Blind Hog Award

I believe that, if I shoot enough photos, some of them are bound to be tolerable. Thus the old saying "even a blind hog finds an acorn occasionally" is my motto. Presenting some of my favorites, the winners of my Blind Hog Awards.
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  • A Walk on the Beach

    A Walk on the Beach

    Jonny and Gigi at Fort Morgan. Mobile Bay, Alabama

  • Upper Ten

    Upper Ten

    Shot on a motorcycle ride between Petros, TN, and Lake city, TN sometime in 1985 and digitized in 2000.

  • Bull Run Fossil Fuel Plant

    Bull Run Fossil Fuel Plant

    Tennessee Valley Authority's largest single-unit fossil fuel plant is currently using natural gas. There is a possibility that TVA will be closing the facility in the not-too-distant future.

  • Val Sings at Ijams' Saturday South Celebration

    Val Sings at Ijams' Saturday South Celebration

    Video Still Val's grandson Brazil Isom was manning the video camera for this event.

  • Val Sings at Ijams' Saturday South Celebration

    Val Sings at Ijams' Saturday South Celebration

    Video Still Val's grandson Brazil Isom was manning the video camera for this event.

  • This is Barnabas

    This is Barnabas

    East TN Blood Hound Association

  • Val

    Val

    At the Buckhorn Lodge show in eastern Kentucky

  • Cheri Siler

    Cheri Siler

    Heart & Soul entertained at her fundraisers during the 2014 election cycle.

  • Steve Sings at Choe's

    Steve Sings at Choe's

    Here is a You Tube Playlist

  • This Old House (January)

    This Old House (January)

    This old house is located in the field behind the Barn Event Center in Townsend, Tennessee. When our little friend Brazil asked if it was haunted, the center's owner said that it is far worse. There is a large black cougar living in it and many times at night loud sounds come from the house, sounds that are just like a woman screaming.

  • Val

    Val

    Heart & Soul played a Halloween party for the 4th & Gill Neighborhood Association at the home of our friend Kay Newton.

  • Winter Sunrise at Cheneworth Gap

    Winter Sunrise at Cheneworth Gap

  • White Lily Cornbread

    White Lily Cornbread

    I made a pot of bean soup yesterday and you have to have cornbread with bean soup. And I have found a great way to reheat it the next day. Split a piece and pop it into a preheated George Foreman grill for two minutes.

  • Weaver Road at Meridith

    Weaver Road at Meridith

    When I was a kid roaming the neighborhood on my bicycle these were gravel roads and a car passed maybe once in thirty minutes. Now, at certain times of the day, a trip to the mailbox can endanger life and limb. The right side of the road here is still lined with the twelve American Black Walnut trees of my youth. Uncle Ed Weaver's Kieffer pear orchard was replaced long ago with these modest homes on the left.

  • The Roof Leaks

    The Roof Leaks

    My front porch. In 1994 a real roof was added. from an Ektachrome transparency

  • The Maple in Autumn

    The Maple in Autumn

    in Steve Borruff's yard next door

  • The Lamp

    The Lamp

    My dear late friend Doris gave me this lamp a few years ago. I promised to leave it to my friend Leon in my will. He kept talking about how people should give legacies today instead of waiting. He pestered me until I gave him the damned thing. Now I can see it in his parlor whenever I want and he gets to dust it. It's good.

  • Sugar Maple High Above the Rest Stop

    Sugar Maple High Above the Rest Stop

    The weather was perfect for a walk in the woods today. I made two trips up the ridge, one with Faith and Lulu, and another with Titus and the camera. The color is getting more and more vivid every day.

  • Reflections in a Wheel Cover

    Reflections in a Wheel Cover

    I've been cleaning out the garage. I found four of these that I bought years ago for spares. It's now hanging on the wall in the computer room and the 1962 Beetle is long gone. There used to be another one hanging on the wall in the dungeon but I'm told it was too handy for Chancey to use as he cheated at cards.

