Peaceful scene

A barn a few miles from our home place in Tennessee.

I hope you will click on this to enlarge it. When you do, besides the road leading to the barn, you can see cow paths above and below the road. Being in Indiana, I don't notice cow paths very often. (Click here to see this in sepia.)

In the hills and hollers of east Tennessee, they are much more noticeable. A cow don't usually climb straight up and down the side of a hill...they will go along just gradually zig zagging back and forth as they graze on a hillside.

I remember following cow paths while I picked blackberries as a kid. My mom always reminded me/us kids to watch out for a rattlesnake. I suppose if she were alive today and I was to go blackberry picking she would still remind me to watch out for a rattlesnake.

For a big part of her life, they were a serious danger. The old home place bordered a park...and I think she killed at least one rattler in our front yard. It is probably a miracle that none of us were ever bitten by one.

Another time, one of my sisters was doing something in the tobacco patch...she thought she saw a rat run under the tobacco plants--thought she saw a rat's tail. When she raised the tobacco leaf, it was a copperhead.

Neal or I either one, would have loved to have a home up at the old place, but mom never wanted us to. I think she had too many hard times up there. Too many things to worry about. It is still one of the most peaceful places to just go and sit and listen to the silence.