Tag Archives: Quarterman Road

Good burn, west side 2023-01-11

Update 2023-03-07: Longleaf candling after burn 2023-03-06.

Fastest burn ever!

We lit the one and only match no earlier than 11AM, and the fire was completely burned by 2PM. So three hours to burn 20 acres of planted longleaf pines.

[Fastest burn ever: 20 acres in 3 hours 2023-01-11]
Fastest burn ever: 20 acres in 3 hours 2023-01-11

Thanks to both the Lowndes County and Moody AFB Fire Departments for coming out, although they both determined we had firebreaks and backfires, water, rakes, and water.

I had called Lowndes County Fire Rescue before we started, leaving a message with our burn permit. But that had not percolated to the man in charge of fires in the north of Lowndes County.

Thanks to new neighbor Landen Ryan for helping Gretchen and me.

Some of the subdivision neighbors wondered what was going on. The phenomenon of prescribed burns in fire forests is something unfamiliar to most suburbanites, and is yet another reason counties should not rezone to permit subdivisions in agriculture and forestry areas. Continue reading

Dogs in the culvert, TV on the road

Dogs don’t care about TV unles they’re on it; culverts are much more fun. Yellow Dog was curious enough to sniff around the TV camera, but mostly they sniffed under things, laid in the dirt, and sat in the doggie fort.

Here’s a video. The incessant hissing is what that tiny natural gas pipeline station for a mere 9-inch pipeline sounds like 24/7, 365 days a year.

Continue reading

Gretchen and Paige on WCTV about Quarterman Road

So we were riding our bicycles today, and Gretchen got a phone call from Carolyn saying WCTV (Channel 6, Tallahassee/Thomasville) was at her house and wanted an interview, but she was at work and couldn’t do it. Gretchen rode down there, and this is the result: Slowing Down Speeders, by Deneige Broom:
Quarterman Road in Hahira was paved within the last year.

Some people who live there say people drive faster than the posted 35 miles per hour limit.

The Georgia Department of Transportation says this type of paving is safe for up to 45 miles per hour.

Lowndes County agreed to lower the speed limit to 35 miles per hour after they heard concerns from residents.

Since GDOT says the 45 mile per hour is acceptable, a posted speed limit of 35 can’t be enforced without approval.

Residents just want something done.

“We had drag racers out here a few weeks ago, two corvettes speed racing side by side up and down the road,” said Gretchen Quarterman who lives on the road. “It’s a neighborhood, we have 30 families that live on this road, they have small children.”

How did WCTV hear about this? They saw our neighbor Carolyn on YouTube: Continue reading

Thoroughfare Plan for Lowndes County

Thoroughfare Map, Lowndes County, Georgia The County Commission is scheduled to vote on a revised Thoroughfare Plan for Lowndes County today at 5PM at 325 West Savannah Avenue, Valdosta, GA. Details are here. The plan as submitted to Commissioners Friday appears to be an early working draft not ready for prime time, including as it does uses of terms that are not defined and quite a few internal inconsistencies, as well as conflicts with the Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan. Commissioners may decide to defer approval until the plan is in better shape.

As an example of things in the plan that could use fixing, it proposes to reclassify Quarterman Road from local to minor collector on the basis that within 20 years it might have enough traffic “if it were developed”, despite the Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan showing the same neighborhood as agricultural through 2030. Many other roads are proposed to be reclassified by the new Thoroughfare Plan even though they do not meet the criteria set forth in the same plan itself. The plan might benefit from some additional process or procedural input and review. Fortunately, the Chairman and the County Manager appear to be soliciting input. More details here.

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.

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.

A longleaf pine on Quarterman Road. 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, …

Oh, the beaver will be mad. I forgot to mention the beaver.

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.

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.

North Canopy, southbound

Continue reading

Paving the Canopies of Quarterman Road

Here’s what the British call a drive-through of the north canopy just after the asphalt went down:

More pictures on flickr.

Many of you helped Save Our Canopy Road. Well, we weren’t entirely successful, as you can see. Many of the trees in the canopies are gone, and all the trees on the right of way elsewhere on the road are gone. But we did at least save some of the canopy trees. Continue reading