Enterprise, Alabama, Oct 29-Nov 18

My home away from home for the next three weeks is Enterprise, Alabama, whose town mascot is the boll weevil (an ugly little beetle). Weird, I know. I always associated the boll weevil with the destruction of cotton crops causing bankruptcy for farmers in the region. Why would this town celebrate the boll weevil?!!   

Well, turns out that the destruction of cotton farms lead to the planting of peanut crops. This is a positive development because cotton actually destroys the fields and leaves them devoid of nutrients for future crops. The peanut doesn't. So, not only was the introduction of the peanut crop the savior of the farmers financially, be the savior of the soil. 

Statue on Main St commemorating the Boll Weevil.

As for my observation of this little town in southern Alabama, not much to see. My Airbnb is a basic 50-year-old house in a middle-class neighborhood with a Publix and a pizzeria down the road. I will never return unless work mandates it. It's actually not terrible though, and I'm kind of happy to be away from the congestion of Orlando, but I would not want to live here. And guess what, I've seen lots of cotton farms!! I don't know what a peanut crop looks like, so they might be out there too for all I know. But there is definitely cotton crops and they are in full bloom right now. There are fields full of white puff balls and the roads have cotton littering the sides (I'm guessing cotton that blew off trucks after it's been picked).



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