Category Archives: Cypress swamp

Dog Bath 2022-10-21

Update 2022-12-15: Washing the dogs 2022-12-10.

The dogs got really muddy in a beaver pond just before dark, so Gretchen gave them baths.

[Blondie and bathtub]
Blondie and bathtub

After I unclogged the drain, this is what was left.

Honeybun also got a bath, but I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture. Continue reading →

Grapes, beaver pond, sycamore, beggarticks, bananas, cypress swamp, dogs 2022-08-10

A walk in the woods one summer day.

[Grapes, sycamore, banana, cypress swamp]
Grapes, sycamore, banana, cypress swamp

Those grapes were ripe and tasty. Muscadine, Vitis rotundifolia. This is down by a beaver pond. Continue reading →

Maypop, bananas, Arrow in bathtub 2022-06-27

A late June day.

[Maypop, bananas, cypress swamp, Arrow in bathtub]
Maypop, bananas, cypress swamp, Arrow in bathtub

A month later, the Passiflora incarnata are still blooming, there are more banana bunches now, there are puddles in the cypress swamp, and Arrow still likes to cool off in her bathtub. Continue reading →

Turpentine cup on fallen cat face 2022-01-06

Update 2022-03-20: McCoy turpentine cup 2022-03-20.

It’s been 80 or 90 years since turpentining paid off the farm during the Great Depression. Yet we still find turpentine cups, and sometimes cat faces.

[Downed catface with Carolina dog, closeup of turpentine cup]
Downed catface with Carolina dog, closeup of turpentine cup

Blondie is a Carolina Dog, which is a native landrace breed, as in they bred themselves. Carolina Dogs were discovered in South Carolina in the 1970s, thus the name. They were living in longleaf pine forests and cypress swamps, just like where Blondie and Arrow (and Honeybun) live now in Georgia. Continue reading →

Bee tree down, bees still up 2021-07-14

Fortunately, when the bee tree snapped off, it broke above the bee hive. So our pollinating native bees are still humming in and out of there. Their exit used to be on the other side of the tree, but they’re using this new entrance now.

[Bee hive in bee tree stob]
Bee hive in bee tree stob

I guess they will relocate, but at least they did not get suddenly evicted.

The bee tree was far from the largest of the fourteen big trees down we’ve counted so far. Two more were less than a hundred feet away towards the cypress swamp. Continue reading →

Six inches of rain in two days, swamp full 2021-07-05

A month of no rain ended mid-June, capped by 3.5 inches July 4th and another 3 inches July 5th, according to the bucket-and-yardstick rain gauge. Our cypress swamp, which had only puddles, is now full and overflowing.

[3.5 + 6 inches of rain, cypress swamp]
3.5 + 6 inches of rain, cypress swamp

That chair was above the cypress swamp high water mark for this year. Now it’s in the water.

I’m renaming the front driveway Twin Creeks. Most of its flow goes into the swamp. Continue reading →

Yellow Dog, moccasin

Brown Dog and Gretchen are surprised

Gretchen Quarterman was surprised when Yellow Dog walked past me and picked up that snake about 4 feet to my left. I had backed off when I took this picture, but the venom splatter still got on my arm, which immediately started tingling. With a bit of soap and water, it’s fine. For once the Yellow Dog did not get bit. She did get some of the food she likes best and a bone. Brown Dog prudently stayed out of this one.

-jsq