South
Carolina
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Myrtle Beach as seen from pier
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Great beach to walk on
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Ocean pier
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No cruisin' allowed!
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Jungle Lagoon!! Fred always beats
me at miniature golf!
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Bald Eagle
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Barred Owl
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River Otter
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Small Blue Heron
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Spider Lily
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Swamp Hibiscus
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Fred in front of rice field
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Lois, the Archaeologist
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We dance the night away!
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Children raising flag
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Wave sculpture
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Wolf family
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Flying Geese
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Fred reading??
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Momma and baby
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Our trip to Myrtle Beach was accented by a visits to Brookgreen Gardens and Studebakers, a club like one we used for our wedding celebration. Brookgreen is a garden created in 1930, when a family bought 4 rice plantations with the plan to use the property as a place to go in the country and to start a sculpture garden. The garden is still an active sculpture garden and hosts events through out the year with special exhibits.
Since this property was once part of 5 rice plantations they have done some historical archaeology digs. There were a few maps that showed some of the buildings, but they wanted to learn more. In a presentation we learned how they plotted the location of each item they find. The plot then shows the frequency of things found, like nails, pieces of glass and bones. As you overlay the plots it was amazing to see how they would point to the location of a building.
Many of the slaves that worked these plantations came from Sierre Leone in Africa. A local history professor was able to take samples of pottery found at the plantation and buy the exact same pot in a market in Sierre Leone. He had wanted to make the comparison for years but was prevented from traveling to Africa because of the civil war going on in that country.
The slaves also brought another thing with them from Africa, the skill and knowledge to grow rice. Rice had been a crop in Africa for thousands of years, but the Europeans that came to America did not know how to grow it. It was the European's money to buy the land and equipment and the slave's knowledge that made the huge rice plantations a reality.
The 5 plantations that make up the garden were bounded on one side by a river that connected to the Atlantic Ocean just about 20 miles away. They were able to use the tide changes in the river to flood their rice fields at the appropriate times. The most important job that a slave could hold was the person that decided when to flood the fields; they had to understand the tides and the condition of the rice plants to know the appropriate times. It was interesting to learn that during the next to last flooding, the water was allowed to completely cover the plants. That would do two things, wash out an weeds and trash that had collected in the field and kill pests that might be on the plants.
When the Civil War ended, the slaves were freed and the plantations lost their free labor and began to decline. They tried sharecropping but that did not prove to be workable. The end came when the rice fields of Louisiana became more successful; they were in land that would allow machinery to enter the fields for easier harvest.
The next transition for the property was to be used as hunting and fishing vacation places. This was the period when these 5 plantations were purchased to become a sculpture garden and they still play that role.