Aug. 7: Barley Lake

Barkley Lake (some of you may remember, Barkley was the VP under Truman) is one of two lakes that wrap around Land Between the Lakes. We're located right at the swimming area. We jumped in last night and it wasn't very refreshing. We think the water temp is about 95 deg. It's not even too refreshing when you get out because THERE IS NO WIND - NOT EVEN A BREEZE.



We went to do laundry and grocery shop today. AND, this was DQ's day for donating all proceeds from Blizzard sales to the Children's Miracle Network - sooooo, we had to stop by there to do our civic duty. It was hard but we forced ourselves.

This crop is tobacco. Larry and I had never seen it so I took several photos of it. The farm in the background is a dairy farm. To the left in this picture is a large corn crop and you can see behind these crops is a hay meadow. I asked about tobacco and how it was processed. Whole plants are inserted in the ground with a special planting machine . Two people, one on each side of the planter, place each plant into the machine as it sticks them in the ground. (This may be the story of the two bottom plow I get from Wayne and Larry - these were old guys I was talking too - for all I know these machines could be 4 or 8 man units). It is a year round crop, so we saw plants ready to harvest (the leaves turn yellow) and newly planted ones. When it blossoms on the top, it is cut off so the plant will get taller. These plants at the farm were from 3 to 5 feet tall depending on where it fell in the field (sun light, drainage, not sure what the variance was). The plants are cut and put into sheds for drying and then sold at auction. Most of the plants here go to Asia and China.



We really thought we would see lots of thoroughbred horses. Not so much. Apparently southern Kentucky (central to western) is more interested in feeding the country. Huge fields of corn and beans. I've never see so much corn. And those bean crops look awesome. And dotted between these crops is the occasional tobacco field. The barns and sheds here are painted black which is something we're starting to get used to.

We had our jet ski anchor stolen at our last camp so we spent some of this afternoon rigging up a home made one that maybe no one will want. Plus we rigged up the staring line anchors and the 3 marks that Larry will need to play with his sail boat - IF WE EVER GET ANY WIND!!!