Lowcountry: Part 4

Lowcountry Heritage Breeds Festival - February 27th, 2010

Saturday was the Lowcountry Heritage Breeds Festival at the Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horne Plantation. The Coastal Discovery Museum has been very supportive of ALBC’s efforts to preserve rare breeds of livestock, and they have been great partners in educating people about these breeds.

The purpose of the Lowcountry Heritage Breeds Festival was to educate people about heritage breeds. ALBC set up several displays and gave two presentations including an Intro to Rare Breeds and a History of the Marsh Tacky Horse presentation. These presentations were very popular and each had standing room only!

Aside from the presentations and displays, the most exciting part of the day was the animal display. ALBC coordinated with several members in the area to bring rare breeds of livestock and poultry to the event. Many breeds native to the Lowcountry were on display including Pineywoods cattle, American Buff geese, Black turkeys, Leghorn chickens, an American Mammoth Jackstock mule, a Marsh Tacky horse, Guinea Hog piglets, Ossabaw Island hogs, and more. People enjoyed petting the animals, talking to the farmers, and learning about the breeds.
Although this was the first time for the event, we had about 1,200 people in attendance. This was a great turn-out and we hope to expand the event next year to include many more breeds and presentations. The event was a great kick-off and complimentary event to the Marsh Tacky Horse races occurring the following day.

Lowcountry Part 3

Auldbrass and Marsh Tackies

On Friday we had to be at Auldbrass Plantation at 11, so we had some time in the morning to stretch our legs before spending most of the day in the car. We decided to walk around the Beaufort waterfront. We wondered down some side-streets and saw beautiful old southern homes, covered in Spanish moss, echoing the sounds of history.

After leaving Beaufort we headed to Yemassee to Auldbrass. Auldbrass is a Frank Lloyd Wright plantation owned by Hollywood director Joel Silver who produced Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, the Matrix, and more. It's the only southern plantation designed by Wright. The reason for our visit was that Frank Lloyd Wright actually designed stables to fit the Marsh Tacky horse native to South Carolina. There are large stables on the property and then smaller stables for the Tackies since they are smaller horses. It's a testament of the history of the breed in this area.

We got to view and photograph the stables which were indeed a lot smaller than the stables for the Friesians. We also got to see the owner’s Friesians and Texas Longhorn cattle. He had several other animals on the property including Zebras, Hippos, and Pigmy Hippos. In our trek around the property, we saw a gorgeous Cypress Swamp. It looked like something out of a movie.

After leaving Auldebrass, we headed to Ridgeland to visit an old-time Marsh Tacky breeder. D.P. Lowther's family has had Tackies for years and years and he continues to raise them. He has the largest herd in the country and has helped keep the breed alive. We went to his property and he showed us around. There were probably over 100 horses, all in different fields and pastures. There were all sorts of colors, types, geldings, stallions, etc. After looking at the horses we visited with D.P. and his wife, Ms. Dan while they talked politics and Marsh Tackies. D.P. is a living legend when it comes to the Tackies and he’s well respected for his knowledge and breeding of the horses. The visit allowed Jeannette to get some information for the Marsh Tacky Studbook as well as learn and glean more information about the Tackies. D.P. also shared a story about the “old Wood cattle” that used to be common in the area. Most likely these were Pineywoods cattle. After leaving the Lowther place, we headed to Hilton Head for the next leg of our journey.

Lowcountry Adventures: Part 2

Day 2: Charleston, Good Food, Goats, and More

After saying our goodbyes to the Lockwoods, we headed to Charleston. There is a chef in downtown Charleston working with Guinea Hog meat. Guinea Hogs are critically endangered and we are just now getting to a point where there is a large enough population where we can market them as a food source. The chef's name is Craig Deihl and he is the Executive Chef at Cypress Restaurant about 4 blocks from the Old Exchange in downtown Charleston. He's not your average chef, in fact, he's been nominated for a James Beard award which is like the Oscars of the chef world (more about Oscars later).
We had a few hours to kill before our meeting with the chef, so Jeannette and I toured the Exchange Building. The current building was built in 1781, but for many years it was the site of other important buildings in the early colony. In the basement of the Exchange, you can see the old walls that used to surround the city. The dungeon area was used as a prison for pirates, Revolutionary War prisoners, and more. We tried to catch a glimpse of the old images in the building to determine if any historic or rare livestock breeds were depicted.
At noon, we went to Cypress to meet with Chef Deihl. The restaurant isn't open for lunch, but he agreed to meet us, give us a tour, and cook us some samples of Guinea Hog meat. Since he's one of the first to cook with this meat, our goal was to learn his thoughts on the Guinea Hog meat. ALBC is trying to understand how these products handle in order to help market them. Chef Deihl is really excited about the project and he was delighted to share some of his treats. We enjoyed Guinea Hog liver patte, Guinea ham, shoulder, tender loin, and belly. It was all quite impressive!

While we were trying samples of the meat, Chef Deihl’s next Guinea hog carcasses arrived at the restaurant. It was interesting to see the process come full-circle. I’ve seen the live animals, seen the carcasses, and now tasted the delicious meat they provide. This type of experience provides a much deeper appreciation for the complexities that producers and chefs face when working with rare breeds – but the result is very rewarding!

After lunch we headed to Walterboro to meet with a woman affectionately known as “the goat lady.” This woman has had wild goats on her property since 1985. She lives in a marshy area and the goats survive on the island with little to no input from humans. ALBC believes the goats are traditional, brush goats from the area which would likely mean they are Spanish goats or are of Spanish descent. Phenotypically, they sure looked like Spanish goats! We photographed and documented the goats for further investigation. These isolated pockets of breeds could prove to be a valuable genetic resource that could help add increased genetic diversity to the current Spanish goat population.
After our visit with the goats, we headed to Beaufort. Beaufort proved to be a good stopping point since the following day involved several investigations near the Beaufort area. Along the way, we stopped at Hunting Island State Park. It's a maritime forest of ancient palmetto trees. It looks almost tropical. In fact, the Vietnam scenes from Forest Gump were filmed here. After finding a place to stay, we turned in for the night and prepared for another long day of field investigation and documentation on our way to our final destination.

More to come in the next post.....