Candoro Reborn

Last year I showed you some of the ruins of the Candoro Marble Works factory. They're still pretty much in ruins. But the office building has been lovingly restored and now hosts many art and music events.

Boardwalk

The Riverwalk trail at Ijams Nature Center includes a boardwalk along the Tennessee River. There is no gently sloping shore there, only vertical towers of limestone. The boardwalk hugs the cliffs and juts out over the river on long pilings. I like how the builders were sensitive to nature by building around this tree.

Moving Targets

Here are local favorites Hector Qirko and R.B. Morris playing a concert at the restored Candoro Marble building in South Knoxville. I'm posting this because it's the only photo that I took of them that I managed to get in focus. Yay me.

Get Right

Here's a typical little Missionary Baptist church on a country road in South Knoxville. The sign says "Get right or be left."

Picnic

Although Ijams Nature Center is primarily a natural area with woodland trails, there are a few places for a nice picnic. This little area used to be a homestead. All that's left now is a bit of a stone foundation wall and some steps. But in spring, clumps of dafodils return, planted by the homesteaders so long ago.
These folks are having a picnic on a perfect spring afternoon. Look at the size of that picnic basket!

Happy Trails

I'm on my way to the Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area in South Knoxville. What a pleasant trail, as spring brings color to the back roads of the Tennessee Valley. Come walk with me. We'll follow the river trail.

Meandering

This low stone wall at Ijams Nature Center meanders along the tree line. The little birdhouses on poles are waiting for occupants. But spring is just around the corner, so they'll be full of activity very soon.

Pine Cones

A pile of branchs and pine cones in the woods at Ijams Nature Center were probably blown down in a storm.

Stripes

The trees along the Tharpe Trace Trail at Ijams Nature Center made stripey shadows in the afternoon sun.

Carbofrax

I don't know what a Carbofrax is; maybe it's the company that made this brick. I just liked the way the light and shadow played on the bricks and moss.

Unravelled

More macro practice - the unravelling of an old steel cable has a certain graceful aspect.

Uplifting

"I will lift mine eyes unto these hills from whence cometh my help."

-The Bible, Psalm 121

I wanted to give you something uplifting to look at as we celebrate Martin Luther King Day here in the US today, and look forward with hope to a new presidency tomorrow.

The immutable Smoky Mountains frame our horizon and our lives here in East Tennessee. I feel a great sense of peace when I look at them.

Shelf Fungus

Not moss or lichens, alas. But I found a nice bunch of shelf fungi that gave me an opportunity to practice my macro shots. And what a cheerfully colored fungus among us.

Empty Kilns

For the next few days, I've loaded up some more photos of Ijams Nature Center and the Mead Quarry area because, y'all, it's just TOO DARN COLD to go out and take new photos. My little Southern-acclimated self just can't deal with single digit Farenheit.

So, be patient. I have a list of places to go, things to photo, when Knoxville thaws out a bit.

These are the old lime kilns at the Mead Quarry site. The pile of white lime ash is there in the foreground.

Forest On the Trees

With some major inspiration from lichen and moss lovers Benjamin at Victoria Daily Photo and USElaine at Willits Daily Photo, I went looking for the forest on the trees at Ijams Nature Center. My macro doesn't compare to some of their wonderful photos, but still. I wanted to convey the feeling of a forest-within-a-forest. These little fronds were actually swaying in the winter breeze.

Beaten Tracks

Oh boy, a mini-theme! These railroad tracks pass through the Mead's Quarry section of Ijams Nature Center. They used to service the company that mined the quarry for marble, but are no longer in use, in contrast to yesterday's post of the Southern Railway tracks downtown. Which is a good thing, as I seem to be developing an unfortunate habit of standing in the middle of the tracks.

The Things They Left Behind 2

Stanton Cemetery lies at the very top of the limestone bluff overlooking Mead's Quarry. You'll come upon it suddenly as you wind along Tharp Trace trail, an austere place on a winter's afternoon. The little community is long gone, but the cemetery was literally uncovered from beneath a thick tangle of vines when Ijams began improving the nature trails around the quarry.
Graves are dated from 1870 through 1939, although there are many graves marked only with small fieldstones. Life was hard for these quarry workers and their families; many of the markers record the brief histories of infants and children. They break my heart.

A local Boy Scout troop cleared the land and built a little post rail fence and benches, and it's a beautiful, mindful place to stop and sit. But I kind of liked it when I first saw Stanton Cemetery as I believe it was meant to be, when the trail first opened, and the vines still swirled thick and lush around the headstones.

Monet's Sun

Not a water lily in sight, but I think Mead's Quarry gives Giverny a pretty good run for its money in this shot.

The Things They Left Behind

Bricks. Piles and piles of bricks litter the Mead's Quarry site. When you walk the quarry trails, you'll come upon them suddenly, unexpectedly, lying in broken heaps, or covered gently with creeping vines.

The good folks at Ijams gave many of them a new life in rest areas such as this, where you can sit and contemplate the slant of winter light on bricks.

Still Water

Frog-strangling rains have moved into East Tennessee - I'm not kidding, many county school districts are closed today because of severe flooding, but the rain should be leaving us later today. So I'm continuing my Ijams series, showing you a sunnier day a few weeks ago, when I admired the deep, deep blue-green water of Mead's Quarry at Ijams Nature Center. Yesterday, you saw it from the bluff behind red berries. Today, we're at ground level.

The stillness of the water is eerie. Occasionally I'll hear a rock plonk into the water from the limestone bluff, or I'll hear a roiling bubbling of gases charge up to the surface, perhaps from a junked auto still resting deep and drowned and unreachable at the bottom of the quarry. Boating and swimming aren't allowed, so nothing but waterfowl will glide across the surface.