Coke ovens, in this configuration and in the beehive configuration, used to be thick on the ground around this area of Wise County. We’re near Pine Branch and these are a few of the 60 remaining derelict coke ovens…there used to be over 300 here, with railroad access, from around 1920 to about 1980. They were used to burn coal in the absence of oxygen to produce coke, which burns cleanly at high temperature. Catnip, as they say, for steel makers.
I saw this in the street outside an abandoned grocery store in Cumberland, Kentucky. It was early on a Sunday morning. Must have been some Saturday night…
This was taken at Tomato Fest in Kingsport on September 11. A somewhat larger version of this (no kidding!) will be in a photo show that Lee Stone, Lynn Govette and I are having at the Kingsport Renaissance Center in September and early October.
This thing has to be a half-century old now. Mom always had to have a good supply of buttons, since she sewed a lot.
Between Gate City and Nickelsville, in Southwest Virginia, we ran across an old abandoned country store with several gas pumps displayed outside. This one’s a gem. The Rapidayton Flite-Fuel pump. Price per gallon: a little over 35 cents. My kinda pump!
There’s a nameless tunnel in Whitesburg KY. It was once used by the L&N before the line went out of use in the late 80s or so. The tunnel’s not very long, maybe 100′ or so, and features a creek running through it. This is looking out the eastern face of the tunnel.
Taken on a hot summer day. I had to shoot quickly, since the M&Ms were beginning to melt. Well, as you know, M&Ms, because of their candy shell, don’t actually melt in your hand, but if I’d tried to pick one of these up, it would probably have ruptured the shell and the chocolate would have escaped. I just left them. Odd, the squirrels were unusually active for several days after that.
This is actually just off a busy highway in Weber City VA. The morning sun made the shot.
FinePix F200EXR, 1/125 at f11. ISO 200
The people of Saltville VA do love them some mastodon. This rather original representation of the long extinct (12,000 years, give or take) mammal was apparently used in parades and, since it’s been left out in the open, it’s gradually getting a bit on the shaggy side (to paraphrase a country song, “I like my mastodons a little on the shaggy side.”).
I took this on Bays Mountain just after a wet snow had blown into the area.
This greenhouse is no longer in existence. Many years ago, I was out walking on a snowy evening and saw these Poinsettias through a fogged window.
Uncle Bob's Pix 