Cotton, pecans, buffets and BBQ

Vienna, GA

Cotton

We are seeing a different kind of white stuff covering the fields down here.  Not the cold, wet, white stuff that we are used to up north.  The white covering the Georgia fields is cotton, a major crop.

Square bales.  We also see lots of huge round bales.

Pecans:

The other large crop in this area is Pecans.   We were given a tour of a local pecan farm by the owner

of Ellis Farms - Elliott Ellis.

The larger of these trees were planted in 1918 and still provide a substantial crop of pecans every other year.

Once the pecans drop from the trees, they are blown into piles then loaded into trailers and brought to the processing facility. The pecans are then sorted to remove debris. 

After sorting they are stored in cold storage until they are packaged.  

Mr. Ellis stresses to never buy pecans sold along the road and sitting in bags in the sun.  He says pecans need to be kept cool or they will turn rancid.   Visit the Ellis Bros. web site at

http://www.werenuts.com/

Buffets:

Our first buffet of the weekend was Friday night at Pats Camp just outside of Vienna.   It was okay, just okay,  On the line were catfish fillets, whole small catfish, baked beans, cole slaw, salad, hushpuppies, cheese grits. and french fries.  Not worth a trip back.

On Sunday after church we went to Sheilas in the neighboring town of Cordele.  The restaurant is connected to this store.

A much better buffet. (AND FOUR DOLLARS CHEAPER)   Fried chicken, ham, roast beef, BBQ pork, white beans, green beans, cole slaw, seafood salad, green salad, collards, cornbread, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, bread dressing, and all kinds of pies and cakes including (what else?) pecan pie.

Bar B Q

Each year the town of Vienna hosts the Big Pig Jig.  This is a competition with teams from all over the country.    I took lots of pictures of the various cookers but I am having a difficult time uploading pictures here.   It has been taking about 15 minutes a picture.   

The one picture I will upload is that of a whole roasted pig.   The first prize winner in that category was the local Vienna Volunteer Fire Company.   Stacey, the director here at the campground and her husband Matt were on that team.

Tomorrow - it's back to work!