Doctor HP Flowers

The Old Pasture Gate

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     It's about 10 spirit-lifting miles from Sugar Grove to Flat Ridge over the mountain between the Holston and New River Headwaters.  Over the mountain between the Raccoon Branch and Jerry Creek headwaters to bring the scale down to truck level, to belly level stoked with pork tenderloin, scrambled eggs and Peggy's sweet honey.
     It's 10:30 am.  A late start for me, but it's been raining for four days and all this morning.  No need to chase morning light.  No need to read maps, no need to look for stops and shots.  I know them by heart.  I've traveled this road many times over, a natural North-South track, quiet, local, forested with lots of old values.
     It's 10:45 am.  The Old Pasture Gate.  I've leaned on it and talked to it.  I've marveled at it's endurance and the lovely fields beyond.  With film and computer chip.  Spring and Fall.  Hot sun and, today, foggy rain.  It's beyond me to explain my love for this old gate.  But, no need.

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County Road 601
Grayson County, Virginia
Wednesday 27 May 2009

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Specter

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     The once familiar one-stop country General Merchandise ceased operations three or more decades ago.  That means kerosene, livestock feed, work sox, hardware, dry beans by the scoop, groceries, popsicles and bubble gum, bolt cloth, fresh gossip, mail and credit must be found elsewhere.
     Yet the old store buildings continue to survive long after the cash drawers closed for the last time.  After all, grand parents and families built these stores and kept them open for long hours each day providing fundamental necessities valued by all.  As these silent icons slowly weather and strain under the weight of honeysuckle and tree limbs there seems to be a shared nostalgia, an unspoken reluctance to interfere in any way that might hasten the final dismantling of these precious artifacts. 

    

© d090527-037  White Store
  Carroll County, Virginia
  Wednesday 7 June 2009

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Cute and Crinkly

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     It's the end of May and early June.  Great days for backroads.  Greens begin to mature.  All's fresh and lush.  And the chilrens are still in school.
     It so happens these days lie in the middle of a micro season long called Blackberry Winter.  Characterized by tumultuous weather and the proliferation of wild blackberry whose peaking flowers make hills and fields look dusted with snow.  Especially so this year soaked by unusually generous rainfall.
     I love the showy fence lines and should have stopped a hundred times, but did this once.  First admiring from a distance, then moving close.  Close enough to hear the sensuous hummm from a chorus of bees slurping with a meadow of smiles.  Each indifferent to the wealth of dusted snow flakes with cute crinkly petals.

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© d090525-034  Blackberry on Fence
  Upper Paw Paw Road
  Madison County, North Carolina
  Monday 25 May 2009

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Gentleman, Start Your Camera

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     Every backroads escapade has a first stop.  Usually identified prior to departure.  It serves as a warp, a pivot away from city affairs, a liberation, a place and time for transformation to life on the road.
     This year, as in others, a little known spot in the headwaters of the French Broad River provided the phone booth for Clark Kent's inexorable metamorphosis.  A spot always friendly to picture taking, soothing to stretched nerves, and portentous for the absorbing backroads ahead.

    

© d090524-006  Rainy Day on River
  North Fork French Broad River
  Transylvania County, North Carolina
  Sunday 24 May 2009

