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In Tennessee, hemp agritourism is big business

Melissa Corbin of Corbin in the Dell covered hemp and agritourism in Tennessee for The Matador Network. She visited with Tyler Sneed of the Tennessee Agritourism Association, Bill Corbin of Corbin Sciences, Jennifer Nicely of Horse and Hawk and Jennifer Davis here at Rabbit Circle Rural American Farm Tours.

You can read Melissa’s Article Here….. https://matadornetwork.com

We are offering hemp farm tours this summer for Private Groups only. You may book at tour online or call 971-400-6420. Tours will consist of your party and the Guide.

Krystal and Eric

Krystal and Eric

Krystal and Eric visited us from New Jersey. It was a particularly cold and nasty January day. We stopped to see Red strip tobacco, had lunch at Tesha’s and went to they stock yard to watch the Monday afternoon cattle sales.

Check out their blog post about their adventures in Tennessee

Minimal Effort

So you want them to move here?

old barn

Just thirty minutes beyond the bright lights and bustle of Broadway, there’s a whole other side of Nashville that many people never see. It’s a place steeped in local lore and rooted in history, where backroads lead the way  through stories filled fields and a cast of colorful characters. This is a side of Nashville that takes you out of the city and transports you back in time to experience the legacy of rural America, and its connection to everything from the food on our plates to the dye in our jeans. 

Rabbit Circle Tours specializes in custom rural farm tours. The adventure begins with one of our locally born and grown guides picking your VIP up in town. From there, we head off on a tour of the countryside surrounding Nashville with stops in rural communities such as Cross Plains, Springfield, Joelton, Ashland City, Gallatin and Franklin.

Along the way, we will introduce them to locals and grab lunch at one of our favorite locally-owned restaurants. From snacking on sun-ripened tomatoes straight off the vine to a meet-and-greet with favorite farm animals, each tour is unique and customized to the interest of our guests. 

Broadway may boast the highest volume of Nashville tourists, but a Rabbit Circle custom farm tour is the experience that nobody ever forgets. Learn more and book your tour at https://rabbitcircle.com/

Christmas from the Farm

The old is new again when it comes to finding the perfect local Christmas gift. If you have ever been one a farm tour with Rabbit Circle you know how proud we are of our farmers. If you have been good, you are likely to find a bottle of wine, a pair of jeans, a hemp flower and cigar under your tree. If you have been naughty, I know where to find a bundle of switches, my Daddy has been pruning his apple trees and there is a fresh stack. 

Cherry Wine form Sumner Crest Winery

Cherry Wine , Sumner Crest Winery

If you have never heard of Orlinda Tennessee, you are missing out. Orlinda is officially the sunniest spot in Tennessee or at least that’s what it says on the city limits sign. Sumner Crest Winey has a wonderfully tart Cherry Wine that will remind you of the bright summer sun.  

Cigars from Avanti 

Avanti Cigars

Robertson Country Tennessee is the dark fired tobacco capital of the world.  The tobacco grown in the black patch region of southern Kentucky and middle Tennessee has long been sought after for its wonderfully smoky aroma. If you have ever been to the region in the fall you are sure to have caught a wif of the smoking barns.   Form me it the smell of home and tradition. 

Jeans dyed with Tennessee Indigo  

Stay Creek Colors

Sarah Bellos from Stony Creek Colors has inspired local farmers to growing something different and wonderful. Indigo is a plant based natural dye that had been in use for centuries. Support our local farms buy purchasing denim dyed with Tennessee grown Indigo 

Hemp Flowers

28 % CBD

Everyone is talking about where to find best the locally grown hemp in Tennessee.  White’s Family Farm grew hemp that contains 28% CBD.  If you are interested in a few flowers or 10,000 lbs give them a call. Its legal for Santa to deliver it across American in a flat rate postage box from USPS. 

Switches from Shade Tree Farm and Orchard

Switches

A family tradition for the naughty kids on your list. A fresh bundle of apple branches from Shade Tree Farm and Orchard.

Go Back in Time On a Rabbit Circle Rural American Farm Tour – Tennessee Home and Garden, May 2019

By Meghan McDonald

Jennifer – Tour Guide at Rabbit Circle

Get back to Tennessee’s rural roots and hear firsthand what it’s like to be a 21st-century farmer when you book a Rabbit Circle Rural American Farm Tour. Rabbit Circle’s founder, Jennifer Davis, was born and raised in the countryside of Robertson County. Now she connects individuals and groups of all sizes with the farmers who grow their food (as well as tobacco, indigo and hemp) and introduces them to the rich culture of farming communities. Rabbit Circle offers three standard tours that leave from Nashville, as well as the opportunity to design a custom tour focused on your specific interests.  Read More More at Tennessee Home and Garden

100 Years- What’s Changed

Newspaper clipping 1930

I found this newspaper clipping while going through my Granny Head’s scrapbook. It dates from about 1930. Pictured is my Great Grandfather Raymond Head and his 4 children.

