Back in the early and mid-1800s the industrial age combined with a growing population created a high demand for raw materials to make products, especially from wood and metals such as iron and lead. Our area had metal ore deposits to produce pig iron in locally owned furnaces fueled by wood charcoal and coke. Pig iron needed to be shipped to big cities like Chattanooga where it was refined and made into metal products such as tools and farm implements.

There are more recognition days, weeks, or months than you can shake a stick at. Some highlight worthy causes, such National Arbor Day (April 26), and National Girl Scout Day (March 12). Some you scratch your head at, like National Cheese Doodle Day (March 5) and National Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19, aaarrr!). One you probably haven’t heard of, but that I personally think is worth pondering is National Invasive Species Awareness Week (February 26 to March 1).

I’m not sure many of you want to revisit the topic of snow after the past couple of weeks, but every now and then I get nailed with a good question: Why is snow white? And where does the white go when it melts? The answer requires an understanding of light.

With January being National Tea Month, and since most teas are derived from a tree, I thought I’d study up and share some things I did not know about the world’s most popular beverage.

I lucked into a beautiful light display recently when the early morning sun went behind a small cloud, resulting in rays of sunlight appearing to shoot out from the cloud edge in all directions. After decades of seeing sunbeams, I wondered what causes them, and my researched answer is forthwith.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Native Americans and European pioneers were a tough bunch to be able to eke out a living in the American wilderness. Nothing symbolizes that toughness more than hickory, a common tree of great strength and versatility. It goes back a long way as a revered and useful plant.

The deer population has been steadily increasing over the past few decades, as has the human population. The recent trend of wanting to build a house in the country or in the woods has put both populations in closer contact with each other. Deer are opportunistic feeders and will eat food wherever they can find it, which could be your favorite apple tree, tomato plant, or landscape shrub.

I’m sure you have looked up at a gray winter sky and wondered if it will snow. But have you ever wondered why it snows at all? What follows is God’s recipe for a snow, but I must warn you that the ingredients and mixing directions are tricky to try at home.

First, get around a million tons of water, vaporize it, and mix it in the atmosphere. Next, cool the air down, which will cause the humidity to rise. At 100% humidity the air is saturated with water vapor. Further cooling pushes the humidity above 100% and it becomes “supersaturated” and can’t hold any more vapor. Now add a ton or so of microscopic dust particles for the vapor to condense on, and you end up with countless minute water droplets so light they float on air…in other words, a cloud.

I like hearing the song 12 Days of Christmas, which generates imagery of a lot of interesting people and animals. While it is considered a nonsensical sort of song, it has been suggested that it’s actually a secretly coded song of Christian instruction.

Christmas traditions are often things from the natural world, and I started listing them and it turned out to be a long list. the list. I ended up researching the origin of how some plants and animals became synonymous with Christmas.