Category Archives: Loblolly

Wild azaleas and blueberries 2025-03-20

Down the Not A Driveway, over and under the Hurricane Helene deadfalls, following the dog pack, lies an acre of wild azaleas, plus wild blueberries.

Blondie, Honeybun, Sky, River, over the deadfall into the wild azaleas

Some of these Rhododendron canescens are already blooming. Many more are just budding.

Wild azaleas, pine deadfall, and dog on Not A Driveway

Wild azaleas and loblolly pine cones

Closeup red wild azaleas

Wild Blueberries

Pink wild azaleas

Pale wild azaleas

Wild azalea beneath oak deadfall

Closeup wild azalea beneath oak deadfall

“Here Spring was already busy about them: fronds pierced moss and mould, … small ﬂowers were opening in the turf, birds were singing. Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness.”
—Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit, The Two Towers, JRR Tolkien

-jsq

Turpentine Afterburn 2023-12-22

Two things I had never seen before: a turpentine catface burning, and a guide metal for a McCoy turpentine cup.

Catface burning, Turpentine guide, Nail that held the cup, the loblolly pine tree

This was during and the day after our prescribed burn of December 21, 2023.

Also, this catface was on a loblolly, not a longleaf pine.

And since it was hacked into the tree during the Great Depression, in the turpentining that paid off the mortgage on the farm, in the 85 or so years since the tree had grown out around it, yet left the actual catface exposed. Continue reading →

Seven-acre burn 2022-12-30

Another successful prescribed burn at the end of 2022.

This was actually the burn of the area in which the Treat’s Rain Lilies have since come up, six weeks later.

Fire and ash 2022-12-30

There’s more to do if we ever get good conditions again, as in dry for enough days after a rain.

For those who are not familiar with prescribed burns, they are necessary to the health of pine forests. Pine trees, especially longleaf pine trees, are more resistant to fire than other trees. So burns favor pines, and without burning, oaks, sweetgums, etc. take over. And burning temporarily cuts back the gallberry, blackberry, and Smilax vine thickets that get too thick for wildlife. Quail and other birds have already moved into areas of previous burns.

Here’s a video playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk2OxkA4UvyyTZYEfjLstI_3DK0QDieb

Continue reading →