Tag Archives: WWALS

Video: “This has really turned into a thing” –Chris Beckham about South Georgia Growing Local to Gretchen Quarterman on WVGA 105.9 FM 2016-01-20 @ SOGALO16

You can register today for South Georgia Growing Local 2016, to be held all day Saturday February 6th at Pine Grove Middle School. Chris Beckham was struck by the variety: corn, chicken, fruits, goats, soap, composting, water, worms, solar power! So many different topics in six tracks, “but all indigenous to South Georgia.”

Gretchen replied,

Indeed, when this conference started six years ago, we just had two tracks. One was about cooking, and one was about growing, pest control, and fertilizing, and how to have your garden be successful in the special conditions of south Georgia and north Florida. Because our conditions here are different than they are in north Georgia or on the coast, or farther south in Florida where it never freezes. We sort of have a very special environment here, and so this conference is geared towards that.

Lots of new and repeat talks; see the Continue reading →

Withlacoochee River with water

The Withlacoochee River channel was full yesterday at the GA 122 bridge, near Hambrick Road, with reference Yellow Dog:

Full channel

Compare to 21 March 2012 (on the left):

21 March 2012 Compare to March

I wasn’t standing in quite the same place yesterday, because I would have been standing in water. But you can see the water is much higher than it was six months ago.

Here are a few more pictures and a video.

-jsq

John Quarterman on the Withlachoochee (audio)

Back at the end of March at a river conference in Roswell, Georgia, I was interviewed for a podcast. Here’s the audio, and here’s the blurb they included:

John Quarterman on the Withlachoochee
Monday, July 9th, 2012

John S. Quarterman was born and raised in Lowndes County, where he married his wife Gretchen. They live on the same land where he grew up, and participate in local community and government.

NPS talks with Quarterman and his observations on starting and strengthening a Withlachoochee Riverkeeper organization at Georgia River Network‘s 2012 Weekend for Rivers.

The water organization has since been incorporated as the Georgia non-profit WWALS Watershed Coalition:

WWALS is an advocacy organization working for watershed conservation of the Willacoochee, Withlacoochee, Alapaha, and Little River Systems watershed in south Georgia and north Florida through awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen advocacy.

-jsq

PS: They also recorded another podcast which starts out on what may sound like a completely different topic, but which is actually quite related.

Advanced sheets-Field operations of the Bureau of Soils, 1917

What was your county like a hundred years ago, roads, houses, streams, ponds, and soils? Digital Library of Georgia in association with the University of Georgia Map Library has made available old soil maps from around 1910-1920 online in a viewer that can pan and zoom. Detail of Cat Creek Road, Lowndes County, Georgia in 1917:

Detail of Cat Creek Road

Detail of Cat Creek Road
John S. Quarterman, Gretchen Quarterman, Brown Dog, Yellow Dog,
Screenshot by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 13 July 2012.

The soils haven't changed much (Tf is Tifton A soil, for example), but the roads and houses have, and many streams have been dammed for ponds.

They seem to have all Georgia counties. Here's Tift County in 1910 and Cook County in 1931.

-jsq

Owed to Don Davis of the Lowndes County Museum at the 11 July 2012 WWALS Watershed Coalition meeting.