By Beth Bergeron
Union County Farmers Market is excited about our upcoming tenth market season. While the market may look a little different at opening on Saturday, May 9, the vision is still clear: Providing the opportunity for you to shop for fresh, locally grown, healthy farm products while supporting your community has always been part of that vision—but it is much more than that.

Have you ever encountered a so-called “Lone Wolf Christian?
Some people think they can worship God all by themselves without assembling together with other like-minded believers. The mere concept of worshiping God apart from communal worship is contrary to sound Biblical teaching.
While it is true that each of us must have a personal encounter via the Holy Spirit with Jesus, he never said after you are saved go into your house, hole up, and become an antisocial hermit.

You taught me to wash my face
And how to use the potty.
You made me eat up all my peas
And wiped my nose when snotty.

You taught me to say thank you
Because politeness is the way.
Now that I'm grown and on my own
Would you watch the kids today?

Button mushroom caps make excellent appetizers. Pull out the stem, giving you a nice cavity to fill with whatever you desire. The secret to working with fresh whole mushrooms when you plan to stuff them is to saute a few minutes to reduce the water content and tenderize them. There are a number of possible fillings. This is an easy one. It doesn't need to be baked. Can be served warmed or chilled.

By: Steve Roark
Volunteer: Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
Beautiful spring mornings are often accented with the distant sound of woodpecker drumming. During this time of year, the males use drumming on trees and even metal roofs to announce their territory and attract a mate.

“You don’t really know somebody until you live with them.” When I heard this old saying as a kid, I didn’t get it. Believe you me, I do now.
Tim and I dated three and a half years before we married. I know that seems like a long time, but I was only 17 when we met in high school.
By the time we wed, I thought I knew everything about him. And he thought he knew everything about me.
We were both very wrong.

The first time we visited Pigeon Forge back in the late ’80s, there was a small carnival style amusement park against a hill on one side of the road and tons of tourist shops on both sides. Dollywood was fairly new and many motels were still Mom and Pop establishments as were most of the restaurants. There were a couple of outlet malls, but there was no Titanic attraction, no Wonderworks, or Dixie Stampede, Splash Country or Hollywood Wax Museum, etc.

John Clark Mosely and his one-and-a-half-year-old brother Bobby Henry set out with their cousin Jay Harvey Tatum to find their father Fletch Mosely. If truth be told, Hen hoped they didn’t find him. Hen figured Fletch would beat the sap out of them for laying out of school. “Maybe,” Hen hoped, “he won’t even know it’s a school day.” Daddy never had been much for school when he was little—he only went to (not through) the second grade, and he hadn’t been around home enough lately to know much about what was going on. Hen would never have let either his little brother or older cousin know that he was scared of his daddy, but he for “dang-shore” was!

A few years ago, I wrote a novel called “Motes.”
The title of the book comes from the term used to describe particles of dust. Each particle is called a “mote.” There are alien creatures in the story from ten light-years away who are smaller than a dust mote. A human boy in the story mistakes one of them for an actual speck of dust and traps it in a peanut butter jar. You might be amazed at the story that develops from that.

In the third part of our tomato series, we discussed garden layout and water. In this edition, we will talk about plant support and pruning. This is an area where we can make it easier to manage our gardens and harvest the fruits of our labor. Also, depending on the type of tomato plant, pruning can yield larger fruit when the plant can devote as much energy as possible into fruit production.