Highcountry Almanac

Preservation

Buildings, Trades, & Neighborhoods

Wildlife

Land, Water, & Life

Culture

Skill, Song, & Story

Notes

Correspondence
Kudzu
Kudzu
By noon the asphalt on Old River Road has gone soft enough to take a bootheel, and it gives off that flat, oily smell of baked tar into the humidity... Read more...
The Load-Bearing Dark
The Load-Bearing Dark
June dusk in East Tennessee rises before it falls. It comes up out of the creek beds first, a blue-gray exhalation that climbs the ridges until the tree lines blur.... Read more...
Gobblers Only
Gobblers Only
The air in the cove at five in the morning is heavy with the scent of damp earth and decomposing hemlock logs. Sitting against the fluted base of a mature... Read more...
Old Shadow
Old Shadow
The spring moves in a series of halts and surges through the coves of Blount and Monroe counties. On the south-facing benches where the sun strikes early, the leaf litter... Read more...
Ramps
Ramps
The yellow poplar canopy is still mostly gray bone, though the topmost twigs have begun to blur with the first copper-green of late April. Down in the hollow, where the... Read more...
In the Hollow Trees
In the Hollow Trees
January on the north-facing slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains begins with a steady, tightening cold that hardens the topsoil into the consistency of river stone. The leaf litter of... Read more...
The Wintering Ground
The Wintering Ground
A steady north wind rakes across the limestone bluffs of East Tennessee, driving a cold, dark chop down the long reach of Chickamauga Lake. Decembers here hold a dense, heavy... Read more...