I drove home alone yesterday--lately Larry and I have been commuting together. And being alone gave me camera time. This is a photo journal of my drive up Joe's Run.

Green, green grass on the road that used to be called Poverty Fork (but is something unfamiliar now that 911 is renaming everything).




Fungi on a log over the creek caught my eye, a spot of white in the brown and green landscape. As I was photographing the log, a neighbor pulled up in his truck.

"Hey," he said. I told him I was taking pictures of the log. He did not seem surprised. We talked about a few things until another vehicle came into view and he had to leave. It is a one lane road after all, and to keep talking and make someone wait is considered rude--unless the one waiting is in your family, or gets out of their vehicle to join the conversation.










Across the road, a gate leads into Ronnie's fields. Cattle grazed contentedly, probably happy for green grass after last summer's drought and a winter of hay.

At the Dan Murray holler (so called because years and years before I lived here, someone named that lived on this now vacant land) a deer posed for quite a while so I could take his/her picture.

At this time of year, the deer's coloring really blends in. Soon they will get their reddish brown summer coats, which are also surprisingly difficult to spot in the lush green of June and July.









Belvie's chicken house has no chickens anymore. I'm not sure how old this building is, but I believe it may be about 50 because one of her sons mentioned that he remembered building it. Or maybe that's my memory playing tricks. It looks like it could have been a home at one time, but I do not think that is the case with this log cabin. The round logs are nicely notched; often the notching on barns is rough, as if done in a hurry.







On top of the pole-bar hill. This hill overlooks Belvie's farm and is on the back side of it.

If you enlarge the picture by clicking on it, you might be able to see, in the lower left center, a small part of Joe's Run Road--that is where I took the photo of the chicken house. The road is not discernible here.









Looking back down the ridge road from the pole-bar hill. This hill got its name because there used to be a pole-and-bar gate there 'way back. The name stuck.
A pole-bar gate is a fencepost with holes through it--poles can be slid through to create an effective fence and still function as a gate.

What strikes me in these pictures is that there are so few signs of people--buildings, cars, electric poles, signs, etc are few and far between up here, and I like that very much.


I can look out over the hills and tell you exactly where most of the houses are, who lives where, and probably who used to live there before, and something of the history of the land.

Not shown in this photo is the cutoff road, or haul road that goes around the hill. The haul roads were used for wagons in bad weather when the hills were too icy or muddy for horses to pull wagons over.



The camp on Belvie's land on top of the pole-bar hill. I like the road sign: "Highlawn Drive." I won't speculate on how it came to be there, but it lends a certain class to the place.

This camp is full during hunting season when the whole clan gathers for deer season.















Finally home again, just as the sun began to set.