Land clearing in Wartrace, TN

Basin floor with the rim above it

The town sits at about 830 feet, out where the Central Basin is still flat and the soil lies thin over limestone. Five miles east the ground stands three hundred feet higher, up on the Highland Rim. Nine miles northeast, Hoover’s Gap cuts through that rim between ridges near 1,100 feet, the divide that sends water either to the Duck or to the Stones. Grass down here. It stays in timber up there.

Board fence and turnout

This is the cradle of the Tennessee Walking Horse, and the ground shows it. Board fence, paddocks, riding trails cut back through the woods. Strolling Jim, first World Grand Champion of the breed, is buried behind the old hotel on Spring Street. So what wants clearing here is rarely a raw field. It’s turnout that lost a strip off one side, or a trail that closed up over two summers. A mulching head runs tight along board fence without touching a board.

Wartrace Creek and Garrison Fork

Both run through this end of Bedford County, north and east of town, and the bottoms along them are the slow part of any job. That ground holds water long after the field up the hill has dried out, and it grows back quicker than anything above it. Privet and briars climb the bank until the creek edge is a wall. You can’t mow it, and you wouldn’t lead a horse through it.

Off the interstate at Beechgrove

From Lebanon it’s I-40 west to 840, around the loop and east on 24, then off at Beechgrove. The last nine miles run west on 64, rolling farm ground the whole way and dropping a little as you come down into town. Pasture and board fence by the time you pull in. On horse ground the mulch matters. A paddock goes back into use without a pile sitting in the middle of it.