indigenous fruit

pawpaw
The paw paw is the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States. Asimina triloba has had numerous local common names including: wild banana, prairie banana, Indiana banana, Hoosier banana, West Virginia banana, Kansas banana, Kentucky banana, Michigan banana, Missouri banana, the poor man’s banana, Ozark banana, and banango.-Wikipedia

3:59

window
Fly away. Window at the Florida State Hospital, a hospital and mental institution in Chattahoochee, Florida.

clocks
Victor Licata, axe murderer, was housed here. He slayed his family in 1933 influencing the idea that marijuana causes criminal insanity.–Wikipedia

Road Hearing

Road hearing comminity engagement
April 1981. There was a road hearing in Quincy, Farmers Home Administration money paying for some of the asphalt, residents paying for the rest at $16.80 per foot of frontage.

public hearing
The asphalt assessments to be paid over 10 years, with 10 equal payments. Non attendance at the meeting counted as a “yes” vote. Lots of people attended.

Pinus palustris

pinus palustris grass stage
Before European settlement, longleaf pine forest dominated as much as 90,000,000 acres stretching from Virginia south to Florida and west to eastern Texas. That range has been vastly reduced. These are not popular trees with pine plantation folk. This form is called the grass stage. During this stage, which lasts for 5–12 years, vertical growth is very slow, and the tree may take a number of years simply to grow ankle-high.
Longleaf pine takes 100 to 150 years to become full size and may live to be 500 years old. When young, they grow a long taproot, which usually is 2–3 m (6.6–9.8 ft) long; by maturity they have a wide spreading lateral root system with several deep ‘sinker’ roots.–Wikipedia

Herbivores above and below. Last year grackles killed ten of these trees from above. This year I am struggling with the underground herbivores.
Herbivores above and below. Last year grackles killed ten of these trees from above. This year I am struggling with the underground denizens. Voles dig under plants, eat the roots until the plant falls over. I make 1′ diameter rat wire collars, buried at ground level. That way the voles have to work harder for their food.

rat wire in situ
This is a photo in process. Different plant, same species. Three hours after this photo was taken a mole tunnel appeared. Moles are carnivores. Earthworms a major part of their diet. The mole bumped into the wire. My theory is that voles opportunistically run mole tunnels. Just a theory…

mammals

boston terrier
Mammals are any members of a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles and birds by the possession of a neocortex (a region of the brain), hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands. The mammalian brain regulates body temperature and the circulatory system, including the four-chambered heart.–Wikipedia

climbing mulch pile
Bowser and the goats.

goat and dog
goat and dog

goat and coat
goat and coat

pinus taeda

flowering
There goes the neighborhood…
Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), also called Arkansas pine, North Carolina pine, and oldfield pine, is the most commercially important forest species in the southern United States.–Silvics