Three years ago, I bragged about having 24 tomato plants. What a difference three years makes. Watering in the greenhouse last night, I realized I’ve got 1000 tomato plants growing.

Yes, I’ve been away a while. Off on a business trip driving around deep south Georgia, among other things. But perhaps this exhibit will help ease the separation anxiety:

“Revolutionary War Cemetery” – Louisville, Georgia

Over the last five years, I’m been to Louisville quite a few times on business and never got a chance to pull into the shady road outside of town with the sign reading “Revolutionary War Cemetery”. On May 8, 2003, I finally had the time.

The cemetery itself is a small, quiet place, just off the highway into town. It’s nestled under several large trees draped in Spanish moss. I didn’t know what to expect – was there a battle here? It turns out to have the graves of a few men who fought in the war but died much later, as well as a couple families of early area settlers.

The Veterans

Meet Brigadier General James Gunn. He was in his mid-twenties during the war, but his stone doesn’t give details of his commission.

Aaron Tomlinson and the Thomsons (brothers? twins?) were also in their mid-twenties. Aaron was in the Georgia Troops and the Thompsons were both privates in the Continental Line. Those Thompsons: both born in 1750, both died in 1826. There ought to be an interesting story in there somewhere.

Joseph Jones

Joseph Jones missed the war altogether, being born in 1804 or so. But his tombstone is an original, and tells some of his life:

“SACRED to the memory of Joseph Jones of Liberty county Georgia who died on the 5th January 1831, near Louisville, on his way home from the Legislature; in which body he represented his native county three years; aged 26 years & 8 months. This tribute to departed worth is dedicated by paternal affection to one who by his amicable deportment and many virtues justly merited the warm affection of his numerous relations and friends. Farewell dear youth, a long & fond adieu.”

Mary H. Wright

Mary H. Wright had the most interesting tombstone of all. It was also original, dating back to 1854, and had many things carved into it.

Beneath this stone reposes all that was mortal of MARY H. Daughter of Mary & Dr. Wm. Savage And wife of COL. A.R. WRIGHT. Born Decr. 28th. 1825, Married April 26th. 1843. Died June 23rd. 1854.

If all the charities which life endear, May claim affection or demand a tear; Then o’er Mary’s untimely urn, Domestic love may weep, and friendship mourn.

A CHRISTIAN WOMAN is the highest gift of God to earth and here lies one of its brightest exemplifications. Christianity was with her a sentiment deeply inwoven in all her thoughts, feelings, and affections. Kind and benevolent, unexacting and charitable, brilliant but humble. Vigorous in intellect, sweet and lovely in person, meek and gentle in disposition – her life and character have left their impress indelibly fired in the hearts of those whose wise councellor and devoted partner she was through all the vicissitudes of an eventful though brief career.

Mary’s three children are with her. Despite all the lavishness of Mary’s tomb, her husband’s next to her is a state issue stone. Perhaps his was looted when Sherman’s army came through. He was a Revolutionary war veteran, which would have made him quite old, in his eighties, perhaps, when he married Mary. His stone give him a rank of Captain, whereas Mary’s calls him Colonel, so maybe this is really Mary’s father-in-law.

The Pierce Family

The Pierce family had a monument. Three generations: Seth (Revolutionary War), Obediah (“pioneer citizen”), Obediah, Jr. (Civil War casualty), and John (also a Civil War casualty).

The McDermott Family

The McDermott family was all there. Father Owen came across from Ireland in the early 1800’s and married Bdelia. According to the column, they had 13 children, though there are fourteen stones out in a row.

Visit the photo gallery to see all the tombstone images from this historic cemetery.

The area reported on in this newspaper story on the tornados begins just over the ridge from my house and ends five miles away. Not reported here is the home destroyed and several others damaged two miles from me in the opposite direction.

One thing that’s kept me occupied this past week was preparing for the start of the Locally Grown Cooperative, a collective effort of several area natural farms. Yesterday, the website went live and features an on-line ordering system where people in the Athens area can purchase produce from us. It’s kind of like a virtual farmers’ market. This kicks off the marketing effort, and we’ll follow that up with educational opportunities and other community-centered events.

About two this afternoon, I heard the National Weather Service issue a tornado warning for Franklin county, Georgia, my home county. Then they listed the towns in the path of the tornado and I realized that my house lay in the exact line of the storm. A quick click over to wunderground.com later (the best weather site that I’ve found), and I got to watch the live radar feed as it showed the small cell move directly over my piece of the map – I was at work, twenty-some miles away. I quickly got in the car and raced home, to make sure I still had one. I just made it out of Athens when a small funnel came out of the clouds and crossed the road a mere couple hundred yards in front of me. All of the traffic instantl pulled over and stopped – the funnel clearly had right of way. The emergency broadcast system began reciting a tornado warning as I said aloud, “I see it, I see it.” Only after it completed did I realize they were warning about a tornado another ten miles up the road. The warning about the one I stopped for didn’t come until a couple minutes later. It was a slow drive home, as you can imagine. Trees were down across the highway, visibility at times was zero (I pulled over then), and I managed to get behind some semi-trailers going under 20 mph even when the storm let up. As I got close to home, the damage became more apparent. One old farmhouse not far from me had one old oak tree on its porch and another in its living room. My immediate neighbor had the roofs peel off two of his large chicken houses (each one holds tens of thousands of chickens). Another neighbor had a pole barn go down. My house – was fine. A few tree limbs here and there, standing water everywhere, the plastic covering ripped off the greenhouse, but generally OK. Even the neighbor with the single-wide trailer sitting on five-foot high columns of concret block was fine. So the worst of it skipped over us. I don’t know how much water fell, but it had to be a whole bunch. All of the tall grass on the property is flattened. The soil is beyond saturated. And, a bucket that was sitting inside the barn, five feet from an open window, had three inches of water in it.

R.I.P., Old Man in the Mountain.

Gillian Clark is the chef and co-owner of Colorado Kitchen in Washington, D.C. Inan open letter to the Washington Post, she explains why she refuses most every request for special service at her restaurant. It’s quite a good read, and the resulting MetaFilter discussion is worth checking out as well.

The servers often hate to say no to the customer that insists that I broil the crab cakes or deep fry their flounder. I explain to them that they are in my restaurant. And they must have the flounder the way I make it. Personally, I prefer the way Herbert von Karajan conducts Beethoven’s Third Symphony. But I would never ask Zubin Mehta to finish the Adagio with the hesitant 3/8 that Herb finishes with. Nor would I stop a production of Hamlet and ask them to insert a couple of lines from Macbeth because I think they go well in there.

“First Day at Market”

This past weekend saw our first day at market for the year. We didn’t have much – just radishes, carrots, parsnips, and seedlings – but it was good to be back. Amazingly, I sold all 50 pounds of radishes. I got many great comments, too. My favorite: “I’m glad you’re back. You always have the most avant garde table!”

“Bee Condos” This week’s Photo Friday topic is shadows.

You know how a tooth way back in the back cracks some (because you have too many teeth in your head for how much jaw you have [but you can’t cough up the several thousand dollars the dentists want to fix the problem because the dental insurance you used to have got canceled when the parent company went bankrupt right after you paid up through the 24 month waiting period required for major oral surgery] and the pressure finally caused the tooth to snap) and little pieces have fallen off exposing the nerves a bit, and how “some discomfort” arises, but you just have to put up with it because the dental discount plan you found doesn’t take effect until May 1st (and on top of that you have to find a new dentist nowhere near you because no dentists within 60 miles accept the plan, meaning you’ll have to transfer all your records from the good local dentist you like and spend half a day driving for several appointments)? Yeah. I hate it when that happens.