Wider fire lane means more work

A contractor began work last week to widen the fire lane. It's 30 feet wide (I think the old one was about 10 feet), but it will certainly increase my volunteer hours.
As it turns out, the clearing exposed large amounts of debris that I had not seen before. I knew some stuff was there, but this really multiplies it.
The work also involved pulling up a large oak tree and laying it across one of my haul paths. I've got some chopping to do to clear that, but the fresh air and exercise will do me good.
The work has exposed other things. During a walk around the perimeter I saw a worm lizard lying on top of the ground. It was alive, but may have been injured because it wasn't very active and wasn't burrowing. The work also uprooted some ancient saw palmettos that appeared to be about 150 years old.

I've got hogs!

One of the folks in the area stopped by while I was working this afternoon and told me saw two hogs outside the fence this morning rooting. When I checked around I found hog traqcks and a couple of places where the ground had been disturbed in the south tract.

I'll have to keep an eye on the situation.

Lupine will be conference topic

I learned today that the Scrub Lupine reintroduction project at Lake Blue will be the subject of a presentation at the Rare Plant Task Force meeting at Tall Timbers in Tallahassee in mid-April.

I will also be making a short presentation about the project at the Ridge Rangers Appreciation Day on Saturday at Circle B Bar Reserve.

Unburied batteries

Today I removed a couple of auto batteries that I discovered beneath some recently gyrochopped saw palmettos.

Yesterday I flushed a Whip-poor-will near the rear of the property. It appeared to be a female, perhaps the same one that was here a few years ago.

No century oaks, just century palmettos

I was out today calculating the age of a few of the Saw Palmettos on the preserve, based on a formula I learned recently.

Several of the palmettos I checked were more than 100 years old. That raises other questions. How long to do these plants live? How big can they become?

By the way, the ageing calculation was a revelation to me. I knew I had long=trunked palmettos, but I always ascribed that to the lack of fire. As it turns out, unless the fire is hot enough to kill the palmetto, it regenerates and continues to grow. The fire doesn't affect the measurement at all.

Amazing.

More lupine coming!

I received word this week that more lupine plants may be brought to the preserve this spring from various sites from which seed has been harvested.

That's encouraging. So far the plants that were brought in last month seem to be surviving for the most part. A few have died, which is normal in any mass planting.

The test will be this spring, when the temperatures are consistently high and there's little rain, which increases the stress. Ryan Kordek at Lake McLeod tells me that's when his plants die the most.

I've beem promised some site prep help next time. I don't mind doing it, but it might be better if there were more planning next time. This is really important, I think, probably more important than I can totally grasp.

Time to do some mining

After I watered the lupine today, I took a walk around part of the perimeter to look for small pieces of trash exposed by the recent work.

I found a couple of places where there were larger accumulations. One of roofing materials and ther other appeared to have been an appliance. They were in the windrows I never bothered to mine before because lI wasn't sure it was worth the effort. Now I know.