Land clearing in Thompson’s Station, TN

Hills on both sides of the pike

Thompson’s Station sits at 801 feet, high ground for Williamson County, where the land climbs toward the Highland Rim and the limestone is never far under. Columbia Pike and the rail line take the low ground straight through the middle of town, and north of that a pair of hills stands up on either side of the road. The land between them rolls. Bottom and rise want different work.

Cedar takes the thin spots first

Out on the open ground the rock sits close under the surface, the cover runs thin in patches, and thin cover is where red cedar gets started. A field that stops getting hayed is in cedar and briars inside a few years, and once cedar closes over a patch nothing much grows under it. A mulching head suits ground like that. It works from the top down instead of digging, so the thin topsoil stays put.

Bottom ground on the divide

Water leaves this ground two ways. The Duck River divide crosses here. North of town the draws run toward the Harpeth, south of town toward the Duck. Either way the dirt down in those draws is deeper, and the ground stays soft well into spring. Privet gets down in a bottom like that and thickens faster than it does on the thin ground, because there’s water and soil to work with. Bottom ground is a dry-week job.

Held now, not farmed

Growth changed what the land is for. The town went from 2,194 people in 2010 to 7,485 in 2020, and a good deal of the farm ground is held now, not worked. There are big lots, buffer strips, the fifty-acre easement keeping ground open around Homestead Manor on Highway 31. Out toward Bethesda and Peytonsville it’s the same story. Nobody hays it, so it fills in. Ground like that comes back as pasture out to its fence line, or woods open enough to walk. Thompson’s Station sits about forty-five miles southwest of Lebanon.