And the bees...heh

Ok, I haven't gotten out much this week. Too much rain. Another thing I've been photographing is the flowers near our porch. These Daffodils are nice, and yesterday a bee was busy checking out the insides, then flying off to wherever and coming back. I caught a few shots of him before he finally had had enough and began buzzing around our heads! Figured I had gotten enough shots and went back inside!

Tomorrow is the Ren Fest. Will take LOADS of photos. Hope many of them turn out. I am really trying to learn how to use this camera, but I get so confused! So I just point and shoot, the same way I did with my Canon EOS Rebel 200 and my old Pentax K1000! And I get some not half bad shots, I guess. Just lucky maybe.

More birds...

Hopefully I will get more interesting things photographed in the future to add! I can't wait to get out. :)

Birds and the new camera

So I got a new camera for Mother's Day! Hooray! It is a Canon EOS Rebel XTi Digital. It is so schnazzy that I am almost scared to use it! And the good news is that my old 75-300mm lens off of my old Canon Rebel works with this one!

So since I've had it all of one day so far, the only thing I've really managed to photograph are birds in the front yard(through the window so as not to scare them away). Problem is, I really have no clue what kind of birds they are! I think some are Sparrows. Some perhaps Grackles? Well, ok I recognize Cardinals and Blue Jays and Doves. The rest, no clue and I can't find them after Googling for hours!

Oh well, I want to post a few here. Maybe someone, perhaps, will see this and now!



The two above are the ones I am really curious about. The ones below I am pretty sure are Swallows.


And perhaps I will add the others to a seperate post.

Excellent map source

I have recently discovered an excellent map to search for cemeteries. It is located on the Rutherford County website. It is called a GIS map and when zoomed in to a low enough level shows the zoning map for the entire county. More often that not, cemeteries show up as small squares on the map. Mousing over them gives the information that it is indeed a cemetery-often showing the name of the cemetery and sometimes even the exact address. It can also show who owns the land/property surrounding a cemetery, though that doesn't always help when it comes to contacting someone about it. My general motto is, that if it cannot be seen from the road and is on private property, then I will likely never see it. Unless of course progress steps in(see post below!).

It can be time-consuming, going over so much area. I spent five hours looking over it yesterday and I only looked at the Smyrna, LaVergne and northern Murfreesboro areas. I will likely use this tool to get as much information as I can for cemeteries that I have yet to find when I list them on my website.

I am now very curious to see if there are GIS maps available for any surrounding counties, perhaps to aid in my hunt for the graves of Revolutionary War Soldiers of Williamson County.

Progress-the good, the bad and the ugly

I'm not really sure where I stand on "progress". Some days I despise it-most days it seems. And then some days, like today, I thank the heavens for it.

Today we went to a new subdivision. There is only one home built so far, and only a few roads laid out and paved. When I spotted the new roads a few days ago I prayed that it was indeed the property I had poured over for so many days on Google Maps. Driving out there today, parking at the farthest road in, and walking across a field of about 200 yards, proved me right. We located a small cemetery(pictured here), the Blackman Cemetery, that had been hidden back here for so many years. It sat about 1/2 mile from all surrounding roads. I was never sure exactly which property it sat on or who owned it. But thanks to progress, it has been found again.

The amount of farmland in my county that is being turned into subdivisions and strip malls is astounding.

And that brings me to the bad. The loss of two of the most historic homes in our county in the past few years, the Jenkin House and the McCulloch-Overall House.


Both of these homes played large roles in the Battle of Stones River. The top photo, the Jenkins Home, was the site of a field hospital for the Union forces. It sat near the intersection of Manson Pike and the interstate. It had sat abandoned for many years, and after exchanging hands a few times(and seemingly not allowing those who wanted to save to well, save it), it was torn down not long after this photo was taken in October of 2005. With the new interchange for Manson Pike, most assuredly someone wants to put a gas station or strip mall here. What a shame.

The other photo is of the McCulloch-Overall House. It was used as a headquarters for Confederate General William J Hardee before the battle. The home had been built in 1838 by Benjamin McCulloch. It was used as photographers studio for many years before being sold. From what I've heard, it was torn down in late 2006 for apartments or a strip mall, but I have not been back over there to see for myself-just the thought of losing this home makes my blood boil.

And then there is the ugly. I don't visit cemeteries in neighboring counties too often, unless they have a real historical significance. There had been one in Antioch, near Bell Road and Murfreesboro Rd, that we had stopped at once to photograph. It wasn't a large cemetery, just a few graves, but it was there and we stopped to photograph it. That was before I had a digital camera, probably back around 2002. I was recently informed that it had been destroyed by developers so we drove over to have a look. Now, I couldn't remember exactly where it was, but knew the general area, up on a small hill between some homes. When we drove by that area, the cemetery, the homes, and indeed the whole small hill had been flattened and there were bulldozers everywhere. Now, I don't know that these graves weren't moved first, but if they were not, that is a sad and miserable ending for this poor family and this little cemetery. I honestly can't imagine something like this happening, but it honestly does not surprise me.

Near the intersection where we exit the interstate to come to our house, there used to be a small graveyard. From what I had learned, when we first moved here, was that the markers had been plowed over when the subdivision was built in the 70s. However there still sat that little piece of land, with the tall weeds at the back, where I assumed the graveyard was-even if the stones were gone. Last year they built a Chem-Dry building on top of it. I hope they are haunted.

