A repeat

I am running behind, so just going to post this...a repeat from East Tennessee....hopefully tonight I will get everyone visited.

Thankful...

I am so thankful that I had the privilege of growing up here...at one time or another I have played, or hiked, or hunted ginseng over all the places in these photos.  Except for the mountain that is on the  right side in the photo above...the one that is a bit the tallest.  I am not sure about it...but pretty positive I am looking at this right.

This is a view that is to the right of the top photo..those ridges are actually much closer to home and I/we were on all of them.  I can remember taking my dogs and being on top of them...just to be out and about. 
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I am very thankful that Roger got to start his allergy shots yesterday.

Linking to Michelle's Thankful Thursday. 

A Tennessee scene

I have been posting Tennessee barns for The Barn Collective...and came across this.  There is something about it that is restful.  I have cropped it a little bit.  For a better view, click to see a bigger pic.  To see more of the Tennessee barns, click HERE....the first 7 posts are Tennessee barns from April 26, 2011...as is this picture.

It was one of the best days for barns...I just thought to count how many different barns I captured that day and it was 61!  Granted, they are not all good enough to post.  I also got at least half a dozen old houses/shacks. 

We did nothing here yesterday...well, I did give a desk away.  It is out of the house and gone.  It was sitting in my kitchen, so glad to have it out of the way.  Hoping we can get started after while and get a bit accomplished today. 

Another from Tennessee

This is another shot from Tennessee....I figure that if the houses in the previous post had been kept up, they would have looked similar to this.
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I have long enjoyed reading the Random 5 Friday posts of some of my blogfriends, and have meant to join before now.  Usually I don't think of it till I have done did a different post.  So, for my first time, and hopefully not my last...here are my Random 5...

1.  Having a grandchild makes life so worth living!  I knew I would love a grandchild if I ever had one, I just did not realize how much.  It is not more than I loved my girls...just different.  I feel more relaxed for one thing.  Another is it is a shared responsibility.  Also, I think I have more time.

2.  Quilting is never far from my mind.  Photography is about the same...just always thinking about it.

3.  I always get more homesick for Tennessee in the fall than at any other time of year.  As you can tell by my posting pics from there.

4.  I always wish I knew and had passages of the Bible memorized as well as I do words to songs.

5.  After all these years, I still mostly love blogging...but sometimes it is so hard to figure out a post for blogging...specially this blog.  I don't have a lot of trouble with Time Stand Still, a photo blog since it is just a photo with a line or two about the photo.  I contiually learn little things through blogging.  And I seem to get more done when I am involved in blogging.

So there you have my first ever Random 5....

Old homes in Tennessee

Actually a couple old homes in Tennessee.  Drive-bys of course.  You can see the edge of the car window in the very bottom of this shot...notice the one has no windows on the end and the other does.    (I would like to encourage you to click and expand the view.)

On down the road and a bit better photo of the second home...notice what is standing peaking out above the trees on the left side...the barn below!

Not the greatest photo, but isn't it a beauty?  I just love these photos, and would really love the middle one for a jigsaw puzzle.  Does anyone else see pictures on blogs and wish you could have them in jigsaw puzzle form....I do all the time.   

Of course I wonder what happened to the people that lived there.  I cannot remember the surrounding area...I don't remember if there was a newer house close by or not. Whether there was or not, these scenes sure pull at my heart. 
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I have not been accomplishing too much other than most days been hanging out some laundry...I want to enjoy every bit of that I can before winter.  And I try to sit on the porch some every day.  That is one thing I miss so much when cold weather arrives.  We are still having breakfast out there a lot of morns...

I need to get back to decluttering but having a hard time getting started.  There's other stuff that is much more interesting!  I have the binding made for both current quilt projects, and got the backing made for the small quilt top....I did start over and made a new one.  Now I need to get down there and make a practice quilt sandwich and get everything set to quilt.  There is just not enough hours in the day....

Do you realize how long it had been since I had seen the fog rising to meet the day from my mountains???

I thought this song said it all....it first came out about the time I left Tennessee....so long ago.  I did not have plans to leave but would hear and the tears would just roll.  Be sure to watch all the way through for some beautiful scenery!

