Driving In Rural Tennessee

The day I arrived in Juneau Alaska a little over two years ago it was 20 degrees colder in Tennessee than it was in Juneau.

Actually it was 20 degrees colder in Florida than it was in Juneau that day.

The entire eastern half of the country has seen an exceptionally warm winter this year.

With records supposed to be broken in many major cities the weather this week both promised and threatened to be downright hot for not-quite mid-March.

I ran yesterday at the base and lugged my sorry tired self through five miles, finally heading home soaking wet and completely wrung out.

Today was close to 80 degrees.

In mid-March.

Yuk.  My body complains and rebels and whines about heat and humidity, and I am guessing that I will be complaining and whining and rebelling for many months to come.

My Mountain Boy and I headed down the mountain after leaving the small town of Altamont a few days ago, driving steep and winding two lane Highway 56 heading we knew not where.

This area is filled with grassy pastures, beautiful hills and valleys, homes that have been on the same patch of earth for generations.

A place that is straight up farm country.

And nursery country.

McMinnville has signs on the highway indicating that it is the "Nursery Capital of the World".  Whether that is true of simply marketing bravado I'm not sure, but it does have many nurseries.

We saw some of those nurseries in our travels the other day.

As we slowly and leisurely drove on highway that was thankfully and wonderfully free of other traffic, we passed through a handful of tiny communities whose names I don't remember. 

At least the signs told us that we were in communities.

But there were no businesses to speak of aside from obviously home-based nurseries that are only now beginning their growing season.

Looking back at a small portion of the Cumberland Plateau..................

One of my favorite homes that we saw during our drive.

It is plain and simple and basic and rustic and unpretentious and surrounded by a beautiful and quiet world............

Many of these pictures were taken through the truck window while we were on the move.

The reason for the power lines in some of the pictures..............

Standing across the highway from one of the nurseries we came across in our travels................

I look at these pictures and am again reminded that even though Tennessee is a small state there are still many places where there is endless green field and endless blue sky, and that there are still places were there is quiet.

Tullahoma is a decent enough town but after living Out the Road in Juneau and living in Wyoming, it still (even after 5 months) sounds and feels very noisy and busy to me.

Too much civilization.

Maybe a move closer to the country will be in our future.   LC and I talk about it often.

But truthfully, after the past couple of years that we have had, the thought of selling the house (or trying to sell the house) and restarting, even a few hours away sounds to me like an overwhelming proposition.

Regardless, for now at least, "the country" and "the mountain" and "the base" are all within easy driving distance.

Thank goodness...............

As we passed by this huge grassy hill I saw a large herd of cows grazing.

I asked my Mountain Boy to pull the truck over.

After pulling into an elementary school LC drove to the very back of the gravel parking lot.

He stayed in the truck while I climbed out and walked over to stand in the cooling shade of a tree.

I knew that LC was waiting for me but I stood under the tree anyway, not rushing, taking a few moments to catch my breath and watch the quiet scene that was in front of me.

I took some pictures and then listened and watched as one cow in the shade by the tree line began to cry out.

Two or three other cows lifted their heads from the grass and cried back in response.

Crying back and forth to each other the cows in the sun began to slowly run towards the one in the shade until they were all happily together.

I inwardly smiled as I watched this simple scene play out, and then turned around to head back to the truck...............

Over a long time, the coming and passing of several generations, the old farm had settled into its patterns and cycles of work - its annual plowing moving from field to field; its animals arriving by birth or purchase, feeding and growing, thriving and departing. Its patterns and cycles were virtually the farm's own understanding of what it was doing, of what it could do without diminishment. This order was not unintelligent or rigid. It tightened and slackened, shifted and changed in response to the markets and the weather. The Depression had changed it somewhat, and so had the war. But through all changes so far, the farm had endured. Its cycles of cropping and grazing, thought and work, were articulations of its wish to cohere and to last. The farm, so to speak, desired all of its lives to flourish.......Wendell Berry