Land clearing in Normandy, TN

Where the Central Basin runs out

Normandy sits at 830 feet, on limestone ground at the east edge of Bedford County. Tullahoma, seven and a half miles southeast, stands at 1,073 on the Highland Rim, so this is the last low country before the climb. Thin dirt over rock is hard on a plow and easy on red cedar. Let a hay field go two seasons and cedar and blackberry own the edges; give it five and the middle’s gone too.

Eleven feet of bank, every year

TVA finished the dam just northeast of town in 1976, on the Bedford and Coffee county line. It was built for flood control and makes no power. The reservoir covers about 2,490 acres, and the water walks up and down roughly eleven feet in a normal year. That band is lake bed and belongs to TVA, so it isn’t ground we clear. What the eleven feet does to a landowner is push the problem uphill. Seed rides the high water and takes hold above the line, and that strip thickens every year.

Pasture the lake left alone

The lake sits on what used to be river bottom, so the farming happens above the waterline now. Hay, cattle, horses. Bedford County is walking horse country, and the Celebration runs at Shelbyville, thirteen miles west. Ground like this has two standard problems: a fencerow grown up in cedar and honeysuckle no bush hog will touch, and a back corner that quit being pasture a while ago. Neither one needs a dozer to fix.

Off the state route, the gravel starts

State Route 269 ties this end of the county together, running through Bell Buckle, Wartrace, across the Garrison Fork and the Duck, into Normandy, then hard south and up into Coffee County. Two lanes the whole way. Normandy is almost straight south of Lebanon. Most of what sits off it is down a gravel lane, so the gate and the turnaround are worth sorting out before a trailer is on the road.