some pecans in a month or so.

Pecan Room
I think the person in the brown suit off to the right is supposed to be a pecan but it's hard to make a person into a pecan.

Tool Display 
This photo shows only about 20 % of the total display.  This is perhaps the most extensive display of hand tools that we have ever seen.  In the foreground is a small screen with a narrative by the collector on his history of collecting these tools.  He is a native of Marion, just to the east of Seguin.

The background of the tool display

We then had our turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and green beans dinner in a relaxed atmosphere, talking to the people who shared a large table with us.  An older couple across the table from us were native Texans who had moved from Round Rock when that area got out of control on population.  They enjoy their life in the Seguin area.  Two other ladies across from us were discussing various ways to prepare turkey stuffing, noting that this stuffing was corn bread based.  One said her mother always made corn bread stuffing with hamburger meat added. I guess there are an infinite number of ways to make turkey stuffing.  Unfortunately, we did not take a photo of the eating area or the dinner as we were too busy talking and eating.
One interesting sidelight was the lady taking the tickets for the turkey dinner.  With some conversation kick starting, she said she was a new Texan and a political refugee.  More discussion led to the reality that she had to leave the State of Washington because she said "the people there just keep electing the people who are ruining the State of Washington".  Perhaps she should have stayed and fought the battle of survival of the state, but then that may not be tolerable to some people so they leave.

Good day was had by all.










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aermotor Windmill Lives

By
The Aermotor windmill is probably the oldest iconic windmill In the United States today. We bought one that was very old at a seller's booth at the Round Top antique market. This was back in the late 1900s. So that makes it 20 years ago or so. We first erected this windmill In Fulshear in the backyard. We had to get Architectural Control Committee approval to do this. Because some of our neighbors may have some bad experiences with a neighboring windmill, we had to assure them that we would not let the brake slide and provide that nasty shrieking noise.  Other than that, there was no objection to looking at a windmill.  W e erected the windmill in Fulshear.  It was quite a chore for us as we had no idea where all the parts fit together and how they were arranged.  For example, we learned that the sail wheel with its struts is built with the same concept as a bicycle wheel with its spokes.  After much head scratching and consulting the internet we had it to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

St. Josephs Church Picnic in Yoakum

By
Off on this nice day to visit the old town of Yoakum.  Yoakum is like many towns of this size, they grew to moderate size in the mid 1900s, then plateaued and now are not growing at all.  Yoakum has a central area that consists of old brick buildings that are mostly unoccupied or are occupied with marginal businesses. We attended a church picnic in Yoakum a year ago, but that was the Lutheran Picnic and this one is sponsored by the Catholic church.  We first drove directly to the Church, but this was not the place where the picnic was held---it was at the Community center in the old part of downtown, along the rows of warehouses paralleling the railroad tracks.  This town was once a shipping center for agricultural products, like especially tomatoes.  Now there is little of that produce and so the warehouses sit there rather bleak looking. The dinner was the usual, beef stew, sausage, smashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and bread.  And don't forget the desserts...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cause and Effect

By
 We have this great world atlas book published by the National Geographical Society, which by the way, we bought at the local library used book sale for $2. Probably this low price of the book pains the Society but it sure makes my reference to maps an easy task without having to wake up my computer. The book occupies a permanent spot on a book stand in our breakfast room, standing ready to supply map information on request. The book happened to be open to the page showing the whole of Antarctica featuring all the outposts and even some commentary of scientific significance. One such comment was on ice coring data of historic temperatures and carbon dioxide content.  I can understand how the CO2 content of the ice can be preserved over many centuries at varying depths, but I am unsure how the prevailing temperature of some thousand years ago can be preserved in the ice cores--but that's another issue that we will not get into here. So here is the comment on the data of the ice...
Post a Comment
Read more