And not to be outdone, Arthur ground the flour himself. This is a cool little tool. a small flour mill!

And, to top it off, a cream cheese that Arthur ALSO made.. It received my son’s seal of approval; He asked for seconds!

I think Arthur has figured out that you grow a bunch of fruit, you attract kids like flies.. (and what a wholesome attraction it is!) And then he has guest (parents) to talk to. Hey, It works for me! (I would visit Arthur anyway, but I digress) This is aitty bitty watermelon, that was on one of Arthur’s vines that must have been damaged. We didn’t think it was going to be any good.. But it turned out to be just fine. Who knew. Its like a lunchbox size watermelon!

And before we left, we had to visit the Fig tree.. Man these things are good. I cant believe I had to wait til’ I was almost 40 to experience them right off the tree. 10 seconds after this picture, this one was in my son’s stomach! And that was not all.. we also had a couple Pears before we left.. But I did not get any pictures of those.

I like Visiting with Arthur! The kids get to experience good wholesome food, right in its “natural habitat”. We are lucky to have Arthur and his support for the kids and teachers of they community.

To fill the time, we are going to document a project a couple of the board members have decided to tackle!

Arthur Shealy of North Augusta has acquired an old Cane press that he is going to rebuild this summer. He plans on having it ready by the fall harvest season.. for what, you ask? He has also planed a quarter acre of sorghum! So, if all goes as planned this fall, we are going to have a sorghum press and boil this fall at the Shealy plantation. It sounds like it will be a regular down home party! It is an old press, one that needs to be powered by a mule.. Arthur has said that he knows someone with a mule, so we should not only have the press, AND the cane, but also a power source for the press! It really sounds like some old fashioned fun.

Here is what it should resemble when it complete.

Below is a picture of the second step of the rebuild.. (the first being the disassembly) We are removing the rust from this antique! And doing it in a interesting fashion if I say so myself. A scientific method! We are going to use electrolysis to convert the rust back to steel! This process does not actually add steel to the rusty item, Rather it makes the (former)rust easy to remove, without doing any more damage to the desired piece of rusty metal. This is a picture of our setup. all those items in the back are pieces we need to rehabilitate.

Isn’t this interesting?
OK, now all I have to do is get my wife Kathi to understand why I want to plant a couple hundred square feet of sorghum in our back yard.. Hmm.. it takes 120 days to grow sorghum.. I better get planting!

Ok, I have created the video of the start of Arthurs Cane mill project..
I Here it is! Via youtube:

We are eternally grateful for any mentions the media is willing to give us. It is so helpful in getting the word out, we cant even put a value on it.

To the media: Thank you for helping.

Here is the latest mention. Will McGee,  board member and secretary to Smartkids.sc was interviewed by Melissa Tune of News Channel 12

Thank you Melissa!