Weekly Grist Gallery, June 12, 2011
Big trees and old barns
This week we look a a huge Catalpa tree in different light conditions, an old barn with a decided lean, and some other fun stuff which was hiding in plain sight if you happened not to be looking for it.
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Driving down Prarie Road in Cleveland County Arkansas, I came upon a well manicued clearing and saw a pecan tree that had been worked over by one of the many recent windstorms assaulting this end of Arkansas. If you look carefully, you'll see a second tree in the background. It is an uncharacteristically tall Catalpa tree.
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The same place at a slightly different angle, the next day, in different light.
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Next to the downed Pecan tree is this huge Catalpa tree. I have never seen one larger. This site is typical of many old home places. The descendants saved the trees and still care for the grounds.
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The catalpa tree in different light. The building to the right is the same structure you saw behind the downed pecan tree.
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The ultimate fruits of the Catalpa tree are the long, skinny beans you see. After they fully ripen, they dry, shrivel, turn brown, and drop to the ground. In our boyhood, my brother and I, and our nieghboring friends would gather a few beans, cut the ends off, and smoke them. Not for long mind you. We called the beans so used, "Indian cigars." I have discovered this was universal boy behavior as I talk to old friends from other parts of the south.
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Not far from the old home place is this barn with the precarious lean. Had the original builders done less of their jobs, it would probably be a pile of scrap lumber now.
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The same barn, up close and personal. Though the barn is hanging tough, the laws of nature will eventually prevail.
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This barn, in substantially better condition is hiding in plain sight on the east side of US HIghway 63, north of Warren, Arkansas.
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You are seeing the tip of a several-stories-tall wood pile at the Hutting Lumber Company in Huttig, Arkansas. The "house" on the crane is bigger than many homes. I did not know that I got lucky with the birds until I downloaded the picture.
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If you are looking for something to take home and gather dust, this is the place to come. It's on US Highway 63, south of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
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More of the store's elcectic inventory, aging to perfection in south Arkansas sunlight.
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Country cuisine. The country store in New Edinburg is a great place for a sandwich and a Barq's Root Beer in a longnecker bottle. Stephen McClellan (right) in the background, "fixed" the sandwich for me. I call it a "hang-out" for obvious reasons. Stephen and Kristen Skelton are looking at a previous Weekly Grist post on their laptop as I much away.
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Not far from the New Edinburg Country Store is this old store whose business did not survive.
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This old sofa just barely off the shoulder and in the right-of-way on the north-bound side of U.S. Highway 79 south of Pine Bluff, Arkansas has been sitting there now for more than a week. Wonder how the highway department people have missed it? It's not camouflaged.