One of several people Dr. Cogswell told me I should go check out is Roger Smith in Maury County.

Smith has been doing something unique at his home in Culleoka, TN, and his work is featured in museums in Ohio and here in Tennessee.

Smith carves peach seeds. Here’s what I came across from Tennessee Home & Farm:

“I never could draw or paint,” he says meekly.

But the cattle farmer and retired meter reader for Duck River Electric Co. can do amazing things with nothing more than a rock-hard, wrinkly peach seed and a pocketknife. Smith has been carving intricate, whimsical figurines out of peach seeds for 40 years.

“I got out of the service in 1968, and I ate a peach one day on a break from work,” he recalls. “I took out my pocketknife and started carving a little pig out of the seed. I continued carving pigs, and then I did a dog. I just kept seeing what else I could make.”

Before long, Smith was carving detailed donkeys, elephants, butterflies, penguins and even people out of peach seeds. Eventually he began carving entire scenes from multiple peach seeds, including a pig farm and a baseball stadium with players on the field, spectators in the bleachers and cars in the parking lot. Smith’s baseball stadium includes more than 100 figurines.