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Silver Anniversary Express

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     The Silver Anniversary Express covered 2319.7 miles in 13 days, 12 hrs, and 20 minutes.  The truck consumed 145.2 gallons of gas costing $2.458 per gallon delivering 16 mpg at 15.4 cents/mile.  Out of pocket expenses were $68.64 per day, gas costing $25.50.
     The temperature never rose above the low 70s and stayed mostly in the 50s and 60s (except at night).  However, it rained 10 days of 14 and nearly all day for six.  This affected wildlife sightings and photo opportunities, but ticks and bug bites were zero.
     Woodthrush soundings were very low this year heard infrequently in only 10 days.  Usually their crystalline songs would be heard at every stop on all days.  Nonetheless, Doc sighted 5 wild turkeys one hen with chicks, 4 ground hogs, 23 deer (2 does with spindly drinking straw wobbly leg fawns only a few hours old.), 15 chipmunks, 6 rabbits, a red-headed woodpecker, 6 box turtles, an alligator snapping turtle, 2 goldfinch groups, 2 bluebirds, 2 hawks, a black snake, a grouse hen with chicks, 7 shoulder dogs, and 24 dead possums.
     Two new wildflowers were keyed out:  wild monkshood, and a saxifrage called mountain lettuce.  The monkshood was cream colored instead of blue; the Tennessee wildflower book mentioned this one as 'rare', but who the hell knows.
     There were 117 picture stops harvesting 490 shots, about 2-5 percent rising to the status of 'photograph' which is normal for film and digital backroads photography.  Motifs collected include:  5 triple crosses, no race cars, no barber shops, no fire trucks, 9 old stores, 28 country churches, 1 court house, 1 post office, 1 train, 4 bridges (3 covered), 1 motel, 1 grist mill, 2 diners, 1 log truck, 1 authentic pure sign, and a cat in the upstairs window.

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© d090604-004  Cat in Window
  Glenville, West Virginia
  Gilmer County
  Thursday 4 June 2009

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Woodthrushes Piping Away

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Day 10, 07:40 am:

    

     "Stop by Left Fork Holly River at Hanging Rock. Photograph a single Daisy reminding me that the unconcerned deer grazing by the Park Headquarters was named 'Daisy'. This shot looks like the one to post first when I return. …Woodthrushes piping away."

    

© d090602-002  Daisy
Cr 3, Replete Road
Webster County, West Virginia
Tuesday 2 June 2009

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ReHab

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     I escape Sunday morning, endorphins flowing - neurotransmitters firing, for a gratifying taste of Peggy's sweet honey.  Determined to avenge last year's humiliating abort and rehabilitate all that Doctor Flowers stands for.  Last year was, and this year will now be the Silver Anniversary of my backroads expeditions to be challenged by forecasted rains, credit card collapses, swine flu, hemlock blight, seat rot and persistent inability to pee.  Nonetheless, feet first will be the only way I return early this year unless, of course, the honey runs out.

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"Sorry..."

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"But, my truck won't burn hydrogen?"

    

© r0607-37  Esso Pump
New Hampden, Virginia
Highland County
Thursday 3 June 1993

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Expedition

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… to study the basking habits of Big Red, aka Nobilis deflamabus, notorious for extended periods of lifeless torpitude punctuated by sudden noisy eruptions of frenetic activity stimulated by a voracious hunger for superheated organic gases cast of by a variety of flames, only to sink back just as suddenly into extended periods of lifeless torpitude.

    

© d070525-010  Water Truck
  Coal City, West Virginia
  Raleigh County
  Friday 21 May 2007

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Sunswept

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Flush with Joy
Overflowing

    

© r0719-13  Old White Church
  Greenbrier County, West Virginia
  Sunday 5 June 1994

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Gallery

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"I'll take the Picasso in the window."

    

© d070521-003  3-Legged Art
  Dillard, Georgia
  Rabun County
  Monday 21 May 2007

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Locked!

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     No more casual walk-ins for itinerant photographers.  No more overnight refuges for the lonely, the weary in search of sanctuary and spiritual comfort.
     Shiny brass locks began to appear on country church doors in the early 1990s.  Nagging vandalism; insurance costs and requirements.  That was also the time that other rural values began to disappear as if swept away by a tsunamis of progress.  The old values:  barns, fences, country stores, post offices.  One has to search deep into the archive to find a shot like this.

    

© r0711-13  Interior
  Wanless Methodist Church
  Pocahontas County, West Virginia
  Saturday 4 June 1994

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Wanless Church

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© r0710-29  Wanless Methodist Church
  Back Mountain Road
  Pocahontas County, West Virginia
  Saturday 4 June 1994

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White Church

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© r0699-30  White Church
   Pendleton County, West Virginia
   Thursday 2 June 1994

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Deliberation

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© d071103-076  Sunset
  Warren County, Tennessee
  Saturday 3 November 2007

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