Flooding in Tennessee

First, let me say these pictures were not taken by my....they were taken by my BFF/sis-n-law....this is taken looking from their yard..
Gap Creek used to always flood every so often during the summer...but it never even came close to this. If you will click on these, in the second photo, right in the middle you can see that small clump of something which is actually the stop of a small bush I would say. Anyway, see that line running there....that is the railroad. And the railroad there is up above ground level I would say at least 3 or 4 feet...I am thinking maybe more than 5 feet. I don't ever even remember the water reaching over to the railroad, much less going over that.
It is just almost hard to believe even with seeing the pictures...you just never know. It will probably be a while before all the damage is known. Thankfully, they lived higher up than this got....

It has gone down since these were taken...I am not sure if it is all the way down but the railroad crews are working on the railroad. It washed out underneath and railroad ties are just sitting there. My brother nor a neighbor that has lived around there all his life...he is in his 60's....neither of them have ever seen the water this high.

Post about blogging; totally unrelated to photo

This is from Cumberland Gap, Tennessee...it is the Regimental Headquarters for the 63 TN Vol In....what is bad is I did not notice or read the sign when I took the photo. I was just admiring the logs and windows, etc. I would love to own this place!

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What I have been meaning to blog about for a long time is blogging. Specifically comments. I love getting comments, and I love leaving comments. But I don't always have time to do all I want to do. I may get behind for days, and then will have a day or two where I try to catch up on all the blogs I read/look at.

I like a variety of blogs...some I go to for friendship. Some I love for the photos. Then there are quilt blogs I visit for inspiration. A few are a combination of those listed above.

I have a favor to ask some of you...you can set how your comment form appears. It can come up as a full page, as a little pop up window, or embedded below the post. I definitely prefer for the comment form to be in the form of the little pop up window....that way I can still refer back to what I wanted to comment on. Specially if I get interrupted. How many times does the phone ring, or hubby ask me something, or Lorelei wants me, or a cat wants in...sometimes I get right back to the computer, others it may be hours.

Even the full page is not bad, because there is a link to click and at least see what was said in the post...

The one comment form that I really hate is the form that is embedded below the post. First I type the comment, then I have to choose what type of profile I have; then I hit submit. It disappears as if I'm done, but then if I happen to pause, it comes up again, this time with my name...then I hit submit again. Again it disappears, only to reappear with word verification.

What is more, with this type of comment form, I have to turn my 3rd party cookies on, which I normally keep turned off. Not to mention, I hate to think of how many times I have commented and thought I was done, only to discover that I had clicked to another page before the word verification came up. Therefore, I just wasted my time and that blog got one less comment than it would have.

I used to use word verification, then read a post by Betsy about how she has her comment form set...I forget just how she had hers set...but I set mine similar to hers. I turned off word verification and will probably never use it again. I do not accept anonymous comments, though I do have the option of rejecting or publishing them, I also have mine set to moderate any comment on a post older than a few days...

I know there are a lot of us that really have/or have had trouble with the embedded comment form...so if you want to change yours, and don't know how....it is under the settings tab on your blogger dashboard...click on the tab comments and go from there. I for one would really appreciate it.

I will probably still visit your blog, even if you don't...but it would really be a help if that is changed...

Fishing for camels....

I have planned to do a post about fishing for camels for well over a year now...I wanted to take pictures to go along with it but have not seen any camel holes to even attempt it. So, I thought I would show you one of the scenes where fishing for camels took place....hours and hours of it over the years...this is the elementary school I attended for 8 years.

When we were in grade school, we always seemed to all do things in spurts...we might play basketball every day for a month, or softball, or playing hide and seek, and other things. And then there was fishing for camels...

A camel in this case is a grub much like some of those pictured here...if you are at all squeamish, you might not like to look at these. I always thought the ones we caught were skinnier and had more of an actual hump...but maybe I am remembering wrong. I do know they had that brown head.

Anyway, I don't know who would start it, but fishing for camels would come to be the thing to do at recess. Someone would ask what somebody else was going to do and the answer would be Fish for Camels...and suddenly we would all be fishing for camels. We always hunted for a stem of grass....the part that holds the seed...minus the seed was a favorite. And I think we preferred them dry.

