MUSEUM OF ARGRICULTURE…LUBBOCK

Tuesday, May 10 – We went down to see the new location for the Buddy Holly Statue and Walk of Fame. The dedication was on Monday, May 10. It's new location is across the street from the Buddy Holly Museum. It's a great location, in a nice new park, in the entertainment district downtown.

Do you know some of these Hall of Famers.

Thursday, May 12 – We headed to our last museum today.....The American Museum of Agriculture, which is right next door to the American Wind Museum. As a matter of fact, they are in the old building used by the Wind Museum before they moved to their new facility.

In 1969, as agricultural museum was deemed important to the people of West Texas. Too many people thought of the old machinery left in the back yard as junk.

We met Vic, a tour guide. He was wonderful. He gave us a delightful tour of the entire building adding special stories about many of the items in the Museum.

The Agriculture Museum displays machinery and artifacts dating back to the pioneering years of agriculture. The building is stuffed with old tractors, hand tools, farm equipment, and machinery. Not only the building, but the parking lot and yard are full of tractors, combines, plows, planters, grinders, and antique farm equipment. They definitely need the new building that is being built on the neighboring hillside. They plan to move into the phase 1, of a three phase construction project, before year's end.

What is this? A citrus tractor. The fenders protected the low limbs in a citrus field from being broken off. Never saw anything like this.

Marsha's dad can relate to this one.1939  One-row horse-drawn grain drill

 

Minneapolis Moline, 1955, Model UB Special, Row Crop Tractor

Fordson, 1922 Wheatland Tractor. The Ford Motor company began to experiment with agricultural tractors before WWI. In 1915, the company introduced the Fordson. It was extremely successful in becoming the first tractor many farmers owned

Case, 1934, Model L with factory option cab Wheatland tractor. Wheatlands (or standards) sit lower (don't need crop clearance), usually have big fenders and dust shields. List price of the tractor $1,350. The enclosed winter cab was a factory option which added $110 to the cost.

Vic explained how they used this device to weigh the cotton when it was brought in from the field.

The cotton was then placed in 500 lb. bundles. Cotton today is going for about $1.50/lb.

The Museum contains tons of the displayed everywhere.

Don't forget the 1,000s of tools on walls, tables and benches.

Our neighbor use to plow and plant his garden with a tractor like this one.

A unique part of the museum includes 71 pedal tractors and over 300 toy tractors.

These are the tractors every little boy in America had or wished he had.

This collection was donated by a local collector to the museum. All the tractors have been restored to perfect condition and may of the toys are new and some still in their boxes. This room alone, makes the visit worthwhile.

We spent several hours looking over the tractors and farm equipment. What a wonderful idea to preserve this part of America's past.

Entry is free but donations are gratefully accepted.

As we headed to our car, we were delighted to meet an elderly gentleman spraying weeds in the parking lot. His name is Alton Brazel. He's in his eighties and still shows up everyday to work around the museum for a few hours. What a guy!

Alton took it upon himself to begin this collection of agricultural equipment and machinery that told the story of American agriculture. He knows just about anything one can ask about the antique farm equipment. We asked him about a particular piece, we founding interesting, and he knew it was a cultivator made in the mid-western part of the country.

Look at all these levels and handles of this cultivator. What a hoot!

Marsha couldn't wait to climb up on the "big, bad boy"…her words not mine.

 

We will leave you with a little quiz. Do you know what this antique was used for?

How about this one?

No? Well here are the answers. The first picture is a cream separator. It was a gravity-based unit. Once the cream separated, the farmer would open the value at the bottom and drain the milk. There is a little window along the side and bottom to help him tell when he reached the cream.

The second picture is a butter press. Vic said they had one exactly like this on his farm. Did you get them both right?

Be sure to add the Agriculture Museum to your list of "Places to see in Lubbock." Hopefully, you will be lucky enough to have Vic there the day you visit. He made our visit so worthwhile!

