Georgia Southern University has a large campus with over 20,000 students. They also have a successful football team--the GSU Eagles--that has won six FCS national titles in their division. It was at one of those national championship games that a sports reporter commented on the team's mascot soaring over the stadium. It was actually a turkey vulture in the sky that day. But that birthed the idea that this sizable university needed a live mascot. It took some years, but "Glory"--a female eagle--came to live on campus, and a special raptor center was built to house her. Now 30 years old, she lives in her resident nest. We thought it was interesting that she moved on her perch when we approached so that we could see her better.
But "Glory" has an injury so that she can't fly. It would be another nine years before the university got permission to house a younger male eagle with working wings. This is "Freedom," who was kicked out of his nest because of his malformed beak.
As we approached Freedom's area, he greeted us with the squeaky call of a bald eagle. He attends all the football games, and makes quite an entrance as he swoops over the crowd from the top of the press box. Let Freedom Fly!
GSU decided that while they were building a raptor center for a couple of eagles, they might as well house a few other raptors. All these birds are here because it is impossible to return them to the wild. Most of them have been injured and are unable to fly and hunt. The horned owl is known as the "Tiger of the Sky" because he can hunt all kinds of animals.
This barred owl obviously had a head injury, and is no longer able to hunt for himself.
Others, like this peregrine falcon are here at the wildlife center because they were imprinted as a young bird. That means he was raised by humans, so he thinks he is human too. That also means he has no idea how to hunt like a bird. In the wild, the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal in the world. He can dive straight down at speeds up to 250 miles per hour.
Down the walking trail, we found a Canadian Goose. Not usually worth a picture, but this one was herding four little goslings.
Their goose down looked almost like fur. While Denisa was moving closer for the best picture with her camera, Mark was taking pictures from the trail behind her. After Mother Goose hissed at her, Mark was hoping to get the goose attack recorded. Denisa is happy to report that Mother Goose was all hiss and no bite.
At 3:30 each week day, students in the ranger program at Southern Georgia take turns doing hands-on animal programs. We got to have an up-close experience with a year-old alligator.
The youngest member of the audience really liked touching all the animals, especially this king snake.
It was a great trip to see the wildlife at the nature center, and our next stop was spending more time in nature. We hadn't planned on this when we left home this morning, but we found a u-pick strawberry farm. Betty opted to be the photographer, rather than a picker.
There was plenty of room between the rows of plants, and Mark and Denisa picked some of the prettiest, freshest berries ever.
Unlike strawberries we buy at the grocery store that are hard and have white centers, these little sweet nuggets are bright red and flavorful all the way through.
We ended up with four pounds of berries. Vine-ripened strawberries are beautiful, and smell delicious!
But they are also very delicate and need to be eaten quickly. So we made a batch of fresh strawberry freezer jam within a couple hours of bringing them home. We no longer have hundreds of canning jars in our attic, but we found enough miscellaneous containers for our batch of jam. There are few things better than a biscuit with warm strawberry jam!
With our strawberries acting as a fragrant car deodorizer, we were driving through the country-side on our way home to our camping spot. That's when we noticed an interesting machine loading something orange.
We watched from the road, about a quarter mile away. Through the binoculars we could see that it was carrots, and that was a very complicated carrot combine. We watched as the trailer was completely loaded, and the combine had to wait until a new trailer made its way across the field. That's when Denisa decided to walk the quarter mile to get a closer look. Then she could see the combine pulling the carrots out of the ground, cutting off the tops, and then placing them on the conveyor up and over to the trailer.
The driver is used to admirers with cameras. He even pulled the combine closer and described the process to her. He encouraged us to drive the car into the field so Mark and Betty could see it closer too. They are able to harvest three rows of carrots at a time, and they were making fast work of this field.
A field of carrots with those lacy green tops is a picture-perfect crop.
As the harvester continued down the row, we noticed that the process isn't perfect. There were a few carrots partially exposed, but still left in the ground. Just like the strawberries, these are the freshest carrots we have ever eaten.
We had two interesting agri-tourism experiences that were both unplanned. Our days are often like that--we enjoy the random things that just pop up because we have the time to travel the road less traveled. We had one more amazing agriculture encounter--a whole field of giant marshmallows that looked like they were ripe and ready for harvest. As tall as the fence posts that surrounded the field, those marshmallows are going to make some giant smores!
Maybe those are just round bales that have been protected by white plastic when they were baled. But we still think the giant smores concept is a good one!
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