Tag Archives: Cypress

Six inches of rain in two days, swamp full 2021-07-05

A month of no rain ended mid-June, capped by 3.5 inches July 4th and another 3 inches July 5th, according to the bucket-and-yardstick rain gauge. Our cypress swamp, which had only puddles, is now full and overflowing.

[3.5 + 6 inches of rain, cypress swamp]
3.5 + 6 inches of rain, cypress swamp

That chair was above the cypress swamp high water mark for this year. Now it’s in the water.

I’m renaming the front driveway Twin Creeks. Most of its flow goes into the swamp. Continue reading

Porch Dogs guarding the Swamp Throne

Dogs at work.

[Porch Dogs guarding the Swamp Throne]
Porch Dogs guarding the Swamp Throne

Probably I shouldn’t assume everybody recognizes this sort of environment. This is a shallow cypress swamp, with mostly cypress and blackgum trees, with a few loblolly pines, plus slash and longleaf pines and oaks around it. That’s actually different from a pocosin swamp, which has mostly smaller shrubs. Both are fairly common in the U.S. southeastern coastal plain.

This cypress swamp used to be full most of the year, forty or fifty years ago. Nowadays it’s dry most of the year. We’ve been having rain every few days for a week or more, so finally it’s almost full.

When that happens, we like to put kayaks in and boat around. Which is interesting due to all the cypress logs to navigate past.

Those are two of my dogs. They live here, in several hundred acres of land my grandfather bought in 1921. They are working dogs, protecting us from snakes and catching rodents. They don’t attack other wildlife (well, except raccoons), because we teach them not to. They do like to run fast, especially in water.

About the swamp throne, only the initiated know, and Tom H. Tom H Johnson Jr ain’t tellin’.

More rain coming.

[Still not quite full]
Still not quite full

More pictures: Continue reading

Swamp boat burn 2020-03-02

Dogs like water more than fire.

[Yellow Dog and camouflaged Brown Dog]
Yellow Dog and camouflaged Brown Dog

And yes, Gretchen was putting out fires with a coffee cup and swamp water.

But she found something unexpected. Continue reading

Swamp burn 2020-03-01

When you live in a fire forest, you must burn every few years. We caught up on about 23 acres of burning of piney woods, seepage slope, and swamp. All this was inside concentric rings of firebreaks, with no danger of it escaping off our property.

Don’t worry, for the wildlife there are plenty of brambles and woods and swamp unburned this year. More next year. And quail, gopher tortoises, and other wildlife don’t like the woods too thick anyway.

[Gretchen spreading fire with a rake]
Gretchen spreading fire with a rake

For why we burn, see Continue reading