  • Plain White Bread

    Plain White Bread

    It's been at least a year since I baked bread. All things considered, this one is not too shabby. I haven't had any granulated sugar in the house in a long time but I found some light brown sugar in the freezer. I think I will use it in the recipe from now on. Plain White Bread 9 oz (300 ml) water 4 tablespoons non fat dry milk powder 1 1/2 tablespoons butter 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 3 tablespoons light brown sugar 3 cups bread flour 1 heaping teaspoon rapid rise yeast. I'm lazy. I put everything into a bread machine and select the dough cycle. 90 minutes later I knead it a few times on a floured surface and put it into a loaf pan sprayed with Pam. Proof it in the oven with just the light turned on until it rises properly. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for about 30 minutes.

  • On With Roosevelt

    On With Roosevelt

    This 1936 campaign button belonged to my uncle who was a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps. It is a bit less than one inch in diameter.

  • Mushrooms

    Mushrooms

    Like Christopher Robin, I live at the edge of a hundred-acre wood. On most days I can take the camera for a stroll, shoot fifty or so images, and get two or three worth keeping.

  • Mushrooms

    Mushrooms

    Like Christopher Robin, I live at the edge of a hundred-acre wood. On most days I can take the camera for a stroll, shoot fifty or so images, and get two or three worth keeping.

  • It's Snowing Here at the Gap

    It's Snowing Here at the Gap

    After many days of rain, January has finally started looking like January here at the Cheneworth Gap in Tennessee.

  • It Rained Here Today

    It Rained Here Today

    A hemlock branch from the shelter of the front porch.

  • In the Parlor

    In the Parlor

    For as long as I could remember this landscape hung over the fireplace of my grandmother's parlor in Bridgeport, Tennessee. That's because it was placed there shortly after Grandpa built the house in 1922, long before I was born. It had been a gift from a lady that I knew in my youth only as Miss Jo. Miss Jo had a big old mansion with huge columns on a gallery that overlooked the French Broad River. When I was a kid my cousins and I used to skinny dip in the river at her farm and steal apples from her orchard, but that's another story. Grandma said that Miss Jo had given her the painting in gratitude for her help in nursing her sister during the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. On a visit one day in the late sixties I noticed a huge empty spot over the mantelpiece. In the middle of the night the painting had fallen to the floor and four holes had been ripped in the canvas. Grandma had carried it to the attic for two reasons. It looked pretty sad and she was somewhat superstitious. A fallen painting was a bad omen. When I told her that I would really miss seeing it there, she said that, if Mom's six sisters had no objection and I wasn't afraid of it, I could have it. I was thrilled and gently placed it in the back seat of my Volkswagen for the ride home. I hung it in my own parlor and was proud of it even with its blemishes. Mom suggested that I talk our friend Nell (Eleanor McAdoo) Wiley to see if she could suggest a repair. She examined it and said that it would be relatively easy to make it good as new. In return she had been meaning to talk to me about a favor that she needed. Her sister June had ordered a collection of classical music LP's and they had brought out the old Victrola and cleaned it up in anticipation of the delivery. They had played some of their old recordings only to discover that the volume of the machine was barely audible. If I could fix it for them she would be glad to repair the painting. Victrola was right. The machine was a genuine 1908 Victrola capable of speeds on or near 78 RPM and the only amplification was provided by the acoustic horn built into the exquisite cabinetry. Nothing had happened to the machine, the ladies had all simply become 'hard of hearing' down through the years. I made a trip to Musicland, a shop owned by a friend who sold records, stereo components, and modest portable stereos. I bought them a nice little Zenith portable stereo and they were thrilled when the records arrived. And the painting? Nell said she had finished repairing it and then made another hole it in as she tried to position it back into its frame. She told me that it could very well be by an artist in the Hudson River School of the mid 19th century. It is unsigned but she said that was normal for members of the group. Three of the four repairs are easily spotted but the fourth can only be detected from the rear of the canvas.

