The yellow dog decides to catch it: Continue reading
Beaver v Dogs
This beaver has wandered into the dogs’ play pit.
Tag Archives: Georgia
Gopher Crossing
Why did the Gopherus polyphemus cross the road?
So it could get back to digging.
More pictures in the flickr set.
It’s the trees’ knees
Interlacing cypress knees:
This is the forest primeval.
More on flickr.
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman, 8 September 2009, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Georgia’s Lack of Rail Act
In his comments, LaHood tried hard not to criticize Georgia policy makers directly. “I’m not going to pretend to tell Georgia what to do,” he said repeatedly.Ain’t that the truth.But rather than criticize the lack of planning and support for high-speed rail in Georgia, he offered examples of regions elsewhere that “get it.” “The Northeast (high-speed rail) corridor has its act together,” LaHood said. “The Midwest corridor has its act together. The governors there have set aside their own egos and their own ambitions” to work together on bringing high-speed rail to those regions.
LaHood made no mention of the stark contrast to the Southeast, where our governors are too busy posturing to discuss resolution of the ongoing water wars, let alone high-speed rail.
The best part is in a comment:
You see the state legislature wants to control the tax revenues from metro Atlanta so they can spend them in Hahira, Rome, Valdosta, etc., etc. Antwhere but metro Atlanta.Ah, Atlanta! Just more important than anywhere else!
You know, if Atlanta cooperated in creating a rail plan for the entire state,
such as for example the long-established rail corridor from Chattanooga
through Atlanta, Macon, Tifton, Hahira, and Valdosta to Jacksonville and
Orlando, we might actually get rail in Georgia.
It doesn’t have to all be high speed.
If I could take a regular passenger train to Atlanta, I sure would,
instead of having to drive or squeeze into an ASA toothpaste tube.
By the way, Ray LaHood has a blog.
Digging Gopher Tortoise
Had to chase her with the camera, but she eventually decided to dig in to get away from the dogs and me:
I noticed this gopher because the dogs kept yipping and running over to where she was. She eventually crawled off into the underbrush and went under, as you can see.
The pictures were taken with a wireless Ethernet camera, recorded by software run out of crontab every minute. The recording ends when it started to rain and I took the camera in.
Pictures by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 16 September 2009.
Box Turtle Eating a Mushroom
Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina), a turtle, not a tortoise, yet it lives on land:
According to the Davidson College Herpetology Lab:
The most widespread subspecies is simply known as the eastern box turtle (T. carolina carolina). This turtle ranges along the entire east coast of the United States from Massachusetts to northern Florida, as far west as the Mississippi River, and north to the Great Lakes. Although this subspecies is highly variable in coloration, it is often more brightly colored than the other subspecies and almost always has four claws on the hind feet.
This one appears to be a male (flattened shell, yellow eyes). Continue reading
Wormsloe Road
Wormsloe Road at Wormsloe Historic Site, near Savannah:
A canopy road, in Georgia, with no curbs or gutters. Sure, it doesn’t go anywhere. Neither does Quarterman Road.
Thanks to Bob Clouston for the pointer.
VDT: Quarterman Road project completed
The Valdosta Daily Times caught me working on being tactful.
Matt Flumerfelt’s writeup actually conflates two different county commission meetings, but gets the gist right:
The fate of the tree canopies lining the rural road were thought to hang in the balance. Several residents spoke in favor of the paving, citing dangerous conditions along the road during periods of stormy weather.Oh, the beaver will be mad. I forgot to mention the beaver.John and Gretchen Quarterman, whose ancestors lent their name to the country lane, led the fight to preserve the road in its original pristine dirt-road condition.
The forest along Quarterman Road is “a scrap of the longleaf fire forest that used to grow from southern Virginia to eastern Texas,” said John Quarterman following the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “This forest has been here since the last ice age.”
Quarterman Road, pre-paving, was the kind of dirt road down which Huckleberry Finn might be envisioned skipping barefoot with a fishing rod projecting over one shoulder.
It was the kind of road near which Thoreau might have planted a cabin.
“Many people don’t know that a longleaf pine forest has more species diversity than anything outside a tropical rain forest,” Quarterman said. “In our woods, we have five species of blueberries, …
The rest of the story is on the VDT web pages.
More pictures of the event in the previous blog entry.
For pictures of what lives in the forest, see longleaf burning gopher tortoises, snakes, frogs, bees and butterflies, spiders and scorpion, and raccoon, and beautyberry, pokeberry, passion flower, pond lily, ginger lily, Treat’s rain lily (native only to south Georgia, north Florida, and a bit of Alabama), thistle, sycamore, palmetto, mushrooms, lantana, magnolia, grapes, yellow jessamine, dogwood, and native wild azaleas.
The VDT has a good picture of Gretchen cutting the ribbon.
But it’s not over just because one road project is completed:
“More people around the county seem to be paying attention these days. Commissioners tell us that already another road in the county has had its canopy saved during paving, and the commission has promised residents of Coppage Road that if their road is paved, their canopy will be saved. Commissioners even seem to like the idea of recognizing canopy roads as a feature of quality of life for residents of the county and for visitors.”
We have a forest. The county just has roads.
Now let’s go see what they’re doing to the rest of our roads. And schools, and waste management, and biofuels, and industry…. If you’d like to help, please contact the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Ribbon Cutting, Quarterman Road
Chairman Paulk insisted that Gretchen cut the ribbon:
Before that, the crowd assembling: Continue reading
With the Lines: Quarterman Road Canopy Drivethroughs
The county has put down the lines on the road, so maybe they’re finished with the paving project. Here are drivethroughs with the lines.
The ribbon cutting is 10AM tomorrow, Thursday, 10 September 2009, at the north end of the north canopy. If you like trees, come see the ones we’ve got left.
Directions
From Valdosta go north on Bemiss Road, left on Cat Creek Road, left on Hambrick Road, left on Quarterman Road, and continue all the way around through the canopies until you see people.From Hahira go east on 122, right on Hambrick Road, right on Quarterman Road, pass the subdivision and the fields, and you’ll see people.