If you would like to see more pictures of the Museum, please click here.

 

Saw this on the way home…

Check out the bumper sticker.............”Way to go GUYS.......Jeesh! What is this world coming to?

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see ya'll back real soon. Have a great day!

STEPPING BACK IN TIME

Sunday, May 8 – It is going to get a little breezy the next three days according to the weather forecast. “A LITTLE BREEZY”......that's Texan for windy as hell ! ! ! Temperatures are going to be approaching the 100 degree mark too. Looks like a “pleasant” several days.

Marsha had a great Mother's Day. The girls called and talked for quite a while. That is all she wanted to make the day complete.

Monday, May 9 – We visited the National Ranching Heritage Center today, on the campus of Texas Tech, where the story of ranching in North America is told through the preservation of 48 authentic structures displayed on the 16-acre site.





All structures date from the late 1700's through the 1950's and are authentically restored and furnished. The buildings include a bunkhouse, barns, dugout cabins, a ranch headquarters, windmills, a blacksmith's shop, and much more.

El Capote Cabin, 1838. This cabin is constructed of winged elm logs chinked with mud. The roofing is hand-split pecan shakes; the floor is compacted earth.





Hedwig's Hill Dogtrot house, 1855-56. These are two log cabins under a common roof separated by a breezeway called a dogtrot. This style of architecture is characteristic of frontier houses throughout the Southern states. The low porch keep the home cool.







Matador Half-Dugout, 1888. Most first homes of ranchers and settlers on the plains were half-dugouts. They were cut into embankments with the door facing southeast to catch cool breezes in summer.





Long S Whiteface Camp, 1901, 1905. This type of house is named after the white-faced Hereford cattle. The two-story dugout began as a water well. The box and strip upper story was added in 1905.





Blankenship Cowchip, 1907. Now here is something you don't see everyday. This structure stored dried cow manure called cowchips. It was the job of the children to collect the material and store it so it stayed dry. The material was burned for heat and cooking.



JA Milk and Meat House, 1880. The front was for meat storage.



In the stone-walled milk room, water trough kept the perishables from spoiling.



Barton House, 1909. The House was built as a Queen Anne-style home. This house had five rooms and a bath on each floor. Amenities such as running water, sliding doors and wallpaper were added for the first time.







U Lazy S Carriage House, 1906. Only the most prosperous families had a carriage house.



Low, rectangular cuts in the wood allowed for cats to come and go. They controlled the rodent population.



Baldwin Locomotive, 1923.



Irons of Fire. There were hundreds of branding irons on display.



Marsha liked this one the best. It was the year she graduated from high school.



Picktet and Sotol House, 1904. The home was made from yucca-like sotol plant. The roof was thatched with bundles of sacahuista grass. This was Marsha's favorite house. She wouldn't want to live it; she just liked the idea of using the yucca plant for housing.





The Center is currently undergoing construction of an addition, that when completed will house exhibits galleries and historical artifacts.

It takes about an hour and a half to stroll down the paths to visit each building and to read the description plaques (both in English and Spanish) that describe each historical building. This FREE tour is another addition to our “must see” of things to do in NW Texas.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see ya'll back real soon. Have a great day!

WINDS AND DOGS

Friday. May 6 – With windy weather predicted for Sunday and Monday, we plan on visiting some outdoor sights today. It's a perfect day weather wise...high 90...low 57....low humidity....NO WIND!

Speaking of WIND......our AMAZING stop for today was the American Wind Power Center. This museum features the American-style water-pumping windmills. It is located on 28 acres of rolling city park land in the Yellow House Canyon of Lubbock. More than 120 rare and fully restored windmills are on display on the grounds.

This is the only working post mill in North America. It weighs 50,000 lbs, the wheel is 60 feet in diameter. It is constructed out of Oak timbers.  The whole building actually turns with the wind on the cement curb at the outer edge of the circle.