Of course it being a school yard and trampled daily by kids playing, there were lots of bare spots of ground. We looked for holes about a quarter inch in diameter. Getting down on our hands and knees, poking the straw down in the hole 6 or 8 inches till it stops and then wait. In short order it would start to move slightly...you grab that straw and jerk and you feel this very slight resistance...and out plops a camel. A grub in other words.

I guess the straw invaded its home and it is holding on to it trying to push it out...that is when we would see the stem/straw move and that is when we would grab it and jerk it out of the hole, bringing the camel/grub with it.

I know I often caught more than one but don't really recall how many. And we didn't do anything with them...though I think they were good fishing bait. I think we just left them laying when the bell rang to call us in from recess.

But I can see us all now, plain as day. Kids hunkered down all over the school yard a couple kids here, three more there, another over there...hands at the ready to grab that straw and catch a camel. Sometimes, I think kids just do not know what real fun is any more.

When I started to do this post, I wondered if any other soul had heard of this or if it was just something done in our area...so I googled the exact term 'fishing for camels' and found this little story. He mentions doing it in the spring, but I don't recall it only being in the spring...but I could be wrong.

A million steps....

Any time I see a railroad, I have a yearning to walk it....and the view above, well almost the view above....I have looked at hundreds of times as I walked home from school. As have all my brothers and sisters. The biggest part of our walk home from school was on these tracks. Our grade school was a block or two from these tracks, and when we went to high school, we still had to walk down to Arthur to catch the bus.

Now, for me, I never had near the distance my brothers and sisters walked...I don't think I had a mile walk...maybe 3/4's of a mile, but I bet the walk for my brothers and sisters, was at least two miles before we moved from the old home place to the new house. They had a path through weeds...so I just know their feet had to start the day out wet. And if it rained too much, they could not get across the creek....

This is the new and updated railroad...when we walked it, it was not rock, but cinders, etc that filled in between the ties. I suppose there is a name for that, but I don't know what it is, unless it would be called the bed of the tracks. My socks always had coal dust in the wrinkles...it was a coal train that went up and down this track. It went up it once, and back down. No more, no less. Maybe every now and then there was something extra....and in the summer, they had a steam engine that gave people rides up to Cumberland Gap, maybe on to Middlesboro, KY, and back to Knoxville. Just one trip a summer. None of us ever got to take it...I don't even know if anyone else wanted to.

One of the things we sometimes did was try to walk the rail home without falling off. I don't know about everyone else, but I know I never quite accomplished that feat. I made it once or twice with only falling off once or twice...but I know that was the best I ever did. It is amazing that some of us did not get hurt...

The other thing, the railroad sat above the surrounding land for the most part...and the banks grew thick with bushes, briars, and honeysuckle to name a few. So thick one could not pass through them. So, you had to beware and listen for the train, and head to the nearest path down. Sometimes we had to hurry, and just wait, but if we were lucky, it was at a place that the path went down to a field and we could continue walking.

Only one time was there ever a close call for me. It was cold and windy...I had my hood up and my head down...not even looking up. I was by myself, and the train tooted. I swear, I don't think it was much over the length of a city block away. I don't mind telling you my heart jumped into my throat....if it had not tooted, I would never have heard it. Luckily, I was right at the train trestle and could get off by it.

We also walked down the railroad to go to the store and to the post office in summer, and we walked the railroad on up past our home to go to the barn (not far away), or if we wanted to go up to the old place, or to the tobacco patches. You'd see us walking down the road, with a hoe over our shoulder.

When we go home, I know Neal and I always walk the railroad...either to get up to the old place or down to Arthur.

Anyway, I bet our family has easily taken a million steps on those tracks that ran by home.

Sometimes when I am drifting off to sleep, I will hear a train blow its horn here...and just for a moment I am back in bed at home. It has to be the right tone, and sometimes I think it has to be a certain type of weather for it to be the right tone to make me think I am home again. But just FYI, I have never lived where I could not hear a train, and most of the time within sight of the tracks.

