American Indian Museum

Washington, DC

August 26, 2006

I really don’t like the American Indian Museum, but I really love the grounds. You can see natural plants and plantings around the place. I recall when it used to be just a field. I used to run there. It is nicer now.

Tobacco was a big part of Indian culture and the first crop English colonists really could make money selling. It built the colony of Virginia. These are some picture of Indian tobacco. Recently when I was down at the farm the hunters told me about tobacco. Southern Virginia used to be a big tobacco growing area, now less so. The tobacco lands have often been turned over to loblolly. When the tobacco grows, the bottom leaves turn yellow. These are the first harvests. Later the whole plant is dried. If you look closely at the picture on the left, you notice the no smoking sign. I dislike smoking with a passion, but it is funny that we forget the importance of this particular crop.

I am hoping to build a pond on my land, so I took lots of pictures of the pond they have at the museum. I like the mix of cattails, lilies and the bald cypress. You would not guess this was right in the middle of urban Washington.

This shows how close we are to the Capitol