Posts Tagged ‘Tennessee’

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Our World: Unexpected Beauty

September 6, 2011

Blatant Iris, Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. August 31, 2011.

(Note:  All pictures may be enlarged by clicking on them once or twice.)

This is my post for the Our World meme.  This meme is a second generation of My World Tuesday created by Klaus Peter and is hosted by five wonderful ladies.  To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

This has been a very strange year on the Cumberland Plateau.  We had an unusually wet spring, followed by an extremely hot and dry summer.  We had only a trace of rainfall in all of July and August.  The lawn and gardens show the stress of such hot, dry weather.

But, in spite of this, we’ve had iris blooming fairly consistently since April.  We have several that are supposed to bloom twice a year — once in the spring and once in the fall.  But the irises in our front flower bed just keep  blooming (that’s not a complaint).

Late last week our Blatant Iris sent up another flower stalk.  The stalk isn’t as tall as they usually are, but the blossom is still pretty.

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Posted in Our World | 17 Comments »

Our World: Welcome Home

August 30, 2011

Welcome Home Rose, Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. August 25, 2011.

(Note:  All pictures may be enlarged by clicking on them once or twice.)

This is my post for the Our World meme.  This meme is a second generation of My World Tuesday created by Klaus Peter and is hosted by five wonderful ladies.  To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

This is the scene that has greeted us when we turned into our driveway this week.  The rose, appropriately enough, is named Welcome Home.

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Posted in Our World | 15 Comments »

My World: August’s Full Moon

August 23, 2011

Full moon behind clouds, Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. August 13, 2011.

We had a full moon on August 13, and I was looking forward to getting a good picture of the moon that evening.  Unfortunately, it seemed that Mother Nature had other ideas.  The day was very pleasant with a few clouds, but the clouds increased as evening approached.

The moon did a pretty good job of hiding behind the clouds when I first went out, but I noticed that the clouds were moving fairly quickly, so I stayed out with my camera, hoping for the best.

The full moon, Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. August 13, 2011.

I finally got this almost cloud-free picture.  Maybe I’ll have better luck next month.

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Posted in My World | 15 Comments »

SkyWatch Friday: Plateau Evening Skies

August 19, 2011

Evening skies in Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. August 7, 2011.

This is my post for Skywatch Friday, a meme for sharing views of the sky from all over the world.  To see more, or to join and share your own photos of the sky, click HERE.

I’ve posted several sky photos from our trip out west, commenting on the pretty sunsets out there.  But we can have pretty skies here on the Plateau of Tennessee as well.

I went out to the front yard one evening last week after the sun had dropped below the ridge to the west of our house.  The yard and road in front of the house were in deep shadows, but the clouds in the sky to the east were a beautiful red/gold.

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Posted in SkyWatch Friday | 25 Comments »

Watery Wednesday #152: Union Temple Falls

August 10, 2011

Union Temple Falls, Baileyton, Tennessee. November 28, 2009.

This is my post for Watery Wednesday.  To see more of our beautiful watery world, or to join and post your own pictures to share, click HERE.

Betsy and I enjoy tracking down little known waterfalls.  This beauty is in northeastern Tennessee, out in the country and off the beaten path.  Although the waterfall itself is on private property, and can be easily seen from the road.

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Posted in Watery Wednesday | 13 Comments »

SkyWatch Friday: A Wispy Cloud

June 10, 2011

A wispy cloud in the sky above Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. October 17, 2010.

This is my post for Skywatch Friday, a meme for sharing views of the sky from all over the world.  To see more, or to join and share your own photos of the sky, click HERE.

If you watch the skies often enough, you will see all kinds of fascinating things.  I captured this wispy cloud in a brilliant October sky last year.  It wasn’t a part of a larger cloud formation, but just seemed to be suspended in the sky.  I thought it was both interesting and pretty.

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I would like to thank each and every one of you for your kind words and prayers on the passing of my mother.  The funeral was hard for my Dad (he’ll be 99 in August) but he was doing pretty well on Thursday.  The entire family felt surrounded and uplifted by your thoughts and prayers.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Betsy and I are once again taking a blog break.  We’ll be traveling for the rest of the month.  I’m not sure what kind of skies we’ll encounter, but I expect we’ll both come back with plenty of pictures to share.

I’ll see you in July.

