Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Labor Day Trip to Georgia

This weekend, instead of the usual gardening and yardwork around the house, I got to do a little farming at my father's hunting lease outside the little town of Abbeville, GA.
 
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The land is split into two areas.  One area the owner uses for some farming that he does on the side.  That is where our camp is, wedged between a cow pasture...
....a quail roost...
...and a little farm pond that was pretty full the last time I went...
...But is pretty dry now...
You can see how the high the water was on these Water Gum trees, but the ground was so dry that I was walking around with sneakers and it wasn't even muddy.
The thing I love the most about Camp Cow Patty is the wild flora that is nearby.
American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)
Morning Glories
Wild Flowers of many types.

Trumpet Creepers  (Campsis radicans)
I wish the color came out better on my camera with these purple flowers.  They almost seemed to glow against their green foliage.

Now, the other piece of property is mostly woods.  It's mostly the sandy pine flats that we have in Florida, except for one big difference...instead of palmetto bushes growing between the Slash Pines, other deciduous trees and bushes are growing.  They really are nice for woods...
...and our goal was to plant crops in the sandy areas in between to attract the deer for the upcoming archery season...
Luckily, the ATV made it easier.  Because, instead of raking the lime, fertilizer, and seed in, we were able to drag a piece of chain-link fence behind and achieve the same result.
The most wildlife that we saw were butterflies.  They were everywhere.  And there were so many types that I had never seen before.
This first one is a Gulf Fritillary



Well, this has been a long post, so I'm going to end it now.  I'm going to close with pictures of my Dad standing next to the biggest Slash Pine (Pinus elliotti I think I've ever seen.

2 comments:

  1. I like your use of the video to show the movement of the butterfly and also the sound of the crickets of summer. It really adds more dimension to what the atmosphere is like in the woods. Will listen again in the dead of winter when there won't be the life about.

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  2. @sailsmart: Thank you very much, I honestly didn't notice the background noise until you pointed it out. It's funny...the things that some of us take for granted and the things that some of us notice. I hope you enjoy the video during the dead of winter. Living in Southern Florida, I've sort of forgotten what that's like.

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