A Visit to a Corn Field

Today I'm taking you to the edge of a hot and dusty Mississippi corn field, and will give you a glimpse down a couple of the endless rows that run for miles and miles and acres and acres across flat Delta lands.

The corn stalks towered over me, their tassels swaying gently in the warm breeze ...

Although I grew up playing hide and seek amongst the corn rows of my grandfather's garden in the country, I had never really looked closely at a corn plant before, so it was fun seeing one up close through my camera lens.

Corn Silk

While doing a little research for this post, I discovered that the corn silk has such a high concentration of potassium that it is used (in capsule form) as a powerful diuretic, and can also be used to treat urinary disorders, such as kidney stones.

I think the most fascinating part of a corn stalk (and probably less seen part) is its roots (you can click on the picture to enlarge it, if you'd like to get a closer look).

Isn't that amazing!

FUN FACTS ABOUT CORN Farmers grow corn on every continent except Antarctica. One bushel of corn will sweeten more than 400 cans of Coca-Cola. There are about 800 kernels in 16 rows on each ear of corn. The corncob (ear) is actually part of the corn plant’s flower. The main ingredient in most dry pet food is corn. Corn is America's number one field crop. Corn leads all other crops in value and volume of production. A pound of corn consists of approximately 1,300 kernels. Corn is a member of the grass family. A bushel of corn can provide 2.5 gallons of ethanol fuel, or about 32 pounds of sweetener or cornstarch. Over 3,000 products in the supermarket contain corn in some form, including cereals, snack foods, margarine, oil, puddings, soda, and soap. A bushel of corn fed to livestock produces over 5 pounds of beef, 13 pounds of pork, 19 pounds of chicken, or 28 pounds of catfish!

Now that I know a little more about corn than I did when I started this post, I think I'm going to take our granddaughter Avery to a corn field next week and let her discover the wonders of corn for herself ... and let her take some pictures while we're there!

Off the Beaten Path: Between Vicksburg and Natchez

I would like to thank our gracious hostess Sally at Smiling Sally for taking the time to host our Blue Mondays. Be sure to visit Sally to see her patriotic "Proud to be American" post. For my Blue Monday contribution, I would like to share some photos I took over the weekend (a couple of them have some blue, other than the sky, in them). Natchez, Mississippi is only about an hour's drive from where we live in Vicksburg, and this past weekend, my husband and I went to Natchez to spend some time with his brother and his wife who drove up from New Orleans. Instead of traveling down Highway 61 South, or the Natchez Trace, which is the way we usually go, we decided to get off "the beaten path," and drive down the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River, on US Highway 65. This took us through the heart of the Louisiana Delta, where the road cut through dusty fields of corn, soybeans, and cotton, stretching as far as the eye could see ... Cotton Soybeans I think the Delta farmlands are their prettiest this time of year. The plants are thick and green and lush, and the cotton fields were dotted with little white blooms. I grew up in Northeast Louisiana, and have been around cotton fields all my life, but I had never seen a cotton bloom up close. Well, needless to say, as soon as I saw the blooms, I asked my husband to stop and let me get some pictures. Being the sweet, patient man that he is, he pulled over and I grabbed my camera and jumped out into the 98-degree heat of the Louisiana Delta. It was hot and dusty, and I wasn't dressed to be out wandering in cotton fields, but I didn't mind when I saw how beautiful the blooms were. I think they were worth getting a little hot and dusty for (you can click on the photos to enlarge them, if you'd like)... And speaking of hot and dusty, this is a picture of the parched earth in which those beautiful plants are thriving ... It looks like it's going to be a long, hot summer for the farmers trying to keep their fields irrigated. I always try to stop and photograph the three crosses on highways when I see them, and I love these standing amongst the soybeans and corn. Click on the picture and you can see three small metal crosses attached to the big ones, which I've never seen before ... I don't think I've ever seen a mailbox as big as this one either. The street sign reads, appropriately, "Mail Box Road" ... We took a little detour through the town of Newellton, Louisiana, and was rewarded with a little lagniappe in the form of this charming little house in the country ... I love its little picket fence and beautiful flower beds, and was delighted when I saw the BLUE bottle tree in the front yard. But this little house had even more lagniappe in store for us. Just look at what was in the side yard! Is that not the cutest little outhouse you've ever seen ... complete with a little BLUE chair to sit in while you "wait your turn." And look at the corn field that comes right up to the back yard ... I just love people's sense of humor and imagination when it comes to yard art, don't you! You just never know what you're going to find when you venture "off the beaten path," and I'm never disappointed. I always seem to find lagniappe wherever I go.