Frontline 05 · Field
Guides
Plain-language guides to the things that don't have a good explainer anywhere else. Where to live, from Brentwood to Columbia, what to do about the tick you just found, which of the county's twenty snakes you are actually looking at, and which state parks are within a morning's drive. Cross-checked with primary sources and built to be opened on a phone.
The catalog
Three kinds of guide.
Neighborhood guides.
Where to live, one place at a time, from Brentwood down to Columbia. Every guide follows the same ten sections, so you can compare like with like: what a house costs, the tax stack, zoned schools, honestly timed commutes, and the trade-offs.
19 guidesAll live Show the 19 →
Field guides.
Pocket references to the things that bite, sting, or blow the roof off, and to every state park within a tank of gas, checked against primary sources and drawn so they still read in bad light.
4 guidesAll live Show the 4 → Photo · on the shoot listMerchant guides.
The gear questions the field guides keep raising, answered on their own. What we would buy with our own money, and what to skip. Where a link earns a commission, the guide says so on the page.
2 guidesBoth pitched, none published Show the 2 →Series 02 · Complete
Neighborhood guides.
Where to live, one place at a time. Every guide follows the same ten sections, so you can compare like with like: a short video, the numbers on homes and taxes, zoned schools, honestly timed commutes, where the week happens, and the trade-offs. Start with the city guide, then take one of the five directions out of it.
Franklin's neighborhoods.
Downtown and the five historic districts, Westhaven, Cool Springs, Berry Farms, Fieldstone Farms, McKay's Mill and Ladd Park, the ring inside the Mack Hatcher loop, and the gated estates.
North: Brentwood.
One-acre lots, its own school cluster, and the shortest Nashville commute in the county, plus the club and gated communities: Governors Club, Annandale, Witherspoon.
East: Nolensville, Arrington & College Grove.
The fastest-growing town in the state, and past it the five-acre farms, three club gates, and I-840 instead of a main road.
West: Leiper's Fork, Grassland & Fairview.
The Natchez Trace village and its farms, the unincorporated village on Hillsboro Road with a Franklin address and no Franklin tax, and the county's affordable west edge on I-40.
South: Thompson's Station, Spring Hill & Columbia.
Two growth towns and a county seat: new construction at the lowest town rate in the county, one city on two counties, and the cheapest median in the series.
Series 01 · Field guides
Field guides, in order.
Each one is built the way the Tick Guide was: every claim checked against a primary source, and every page drawn to be read in the field.
The Field Guide to American Ticks.
Eight species, sixteen diseases, a four-step removal protocol, and the symptoms worth a same-day call.
Snakes of Middle Tennessee.
The twenty species verified in Williamson County, ranked by how often anyone actually sees them, and the two that are venomous.
Severe Weather in Williamson County.
Every tornado confirmed here since 1960, why eighteen of the twenty-six came between six at night and six in the morning, and the storms that have actually killed people in this county.
Tennessee State Parks, by the Drive.
All 69 parks on the state's list, timed from the Public Square: the seven inside an hour, the trails, water and beds at each, and the ones with the most room by the state's own counts.
Series 03 · New
Merchant guides.
The gear questions the field guides keep raising, answered on their own. Same rule as everything else here: what we would buy with our own money, and what to skip. Where a link earns a commission, the guide says so on the page.
The tick and mosquito kit.
What works on a Middle Tennessee yard and what doesn't: permethrin on clothing, picaridin on skin, the removal tools worth owning, and the treatments that only sound scientific.
The storm kit.
What to have in the house before the next watch goes up: a radio that works when the power doesn't, the batteries that sell out first, and where to put it all.
Pitch a guide
What's the guide you wish someone had written?
We take guide pitches from neighbors, professionals in the field, and anyone who's tired of the version that already exists. Tell us what's missing.