Tag Archives: pine

Longleaf candling after burn 2023-03-06

Two months after a January burn, these 21 acres of planted longleaf pine in the Conservation Reserve Program look like most of them are dead.

Longleaf candling

But look closely: almost all of them are candling. New growth rising up in inch-thick white candles. Continue reading →

Good burn, west side 2023-01-11

Update 2023-03-07: Longleaf candling after burn 2023-03-06.

Fastest burn ever!

We lit the one and only match no earlier than 11AM, and the fire was completely burned by 2PM. So three hours to burn 20 acres of planted longleaf pines.

Fastest burn ever: 20 acres in 3 hours 2023-01-11

Thanks to both the Lowndes County and Moody AFB Fire Departments for coming out, although they both determined we had firebreaks and backfires, water, rakes, and water.

I had called Lowndes County Fire Rescue before we started, leaving a message with our burn permit. But that had not percolated to the man in charge of fires in the north of Lowndes County.

Thanks to new neighbor Landen Ryan for helping Gretchen and me.

Some of the subdivision neighbors wondered what was going on. The phenomenon of prescribed burns in fire forests is something unfamiliar to most suburbanites, and is yet another reason counties should not rezone to permit subdivisions in agriculture and forestry areas. Continue reading →

Spring cleaning: wash pine pollen off solar panels 2022-05-10

It’s that time of year.

Middle and last panels

In the spring, pine pollen settles on the solar panels like yellow mud. A strong water spray loosens it up, and scrubbing removes it. 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

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 →

Morning in the woods 2021-10-21

The sun is up.

Morning retreat

I live in the woods and only come out to send people off in boats in the dark to see bats by the rise of the full moon.

-jsq

Jupiter, Saturn, Moon, Mars 2020-12-18

Surprisingly clear shortly after dark, with only a phone: three planets and a moon.

Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars

The famous alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, off the starboard bow of Earth’s moon.

Planets in a row

And, towards the east and way up, the red planet, framed in longleaf pine trees.

Barsoom

-jsq

Cat face, beaver pond 2020-06-16

Back in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, my father and grandfather paid off the mortgage on the farm through income from turpentine. This is a catface, where the bark was scraped off a pine tree so its sap would ooze out, to be caught in a metal cup nailed below on the tree.

Catface and beaver pond