  • Hemlock Cones (Tsuga heterophylla)

    Hemlock Cones (Tsuga heterophylla)

    I brought this tree home from a Cumberland Mountains camping trip in 1976 when it was about a foot tall. Now it's about twenty feet tall. Best Viewed Big

  • Galileo

    Galileo

    The Galileo Thermometer was invented by a group known as Accademia del Cimento. Its operation is based on the principle that liquids change density with a change in temperature. I bought this one in a gift shop called The Mole Hole on the street level of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, GA, in the summer of 1987.

  • 1932 Ford Five-Window Coupe?

    1932 Ford Five-Window Coupe?

    At the Fundraiser for Children's Hospital

  • Poppies

    Poppies

    A backyard wildflower

  • Titus, Our Brindle Boxer

    Titus, Our Brindle Boxer

  • Val

    Val

    The first of many favorite portraits of Val.

  • The Kremlin in Glass

    The Kremlin in Glass

    After the fall of the Soviet Union, our friend Lanny was part of a team sent to Russia to verify the quality of uranium to be shipped to the United States. He brought back this souvenir paperweight along with one of those fuzzy hats.

  • The Pavilion at Chilhowee Park

    The Pavilion at Chilhowee Park

    The only remaining structure from Knoxville's National Conservation Exposition of 1913.

  • TVRM Consolidation No. 610 Working at Grand Junction

    TVRM Consolidation No. 610 Working at Grand Junction

  • The Lake at Victor Ashe Park

    The Lake at Victor Ashe Park

  • The First Day of Spring, 2011

    The First Day of Spring, 2011

  • The Sunsphere

    The Sunsphere

    Symbol of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee

  • The Lake at Victor Ashe Park

    The Lake at Victor Ashe Park

  • The Rice Family Mill in Norris, Tennessee.

    The Rice Family Mill in Norris, Tennessee.

    The mill was relocated from a creek that was to be flooded with the formation of the Tennessee Valley Authority's first dam, Norris, in the mid 1930s. It had belonged to the ancestors of John Rice Irwin, founder of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee.

  • The Horne Brothers Monument, Old Gray Cemetery

    The Horne Brothers Monument, Old Gray Cemetery

    The family insisted that the statue of a Confederate soldier be installed with his back turned to the National Cemetery seen here just north of Old Grey.

  • Bell Peppers

    Bell Peppers

    Market Square Farmers Market, Knoxville, TN

  • House Mountain Tattered Flag

    House Mountain Tattered Flag

    We're told that, since the flag is on private property that borders the park, county government has no authority to force the owner to replace the flag. Judging by the way it was originally installed, its replacement appears to be a very difficult undertaking.

  • Fairy Spuds (Claytonia)

    Fairy Spuds (Claytonia)

    Victor Ashe Park

  • Southern Railway 4501 is Headed for Asheville, NC

    Southern Railway 4501 is Headed for Asheville, NC

    We have just detrained for a photo runby in the early 1970s. Southern Railway donated the paint to dress her as an SR passenger locomotive although she was actually a "freight hog", the very first of her wheel arrangement that was to become their most popular class. Since she was responsible for the steam-powered railfan renaissance, I guess she became a passenger engine and deserved the fancy livery. She is now back in her historically accurate black.

  • SR 4501 in Trion, Georgia

    SR 4501 in Trion, Georgia

    We had a compartment in the Pullman Clover Colony on this trip. The car was used in the filming of the 1950s comedy Some Like It Hot which starred Marilyn Monroe , Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon.

  • Visitors atop the Sunsphere

    Visitors atop the Sunsphere

    During the open house held two weeks before opening day of the 1982 Worlds Fair. This photo was published in Knoxville's 2009 Dogwood Arts Festival Calendar.

  • Salt Water Taffy

    Salt Water Taffy

    At Mast General Store Gay Street in Knoxville, TN

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    Bull Run Fossil Fuel Plant
    Val Sings at Ijams' Saturday South Celebration
    Val Sings at Ijams' Saturday South Celebration