Us and the one family of neighbors, it is a common last name, but I won't say it...anyway, besides us, they are the only ones I ever remember really using the railroads a lot. Now, I suppose you would be fined if they caught you walking on them up here. And that because if someone got hurt, they would probably sue the railroad. I often see No Trespassing signs, but that is usually by overpasses. I have not noticed them at home, but maybe it is cause I haven't been paying attention.

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.

About me

Click to enlarge.

I am Rose, or Rosemary, depending on who you are talking to,
the daughter of Sarah and Ellison,
youngest of eight children that survived to adulthood,
of those eight I am one of the two that was born in a hospital,
and probably the only one that does not actually remember living without electricity.

I lived in the shadows of the East Tennessee mountains
till adulthood
Claimed by them as if a part of the evening shadows that filled our yard so quickly come evening,
Filling me with their peace
till no place else can ever totally claim me.

I feel as if I were a part of the very earth from that place that will forever be home.

I grew up knowing how to sew on treadle a sewing machine
and do the wash with a wringer washer,
and sit by the fire and dream.
Helping to raise about all the food that we ate,
Planting, hoeing, picking, cooking, eating, canning, freezing
Making sure every jar on the place was full and the freezer so full it was almost hard to close.

I ate mustard greens and cornbread, and still do to this day
And ate fried taters and soup beans and considered them as fine a meal as could be had
Grew up watching my mom make biscuits from scratch,
never measuring a thing
She made pies and dumplings and cornbread the same way.
Oh, what I wouldn't give for some of those biscuits or the chicken and dumplings...
the cornbread I actually make myself--the same way--never measure a thing.

For entertainment there were swings in the tree,
Barns to play in with hay in the loft
Creeks to wade, a pond to swim in, fish to catch
Calves to play with
a horse to pet, dogs to hug,
And each other
We had hide-n-go seek on summer eves after dark,
Sitting on the porch and talking,
Listening to the whippoorwills
While planning the work for the next day.

And there was ball--baseball, basket ball, football, and wiffle balls. I must have drove my brothers nuts,
But with four of us, we could always play something
We didn't own a baseball bat,
but would find a stick or short board and whittle a handle,
That served the purpose just fine.

The three siblings that were close to me in age were my brothers George, Neal and Robert
So some of what I like about myself is due to them
I am not a woman that is afraid of her shadow
I can use an axe or gun or rifle as easily as my sewing machines
I come from a home that had guns and hunting
and that was just a part of life.
We were taught to be responsible from a very young age...

We didn't get fireworks on the fourth of July--too afraid of starting a fire
Our time for firecrackers was Christmas--at night
We always hoped for snow, but it didn't matter
Just build a fire and
have a brick of firecrackers and a few M-80s to made a big bang
Specially when you collected the firecrackers that didn't go off the next day
Unroll them and collect all the powder, get a piece of fuse, bore a hole in a piece of wood, poor in the powder, place the fuse, and make or find something to make a plug
and Presto, you have an even bigger bang

And we survived it all!

More of Tennessee...
Barb asked me if I had always like photography, and the answer is yes. Not quite as long as I can remember but I would say from 3 or 4th grade I wanted a camera. I am not sure how old I was when I got my first camera...I got it with Top Value stamps. Does anyone besides me remember them? I think they were red and yellow, you received so many per so much money you spent. I cannot remember how many you got per $1--but I think there was thirty pages to a book. And each page had to have a value of 50 points in it...

I am not explaining it very well so will move on. My first camera was a polaroid camera...you know the kind where you pull the picture out and it develops itself. I was totally thrilled to get that camera. Just couldn't afford to take very many pictures cause I didn't have the money to buy film.

Then I think in high school I moved right uptown and got an instamatic made by Kodak that took the cartridges of film--mine was the 126 size. And these are pictures I took with it. I think I still have that camera. Then I went a year to a local college and the second semester there I took a coarse in photography where I learned to develop black and white film. I actually bought another camera--it was a Canon 35 mm, but not an SLR.

While there at college, I would also set in on another photography class sometimes and saw some neat ways to alter pictures. Multiple exposures is one I really remember standing out, and then there was another way of working with the negatives and ending in a very stark B & W photo--no shades of gray. I was so stupid then...that professor would have let me do anything. I should have taken advantage and sat in all the classes. And would have shown me how to do any of it.