The highlight of the outdoor Windmill Park, in Paul's opinion, is the working Vestas Model V47 and the GE 1.5 megawatt electric generating wind turbines. The GE turbine will be assembled in a new building in the near future.

The operating Vestas V47 is a new technology wind machine capable of generating vast quantities of electricity. The electricity produced by the V47 is used to power the museum. Even more electricity than is required is generated and this excess energy is fed into the local utility's power lines. No battery storage is needed, since 60 cycle, 3 phase AC power is produced. The V47 generates about one million kilowatt hours of electricity each year. The museum only uses 10% of this amount.

The parts of the GE Turbine are laying on the grounds and allow for close inspection!

The steel tower of the Vestas V47  is 164 feet tall and weighs over 97,000 pounds. The blades are 155 feet in diameter. Each fiberglass blade is 77 feet long and together weigh 15,876 pounds. The rotor turns 28.5 rpm and starts producing electricity in a 10 mph wind. The rotor is stopped when winds exceed 55 mph. It is these turbines you see by the hundreds scattered all over Texas and the SW United States.....and get this.....they cost a million dollars EACH. Holy Cow!!!

Shows you can make a windmill out of anything. These are 55 gallon drums.

Also on display are many hand pumps, models, photographs and other windmill artifacts.

There is also a meeting hall that is available for rent. Many local brides rent the hall for their receptions.....how neat!

Maud S Wind Mill is unusual in that it has an offset wheel, a governor weight and a coiled spring. Marsha doesn't know what this means but you men will.

Note the bullet hole. This was common on windmills in the West.

Two Stone Corn Grinder Wind Mill. On Saturday farmers would bring their corn to the General Store to be ground.

The Iron Turbine was the first successful all-metal American windmill. It proved that an all-metal mill could do the work of a wooden mill, and that a metal mill could withstand severe winds.

Vertical Axis Wind Turbine doesn't have enough blade area for a self-start. A small electric starter motor drives the two blades up to speed then the wind catches the rotor and it begins to spin on its own.

The Southern Cross is one of the largest windmills made in the world. With a 25 foot wheel diameter, this is a direct stroke windmill with no gear heads. It is 55 feet high.

This is truly a “not-to-be-missed” museum. Paul thinks this is the best museum he's ever seen.....including the Smithsonian. Now that's saying something!

Surrounding the Windmill Museum is Mackenzie Park – home to Prairie Dog Town. The 248 acre, Mackenzie Park is Lubbock's largest recreation area. A golf course, world-class disc golf course, Joyland Amusement Park, horse trails, sculpture garden, beautiful walking trails, fishing lakes and several streams, and the Prairie Dog Town can all be enjoyed in the Park.

We had a blast watching the prairie dogs.

The pint-sized critters put on quite a show.

These ground squirrels number in the thousands. The entire colony was started nearly 75 years ago after they were nearly eradicated from the park.

This one spent most of the time we were there balling up this piece of paper. She then took it down its hole. What a hoot!

There were TONS of babies, but they must have been told to stay by the house. Another, not-to-miss scene, if in the area. Oh, and don't forget to bring carrots or cookies to feed the guys. We took a box of stale crackers....they loved them!

For those who think all we do is RUN, RUN, RUN, let it be known we did all this, PLUS Marsha got her hair trimmed, and we were home relaxing in the beautiful weather by noon. Our visit to Lubbock is spread over ten days, so we have plenty of time to relax and enjoy doing nothing.

Oh, I think I forgot to mention that Marsha ALSO finished another basket today. Well this isn't a basket, she calls it a trivet. She did some experimenting with what she calls a wrap stitch and used a walnut slice for the middle. It really looks nice.

Yesterday, they began draining the swimming pool here at the Elks. They will be adding new water next week. With that said, we haven't posted a picture of Bella for a very long time. We had to share this one. She just wanted to cross over the draining water, but got stuck and wasn't sure which way to turn.  Poor kitty!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see ya'll back real soon. Have a great day!