World United States Tennessee Fort Donelson National Battlefield

Travlin Round the Next Bend with Barb & Bruce

Still learnin Nov 13, 2009

Nov. 12, Thursday Pulled out of CG on a fine, sunny morning with temps in lo 50’s. Drove down the road a piece to the visitor center as we had to make some business phone calls and knew we had cell coverage there. Took longer than we expected. Headed south to a living history farm called “The Homeplace, 1850” that is still part of the Land Between The Lakes recreation experience. I should explain just a little about how this place is run. It was started by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that got its start in the 1930’s to dam rivers in the south and bring electricity to rural farms. The TVA built the dams on the 2 rivers, Tennessee and Cumberland, and since they had eminent domain, they condemned all the land and forced folks to sell and move. When it was proclaimed a recreation area they apparently wanted a lot of stuff here so they put in all the CG’s, planetarium, horse trails, OHV trails, boat ramps, nature center, elk and bison enclosures and the old farm. 10 years ago the whole shebang was turned over to the US Forest Service. Seems quite odd to me to see USFS personnel running around operating all this stuff. Anyway we got to the Homeplace and went thru a small museum and then out into the farmyard. We have been thru a number of other places like this and we always enjoy them cause you just never know what you might learn even if you’re not trying to. Well here was this guy plowing with a draft horse. He was having a hell of a time. Ol’ Jake just didn’t want to cooperate. Turns out he was just learning (the guy, not the horse, the horse was 23 years old!) So this other feller steps in and boy did he know what he was doing. He only had to put one hand on the plow and it just turned over that furrow as pretty as you please. Jake was just digging in and clomping right along. By and by he gave Jake a rest and stopped to talk. That’s when I learned the darnedest thing. Did you know that mules can see all 4 of their feet? As can donkeys, but horses can only see their front 2. Who knew?? So that is why mules and donkeys are so sure footed. That’s why people ride them to go down into the Grand Canyon. So that is a trait passed from the donkey to the mule, since we all know that mules come from male donkeys breeding with a horse (cept for me cause I thought it was a male horse and female donkey.) But how the heck does a little male donkey manage to get his parts to connect with a large mare horse? Dunno, maybe I’ll have to find some donkey porn and see. OK, nuff of that, the reason mules came up was that tobacco farmers always preferred a mule because they are narrower than a large draft horse so for cultivating a tobacco field a mule can walk between the rows and not damage the leaves. They raised a lot of tobacco around these parts. Jake is a huge Percheron and the guy said he would have stomped all over those leaves. Jake was sweating like crazy but the guy said he wasn’t working hard at all. So I guess we saw about ¼ horsepower in action. Had an interesting discussion with a guy about the making of linen from flax also. And then since the sun was starting to dip we headed off to find a home. Went to the south end of the Land Between the Lakes to a huge CG. Got assigned a site but turned out to be a real good one, right on the water. We were set up just as darkness fell, made some darn good chow mein and settled in for a quiet evening. It is 7:30 the next evening and I just realized it is Friday da 13th. Oh my. Had a good historical day today, one of my favorite ways to spend a day. Toured a Civil War battlefield called Fort Donelson. This was where Ulysses S. Grant first made a name for himself in early 1862. He captured 2 forts, one on the Tennessee River and the other on the Cumberland which had a huge impact on the war. At one stop on the battlefield tour a sign said that there are a number of unmarked graves where soldiers were buried after the battle in this field. As we walked over the field to another interpretive site we commented on how eerie this is, it is one thing to walk in a graveyard but quite another this way. Otherwise it was an uneventful day.

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