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Posted in SkyWatch Friday | 11 Comments »

SkyWatch Friday: Cades Cove Sky

June 3, 2011

Cades Cove landscape, Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. May 23, 2011.

This is my post for Skywatch Friday, a meme for sharing views of the sky from all over the world.  To see more, or to join and share your own photos of the sky, click HERE.

Whenever we go to Cades Cove in the Smokies, I have trouble deciding which is most impressive — the mountains or the skies.  When we were there last week I decided that both were magnificent.

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Posted in SkyWatch Friday | 8 Comments »

Cades Cove: The Henry Whitehead Place

June 2, 2011

The Henry Whitehead Place in Cades Cove, Tennessee, showing the original cabin in the back. May 23, 2011.

A visit to Cades Cove can be scenic, interesting and educational all at the same time.  Getting off the beaten path can be fascinating.

Betsy and I came across the Henry Whitehead Place after leaving the Cade Cove Loop Road on our way to Parson Branch Road.  The Henry Whitehead Place is really two structures in one.  The original cabin (on the right in the picture above) was built by the brothers of Matilda Shields Gregory after her husband deserted her and her young son.  Because the brothers needed to get shelter for their sister in a hurry, the cabin they built is one of the roughest in Cades Cove.  The logs were rough-hewn with a felling axe and the stone chimney was made of rubble.

In 1898 Matilda married Henry Whitehead, a widower.  Henry built one of the nicest log homes in the cove.  The home had a brick chimney, which was unheard of at the time because bricks had to be made by hand.  The cabin itself was made of square-sawed logs finished inside to be smooth and attractive.  It was also warm by Cades Cove standards since the square log construction was naturally well insulated by walls approximately four inches thick with practically no space between the logs.

The interior of the Henry Whitehead Place, Cades Cove. May 23, 2011.

Betsy took this interior shot of the new cabin, showing the square-sawed logs forming the wall.

The Henry Whitehead Place, Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. May 23, 2011.

The Henry and Matilda Whitehead place is the only square-sawed log home remaining in Cades Cove.  It is, in fact, the only one left in the entire Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

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Posted in Travels | 17 Comments »

Watery Wednesday #142: West Prong Falls

June 1, 2011

West Prong Falls, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee. May 23, 2011.

This is my post for Watery Wednesday.  To see more of our beautiful watery world, or to join and post your own pictures to share, click HERE.

West Prong Falls is a small (10 feet) waterfall on the West Prong of Little River in the Smokies.  It is right along the road on the way to Cades Cove, just past the Tremont turnoff.  Betsy and I stop there each time we pass to enjoy the water rushing over the bedrock.  The moss on some of the rocks gives the water a green sheen, and provides a very refreshing stop on a drive through the Smokies.

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Posted in Watery Wednesday | 11 Comments »

My World: Adventures With Mrs. P

May 31, 2011

Parson Branch Road, Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. May 23, 2011.

This is my post for the My World meme.  It is hosted by Klaus, Ivar, Sandy, Wren, and Fishing Guy.  To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

Last Tuesday Betsy and I took a ride in the Smokies in our Prius, Mrs. P.  One of the seasonal back roads, Parson Branch Road, had recently been opened for the season.  Mrs. P sometimes thinks she is an off-road vehicle and was up to the challenge.

We had to drive through part of Cades Cove to get to Parson Branch Road, but that is always a gorgeous drive.  When we got to the road, we saw a big sign announcing that Parson Branch Road was a ‘primitive’ one-way road and that it would take at least an hour to make the eight miles to US 129.  (I wish I had thought to take a picture of that sign.)  The picture above shows one of the better sections.

We enjoy taking these back roads whenever possible, because they often lead to waterfalls that aren’t listed in any of the books we have.  We did find several waterfalls along Parson Branch Road which I’ll talk about in future posts.  At one point along that eight mile stretch of road I thought Mrs. P might let us down, but she managed to get up a pothole-filled stretch of road (slowly) and had no problems the rest of the way.

Image from the internet.

But our adventure wasn’t over when we reached the paved highway US 129.  We came onto the road along a stretch known as The Tail of the Dragon.  As the poster above states, there are 318 curves in 11 miles of road.  Obviously traffic doesn’t move at interstate speeds along this stretch of road.  It’s a favorite of motorcyclists, however, and people come from all over the country to ride The Tail.

All in all we had a very interesting, adventurous and scenic day in the Smokies.

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Posted in My World | 17 Comments »

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