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Natural Heritage |  |
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Natural Heritage
• Rivers & Lakes |
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| • Camping • Caves • Conservation • Fishing • Hills & Hollows • Hunting • Plants & Animals • Rivers & Lakes |
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| Rivers & Lakes Index Stories... • Living on the James & Tablerock (from John Tilden) _______ |
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My family definitely lived off the land. The homestead was not good enough land to get rich. But they grew enough to survive.
I had relatives who were river guides back in the day. When Tablerock Lake came in, it really changed a lot.
It changed my farm.
Before the lake put in, my family would take their wagons across the James and go to Galena. After the lake, the river was just too deep and we had to go to Reeds Spring.
Where our property borders the water, I think of it as the James River. We're probably a couple of miles north of Cape Fair and our farm is one of four properties that, in my mind, make up a peninsula. Think of the James River as in the shape of a horseshoe.
So on one side of the farm is the James River and it's fairly narrow. On the other side of the peninsula? It definitely widens out to become more like a lake.
When I was younger, we did some canoeing. And we would fish at night for food. Great memories doing that.
The area has excellent white bass fishing. In the wintertime they stay down where it's warmer. When you hear the term "the white bass are running" it means it has warmed up enough in the spring that they leave the lake and head up river to spawn on the gravel bars.
One time in the summer, my dad, brother, and a cousin of mine went up to the Finley River just south of Nixa and put in there. Three days later we took out at the farm.
The river was a good place to homestead. There's some bottomland that grows amazing watermelons. It's nice and flat by the river; then there's some very hilly country on the farm too. The Ozark mountains.
— John Tilden, Reeds Spring, Missouri
The detail, scope and tone of each painting is a beautiful snapshot of Ozark culture, both real and idealized. — the editor
John Tilden, the fifth-generation to grow up on the family farm near Galena, is a humble and very talented young man.
A gifted Christian songwriter, it was an honor to simply sit and visit about his views of the Ozarks and family recollections. You may now find several of these recollections throughout the site.
John currently works at the Marvel Cave in Silver Dollar City.
— Joshua Heston