Peanuts and Mose!

It's that time of year again. . . time for peanuts to be harvested. We live in an area that produces a large amount of the nation's peanuts. In fact, not far from us is Dothan, Alabama, "The Peanut Capital of the World" and the location of the National Peanut Festival held every fall.

2011 National Peanut Festival

Cotton was at one time the main crop produced in Alabama, but in 1915 the boll weevil, a beetle native to Mexico and Central America that feeds on cotton bolls and flowers, made its way to our state and changed that almost overnight. Entire cotton crops were lost and local farms were devastated. Luckily, farmers soon turned their focus to a crop that grew just as well in our area. . . the peanut. They quickly had remarkable success with it, and peanuts went on to become a major cash crop. In 2010 around 185,000 acres of peanuts were harvested in the state of Alabama alone.

I've always been very allergic to peanut dust, so this is probably not the best part of the country for me to have been born in and not the easiest time of the year for me, either. I have to say that being able to enjoy boiled peanuts and fresh peanut butter makes up for feeling a little under the weather, though. Last Sunday, one of our neighbors was kind enough to bring us a pile of peanuts that had just been dug up. So, we spent the afternoon picking them off, and we ended up with quite a few to put up in the freezer. It's something that I remember my grandfather doing every fall. He loved being able to pull a bag out and boil some to enjoy any time he wanted.

Peanut plants are unusual because the actual peanut
grows under the ground and has to be dug up.

Today was Mose's first farrier appointment; our farrier ended up being a little late making it out to see him and Myrtle. Mose did so well for it, and I'm very proud of the little guy : ) I guess all of that training that we've done has really paid off. I wish I'd gotten a picture of him today, but I completely forgot. I'm so amazed at  how fast he's grown and at how sweet his personality is. I'm planning on Mose being trained to be a riding donkey when he's older, and I think he'll suit that purpose really well.