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For years, I wondered why my sister, Louise, and her husband returned, year after year,
to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennesee. Then, a couple of years ago, I got to
see it for myself. It is so peaceful...so serene. There is a restored, model farm, of the
type common in the area a couple of hundred years ago. Wandering in its fields and among
the farm animals, you get a feel for how it might not be so bad to live then, in the Days
Before Cable...!
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As you enter the Park from its southern boundary, you come upon the model
farm. Built of actual pieces of farms from the area (displaced by the Park
itself), it doesn't look assembled: Every component is organic, seemingly grown on the
spot. |
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The house itself, sits still and patient. It is furnished
and the visitor can walk through it; it seems to be awaiting the return of its owners, who
might be gone for a few moments milking the cows or pulling weeds in one of the fields. |
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Actual animals reside on this farm. And, I've always said, it isn't
possible
to take a "bad picture" with a horse in it! |
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On a hot day, the residents of the farm might hitch up
the wagon and ride up into the hills, to enjoy a picnic lunch and maybe play in one of the
many creeks wandering amongst the trees. |
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Continuing upwards, one is eventually treated to spacious vistas, looking
out into the "smoky" air that is actually clouded with the pollen of a billion
trees...the same view the residents of the farm might have enjoyed, 200 years ago. |
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