The caption under the first photos reads: ” A recently-bought flock of Montana ewes on the farm of Raymond Head, near Springfield, is inspected by county Agent Harmon Jones and Mr Heads son Robert. The sheep are expected to play a big part in making up the loss caused by dealing dark fired tobacco market;”

2019 is the first year that there will be an industrial hemp crop in Tennessee. A recent article in the Tennessean reads ” Faced with the decreasing profitability of tobacco and an expanding market of hemp products, some of Tennessee’s longtime tobacco farmers are abandoning the state’s traditional cash crop and embracing a lucrative but largely uncharted hemp industry.”

Another story from Forbes online reads. “How Hemp Is Giving Renewed Life To America’s Tobacco Farmers”

It seems as though there is an ongoing conversation with Black Patch tobacco farmers that’s lasted for well over 100 years. What will be the next big crop that replaces the income from tobacco?

Robertson County has a long proud history

Aunt Fannie Hart

Mary Frances Barbee Was born October 30 1844. She was 73 years, 3 months and 2 days old at the time of her death, February 1, 1918. She was a consistent member of Corinth Church for more than 40 years. 

She was married to N.H. Hart, June 30, 1962. Of this union were born 11 children. Seven sons and 4 daughters, all now living, grown, married, settled members of the church. 

On February 2, a short funeral service was conducted at the home by her pastor, Reverend Whitefield and concluded at the grave in the old Hart graveyard, where she was laid to rest. It was a touching and beautiful sight to watch six of her stalwart sons gently lower the lifeless body of their mother to the grave. She had lived to a good old age and died as she had lived, loved and honored by all who knew her. This is a short history of a good woman that has paid the last debt and gone to her reward. 

I was asked to assist the preacher in the funeral service, but on account of the inclement weather did not get there, so will write about what I should have said, not as an obituary, but as a small tribute to her memory. 

More that 70 years ago when I was not much more than a babe and about the time she was born, my father moved to but a little more than a mile from her father’s home. Here a real and pleasant acquaintance began that has lasted all these years since. She was a great favorite in school, and in fact with all who knew her. 

Nearly 40 years ago I settled as a doctor in sight of her home. Some of her children had grown up and others were unborn. I watched the younger children grow up and attended any of them when sick and for almost all these years was the family physician, a relation, perhaps next the preacher, the most sacred. 

A 3rdof a century ago, when I married her niece, who loved her almost as she loved her own mother, she became to me “Aunt Fannie” and I reverenced her almost as much as much as did my own dear aunts that went to their homes many years ago. There were 3 traits in Aunt Fannie’s character that I wish to mention her as predominating more I think than in any person I have known. They were industry, unselfishness, and appreciation. She always wanted to be doing something, wanted to be at work and to show her unselfishness at work for someone else. 

First, of course, it was her family, her children; next her relations then her neighbors. I wish I could know how many of those have some little piece of her handwork as a keepsake, that they will now appreciate more now that she is gone. It mattered not how small and insignificant the present from her husband, children relatives or neighbors she showed keen appreciation of her countenance. Can you wonder that she loved everybody? Because everybody loved her. All these years I have known her I can call to mind now word about her but in praise. 

She was the youngest daughter of a large family and survived them all except one brother, the youngest child of the family, who though living in a distant state, came often to see sister Fannie whom he adored. 

A good woman has died, and may Heaven’s Blessings rest on those left behind. 

Oak Lawn, Feb 2 1918 H.S.

Tiny Seeds of Hope

In mid March,  tobacco farmers around middle Tennessee start their crops in large floating greenhouse gardens. Tobacco seeds are tiny. They are about the size of a sesame seed.   They have been the main cash crop around here for generations

Matt Start Tobacco Green House

My Granddaddy always said that tobacco was a 13 month a year crop. The plants spend 7 weeks in the green house, 90-120 days in the field, 6 weeks drying in the barn and another 3-4 months of stripping.  Almost as soon as a farmer finishes one crop, they start gathering supplies and preparing for the next season. There isn’t much down on a farm. Every step counts.

Book a local farm tour.

We will show you around and introduce you to the local farmers and their traditions.

Mechanical Tobacco Seeder – Starks Brothers Farms
Steve Stark

Spring is in the air

The buttercups are out. If you aren’t local this news may surprise you, but spring is already making its presence known, even before it officially gets here.

There’s a secret spot down by the river that’s loaded with buttercups. Buttercups bloom locally for a couple of weeks. We will be stopping by the river until the middle of March.
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