There was nowhere I had to be today so I decided to take a mini road trip through the farms and small towns in our beautiful state. I also took the opportunity to spend some time with friends in Ridge Spring, a hub of peach farming activity. Being farmers themselves, and having lived in the area for many generations, they were happy to be my guides and show me all kinds of really neat things that I would completely have missed if I hadn't known about the gravel roads that crisscross fields and link farms with neighboring farmsteads in the region.
The really sad thing is that these small towns are slowly dying because the young people have all left to pursue lives in the bigger cities. Houses have been left to decay with no buyers available to take them at any price. Churches are closing their doors because they are losing too many parishioners to their adjacent cemeteries, and there is no new generation rising up to replace them. Stores are boarded up, and there is no longer any demand for accommodation in the local hotels. The independent farmers can no longer compete with the Corporate farmers, and so they sell their land and move away. The price of progress.
I didn't take many photos, mainly because it was pouring with rain most of the time. I will go back as soon as I can because I have much unfinished business, but here are a few that I managed to take of peaches ready for picking (courtesy of Titan Farms) and some cotton plants flowering in fields along the road as I traveled home.
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