Anyway, these are photos from when I was a child....I thought my family would get a kick out of seeing them on here.

Tennessee pastures

From the pastures of Tennessee...be sure and click to get the full effect.

Tennessee sunset

Sundown from my used to be Tennessee mountain home.

Sunset from Tennessee

Another from one of my scanned photos--this is a sunset from beautiful northeast Tennessee. Later than 1996 I think.

I had to change my header picture to this one--it is the same barn as in the previous picture, just a little different view. And the one in the post is actually part of our yard--the creek had flooded and was running through it a little bit...It is hard to describe the feeling that washes over me when I see these pictures. It goes to the very core of my being...a million feelings come tumbling in. The happiness we found at this, at the little shack that we lived in is almost too good to be true.

My husband and I moved to Tennessee and lived on the property this barn belongs to for a little over a year. We only had a wood burner--a Buck Stove to be exact--to heat with. We cut our own firewood. I learned to use a chainsaw then.

We had three channels on our TV: PBS, NBC, and CBS. In that time there we became hooked on Masterpiece Theater, though the main show I remember watching was I, Claudius. I don't remember the show as much as I remember the anticipation of seeing the next episode.

We had a huge garden there--I canned enough green beans that year to last us two or three years. Plus I sold enough to more than pay for all the fertilize, plants and seeds that I had to buy. We didn't have to pay for the garden to be plowed--we used my brother's tractor and plow.

I raised both half-runner and cornfield beans (they are very similar to pole beans), okra, tomatoes, potatoes, okra, pepper, and onions I know. I cannot remember if I raised anything else or not. Oh, I know I had cabbage...I remember making kraut with it.

My husband could shoot from the front yard over to the ridge behind the barn pictured above--I think he could place the target 500 yards. He could shoot his bow and arrows in the front yard. Just an idyllic sort of life for us at that time.

We still miss this place--I dream of it fairly often. In my dreams it is always so good to be there. I was only a mile from my mom and half a mile from my best friend..I visited with both almost daily. If not actual visit, then talked on the phone. That seems a lifetime ago.

I guess Christmas is a time of remembering...seeing these pictures and some others really have me in mood. Kind of sad and happy all at once--just thinking and remembering.

This is a different view of the barn seen in my header...I found it while looking for the picture of beans strung on strings to dry. Could not resist posting it, and between the two I don't know whether I like it in B & W best or just the way I found it...off-color colored film picture. So I just am posting both.

Since wet stuff keeps falling, I have yet to get out and take any pictures...so I kept digging around to find something to post that reminds me of the weather we are having now.

This was taken December 8, 1973 in Tennessee with a polaroid camera...remember them? This is one of my favorite pictures--takes me back to childhood almost instantly.

There was nothing better than snowy days for me. I would get my cheap old boots on, get the dogs and take off on a 'grand' adventure...this is just some of the area I might cover in an afternoon. This was just part of my growing up playground.

The barn that is prominent in the pictures was ours...it was built by my brothers under the direction of my dad when they were in high school! My dad had muscular dystrophy and by the time we got moved to the 'new' house, he was not able to do much. This barn, as well as our house was all built from wood that was taken from the trees on our land....my parents were nothing if not self sufficient in so many ways.

There is a creek that is the boundary between our property and the neighboring property...there were two or three summers that I played in that creek a big part of the day each summer. Catching crawdads, skipping rocks, etc....I really don't know what we did to have so much fun, but those are some of the best memories of my life. It was a couple or three years that my nephew, who is a month older than me, spent the summers with us.

That barn holds tons of memories...of calves we raised on bottles, of swings we had in it, playing hide and go seek, building tunnels back in the hay, or just me sitting in the loft hunting blackbirds with the old .22 rifle. I don't hunt anything now, though if I was back in a place where I had a garden and birds or groundhogs were destroying what I had planted, I could still do it. Might not enjoy it, but I would do it.

Enough of memories for the night...snow is really beginning to fall. I sure hope I can get out tomorrow and take pictures. I love snow pictures....