To sum this all up, progress can be good when it chooses to be. I can't count the number of small graveyards I have located thanks to progress over the past 5 1/2 years since I moved here and started this project-in fact I might make a list later in the week. But what we are losing at the same time makes me extremely sad and angry. Some subdivisions are built around existing historic homes(the Johns-King Home in Smyrna comes to mind), and some old homes are moved(the Morton house when Stewarts Creek schools were built), but when they are destroyed for no good reason, I cannot see the logic in this.

Please, whatever you do, save our history!

Nice day today

I actually went out and took some photos! Just a few, got some updated cemetery shots for a few that I think I had forgotten to take 'overall' shots of before. They were the Mitchell-Moore Cemetery here in Smyrna, the Baugh Cemetery-which is closer to Blackman, and the Walden Cemetery in Smyrna(which is basically nothing but a shot of some trees-the headstones are well hidden).

Working on the "B" cemeteries today, still getting easily distracted(and not for something productive! I *could* do the dishes, heh!), about 1/4 of the way through them.

Listening to Brad Paisley ALOT! Watched the CMT awards last night. Brad won 'Comedy Video' but didn't get to come up and accept-it was one of those "awarded previously". And he did not win Best Male or Overall Video. Bah, what do those people know anyway?? Smoochies, Brad!!

Blue Angels

We got to see the Blue Angels this weekend at the Smyrna Air Show. We weren't able to actually go *to* the Air Show, we parked at a parking lot across from the airport and watched from there. And despite the cold, it was quite a show! And despite using my little digital camera, I think I got some decent photos, including the one above! There isn't much that is equal to the feeling you get when one of those babies flies directly over you! The sound, the feel, it is incredible! And this comes from someone who is afraid of flying, but is obsessed with airplanes. Weird, I know.

TGIF

I worked on the site a bit today. I got all of the "A" cemeteries done for Rutherford County and uploaded. Working on the photos for the "B" cemeteries now. Thought it might be easier than going chronologically and completely redoing all of the photos, though I will probably do that at some point. I just want to get them all up and on the site as soon as possible. I am avoiding long lists of photos for now. I am trying to just add the "overall" area and gate photos for now. Individual pictures will come later.

The picture here is of one of the old columns from the Tennessee State Capitol. You can see the Capitol Building in the background. The old columns were replaced in 1955. They were originally placed in 1850 and were quarried nearby. Many of the columns ended up in a field near the old Tennessee State Prison. Some of them were brought back to the Capitol in 1996 as a memorial to the stonecutters who built it. Taken by me last summer.


A final note, and a sad one. One of my kid's softball coaches from last year passed away last week. He was only 37, with 2 young kids. His funeral was today. My heart and prayers are with Danielle and Aaron.

Random photo of the day

I have been lax as of late. In fact, I have been on a crusade to get one of my characters to a certain level in World of Warcraft. He will be there tomorrow. So I am hoping Monday to get back to getting serious about my website. In the meantime, I am going to add some photos here as a preview.

I plan to add quite a bit to the history section, and in fact should call it the history & interesting things section. The subsections include: Abandoned buildings; Architecture; Boats; Bridges; Churches; Forts; Historical Markers; Houses; Memorials; Planes; Signs; Statues; Trains; Trees; and Weird Buildings. And I have plenty to add to each I think!

More info to come, check back, oh around once a week maybe! Heh.

Forgot to add the info about the photo! I took this of the Trinity Church in downtown Nashville last year. Beautiful little historical church. It was a hospital during the Battle of Nashville, which was fought mostly just south of here.

My website-what to do

I know in my heart that I want to work on the website. I do. Friday the site was down, and when I was afraid that my account payment time was up, I couldn't even get into my service providers site, Powweb. Of course, doing some Googling finds that lots of people don't like them. And yes, they have screwed me a bit in the past. But I don't know where else to go. When I look for another one, it is either too expensive or I find bad reviews of it somewhere. I mean, I haven't found the "perfect" web host yet. Someone, somewhere out there hates the ones I look up info on. I suppose that only makes sense. Not everyone will have perfect service everywhere. I just want a place for my little website! That is reliable! And not too expensive!! Sigh....

As for getting the info online, that is my other problem. With getting hooked on playing Warcraft or Lord of the Rings, some days I can't bear to pull myself away from them to actually get something done. And the days I do, when I am here on Firefox, I spend half the time checking message boards or over-researching every name I come across. I just can't focus. And I still can't figure out how to get focused. >.<

Well, I need to do some walking. Treadmill. Thank goodness. As much as I want to walk in parks or where ever, I can't do it alone. Not anymore. I want to-it's not that-I'd carry mace and a big stick and a knife, but hubby doesn't want me too. And then there is the old excuses, "it's too cold", "it's too hot", "I'm too tired". Too much.

That reminds me of this weekend, the big buildup to this snowstorm we were going to have. We barely got an inch, it wasn't even enough to cover the grass. I sooo wanted to be able to get out and get some cemetery photos in the snow, but the snow was gone by noon and the car was with hubby at work(on the weekend, NO! Grrrrrr!). WEEKEND SUCKED!