As we finish up our blog for 2022, I just wanted to recap our stops and share the miles we have traveled over the 10 days. These were longs days and short nights. All of our students have learned so much on this trip. From farming clams, sweet potatoes, rice, cattle, cotton, vegetables, poultry and dairy to how these products are processed and marketed to us, the consumer.
Lots of life lessons learned: Stay in school! Be willing to work. Be willing to learn. Don't be afraid of change. Try new things.
6/1/2022 Riverview HS to FWC Marine Laboratory 145 miles
FWC Marine Lab to Cedar
Key Aquaculture 1
mile
Cedar Key Aquaculture to
Forest Capital Museum 92
miles
Museum to Full Circle
Dairy 31
miles
Full Circle Dairy to Tallahassee 65
miles
6/2/2022 Hotel to FL Cracker Cattle Herd 6
miles
FL Cracker Cattle Herd
to FDACS 4
miles
FDACS to Sturgeon
Aquafarms 71
miles
Sturgeon Aquafarms to
Cottonwood FFA 20
miles
Cottonwood FFA to Hotel 38
miles
6/3/2022 Hotel to White Oak Pastures 11
miles
White Oak Pastures to
Carver Museum 44
miles
Carver Museum to Hardly
Simple Farming 184
miles
Hardly Simple Farming to
Hotel 119
miles
6/4/2022 Hotel to Bogue Chitto Cotton Gin 35
miles
Cotton Gin to Bountiful Harvest Farms 33 miles
Bountiful Harvest Farms to Two Brooks Farm 122 miles
Two Brooks Farm to Hotel 122
miles
6/5/2022 Hotel to Pontotoc Experiment Station 28 miles
Experiment Station to
Hotel 63
miles
6/6/2022 Hotel to MSU 2
miles
MSU to Little Creek
Cattle 8
miles
Little Creek Cattle to
Hotel 88
miles
6/7/2022 Hotel to Jones Valley Teaching Farm 54 miles
Teaching Farm to Blue
Bell Creamery 47
miles
Blue Bell Creamery to
North Georgia Turf 109
miles
North Georgia Turf to
Hotel 93
miles
6/8/2022 Hotel to World Shepherd Project 18
miles
World Shepherd to White
Hills Farm 73
miles
White Hills Farm to
Fries Frozen Food 59
miles
Fries Frozen Food to 920
Cattle and Co. 45
miles
920 Cattle to Hotel 15
miles
6/9/2022 Hotel to Better Fresh Farms 20
miles
Better Fresh Farms to
A&M Farms 25
miles
A&M Farms to LTF
Greenhouse 108
miles
LTF Greenhouse to ABAC 9
miles
ABAC to Hotel 108
miles
6/10/2022 Hotel to Honeybee Research Lab 47
miles
Honeybee Research Lab to
Horse Teaching Unit 5
miles
Horse Teaching Unit to
Beef Teaching Unit 4
miles
Beef Teaching Unit to
Red, White, and Blue Farms 27
miles
Red, White, and Blue
Farms to Erin Freel 30 miles
Erin Freel to RVHS 105 miles
TOTAL MILES TRAVELED according to Google Maps (Excluding wrong turns and meal destinations!) 2333 miles
According
to our odometers: (Not too many wrong turns!) 2564
miles!
It’s me again and it’s day 10/10 of Riverviews' summer ag tour. On our third stop of day 10 we visited The University of Florida's beef teaching unit. During this time we were able to tour just 1 of many facilities where there was mostly Brahman bulls and some other females on the opposite side. This facility was just rebuilt back in 2018, where they updated many of the tools they use. They use the ideas of a very famous person by the name Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin was very famous for her ideas of the squeeze chute which is essentially a tool that is very helpful for getting a cow close enough and also safe enough to where you can work on that animal.
This teaching unit was probably one of my favorite things about today's stops and it was overall such a fun experience. As I mentioned earlier, the Brahman bulls are actually one of the best breeds in Florida as they are super heat tolerant and resistant to diseases from bugs. The Brahman distinctive feature is the big lump on the back of them which is made up of mostly fat and cartilage. In this facility it’s also operated as a cow calf operation which is exactly how it sounds and it’s separated from the feed lot where those cow's calves will be eventually. Though there wasn’t a lot to talk about in todays tour it was a super amazing experience and I loved seeing the cute cows and I’m sure you would love to see some of these pictures.
Food, food and more food…
On our trips we try to make at least one of our meals stops
a local restaurant unless our tours feed us all day. Most of the time this ends
up being our dinner stop but it just depends on the day. The following places
are stops we made that had great food and service and the usual question as the food came out was "Wait! Did your phone eat first?".
Backwoods crossing (Tallahassee, FL)
The 4th out (Blakely, GA)
The Red Barn (Demopolis, AL)
Neon Pig (Tupelo, MS)
No Way Jose (Huston, MS)
Churn and Spoon (Starkville, MS)
Zachary’s (Columbas, MS)
Truetts Luau Chick-fil-a (Fayetteville, GA)
Rio Grande Mexican (Lyons, GA)
43rd street deli and breakfast (Gainesville, FL)
Down time …. When there was any
Our 10-day trip was slam packed with 31 stops, early
mornings, and late nights. While the students were not actively in a tour or
sleeping there was fun times in the car and little moments between traveling
that learning was occurring even when they didn’t realize it. The following are
the many little moments that keep me as an advisor and teacher wanting to
continue doing this trip again every year.
Pic 1&2: Playground fun. While at our Cotton wood HS FFA stop the students wanted to test out their playground. Some of these items at this playground have been removed from most of the playgrounds near us so they had a blast running around at the end of the tour.
Pic 3: Talking about our experiences and the activities of the next day. This was an everyday thing after dinner, however one of our chaperones was able to catch this moment between myself, Mrs. Hamilton and the students.
Pic 4&5: Picking wild Black berries. There was some debate on whether these were black berries or mulberries but after thorough research we come to the conclusion that black berries grow on bushes with thorns and mulberries grow on trees and that these were in fact black berries and that depending on where you lived determined what you called them.
Video 6: Playing heads up in the car with Mrs. Hernandez (I was not driving). I screen recorded the students acting out the animals as I tried to guess. They loved it and this game was played a lot during car rides.
Pic 7&8: Power of Observation Dice game
Video 9: Tree hugging at the sweet potato farm while waiting for everyone to get out of the restroom. (I think the deliria of being tired had started to set in!)
Pic 10&11: Trying raw sweet potatoes.
Pic 12&13: ICE CREAM!
Video 14: After ice-cream we had multiple requests to go and
see the stars, Sooo… to a field we went and the students also got to see fireflies/Lighting
bug (don’t get us started on what those are called too!)
Pic 14&16: Corn hole after dinner at 920 cattle and
company
This is the final entry for Summer Ag Tour 2022. Look for next year's blog as we travel to Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Sp...
