The leaves are turning, the temperature is cooling, the days are waning. It's fall y'all!
In Union County, fall ushers in the Union County Heritage Festival. This tradition has graced Maynardville for the last 15 years. But this year a coronavirus changed how we celebrate.
In 2020 the Festival Committee has transformed the Heritage Festival into Heritage Crafts for the season!

The second part of growing a yard-full of fruit and vegetables is preserving them. Again, I have to thank my parents for that knowledge as well as for the love of gardening. Mom and Dad canned everything from fish to salsa. When Mom got sick, Dad took the reins. He had a steam juicer to make juice for jellies, a strainer to make puree, huge pots and small ones. (I recently found a small Presto cooker at a Goodwill and packed it in my suitcase when I flew home.) Then there is the pressure canner. I had a big yellow one that I used so much the bottom became slightly rounded.

I was just thinking about Irene today and wanted to include this audience in reading what I wrote about Irene back in 2008.
Irene Tolliver Hamilton celebrated her 90th birthday at a grand party given by her daughter, Betty Hamilton Bullen, on Sunday afternoon, October 26, 2008, at the Optimists Building in Maynardville.