Exoskeleton

Gazing at my potato tops this afternoon, I began wondering if it would be worth the effort to gather up the litter of pine bark detritus left behind from the woodpecker foraging and create my own mulch.  There’s quite a pile all around the perimeter of the tree, in fact the ground is starting to look like an extension of the tree.  There are huge plates of bark still remaining on the trunk, which I decided needed further inspection after hearing what I thought were bark beetles scurrying under the surface.

Peckers

Oh, I just had a thought…maybe I’ll get a lot of hits with that title.  We’ll see.

This must be the week of photos and birds.  I’ve been on a bird kick lately and for no particular reason.  I guess I was intrigued by the tales of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and I just started paying closer attention to the birds in my yard.  Not that I didn’t pay attention to them before, I just didn’t make the effort to identify them.  I’ve got this great book, Field Guide to Birds of North America that the M. gave me several years ago, paired with the extinct woodpecker fables, sparked an interest.

PCB Airport vs Ivory Billed Woodpecker

http://www.sowal.com/bb/showthread.php?t=9426

Now, ain’t that a fine How’d'e do this morning?  In the eleventh hour, 2 environmental groups based in D.C. no less and a local pilot’s association have filed a law suit in NY aimed to stop the Bay County Airport from being relocated to West Bay.  If this doesn’t cause a major upheaval in our area in the months to come, I don’t know what will.  Of course, this could just as quietly and quickly disappear as swiftly as it was brought to the table with little fanfare, news coverage or local awareness like we so often see here in nepotism/good ol’ boy/St. Joe land.  I’ll be following this one for sure.

More thoughts to come on the subject….have some work to tend to.

I don’t really have a solid opinion on the new airport, but one thing for certain is that it’s become the shining star for many a contractor, subcontractor, county official, retailer and property owner in Bay and Walton Counties.  Our area has experienced the luxury of being exempt from the fall out of the dot com bubble and 9/11, though NOT from the housing market slow down that’s currently rippling across the country.  In an area that relies predominantly on tourism and second home construction, the airport NOT opening would be a potential cause for alarm as to the sustainablity of our local economy.  On the other hand, just because “they” build it, doesn’t mean “they” will come.  No matter what anyone argues, the numbers say we are swimming in a sea of housing glut, two to three years of inventory.  A lot can happen in 2-3 years.  The new international airport claims to bring people from far and wide to our little piece of paradise often affectionately referred to as the “Redneck Riviera”.  Nice, huh?  And supposedly, all those people who travel from the corners of New York, California and Europe will buy up that housing supply and will demand even more.  You might think I sound a bit cynical for someone who is in the field of designing houses and should be fighting tooth and nail for the arrival of this great airport.  Maybe, maybe not.

Now, what of this Ivory Billed Woodpecker?  Well, there is a local man by the name of MC Davis that has declared over 53,000 acres of his property to be set aside for private conservation.  The land, Nokuse Plantation is a critical piece to a larger tract of connecting land rich in biodiversity that include wetlands, uplands and fresh water communities.  These communities of swamp bottomland happen to be the natural habitat for the ivory billed woodpecker, though the woodpecker is believed to have become extinct, logged out of existence since the 1930’s.  Over the last year, there have been claims of sitings of the great woodpecker and further research by Auburn University has indicated that there may indeed be an Ivory Billed Woodpecker in ‘dem dare woods’.  This is excellent news for Northwest Florida.  Birders from all over the country are traveling to the area in hopes of spotting this wonderful treasure.

Back to the airport.  The environmental groups claim that the FAA may have violated the federal Endangered Species Act due to the spotting of the woodpecker.  Also, they contend the environmental impact is too great and the current location is the best environmental choice.  Wouldn’t you know it, one of those SoWalers says, “It’s just a bird…”  That was probably the same SoWaler that declared (s)he had the right to build whatever beach armament necessary to protect their property from storm surge regardless of sea turtles lives because sea turtles don’t pay taxes.  Nice, huh?  And you wonder why it’s called the Redneck Riviera…

All this, right in my back yard.  Oh, speaking of woodpeckers and the back yard, once again recall my pine trees infested with pine bark beetles.  Well, those trees have attracted a few red bellied woodpeckers that come to feast on the beetles.  It’s almost sad to think that the pine trees will have to go soon.              

Odds & Ends

I’m still trying to figure out my garden situation that I am now overly obsessed about.  Under the house are some left over deck boards which I initially thought I would build a raised bed from.  That was until I decided that p.t. wood probably wasn’t the best choice of material.  Then I figured I would cut down those pine trees (remember the ones that were infested with pine bark beetles?) and build a cordwood wall.  That would take care of two issues, disposing of the pine trees and building the raised beds, but alas, removing the trees is cost prohibitive at the moment.  Then I had another idea, which I’m still hoping will work.  My neighbor has some nice rectangular cut urbanite stacked up by their guest house.  I left them a note asking them if they would be willing to part with it, to which there has been no reply.  I’m not sure if they intend on using it or if they are possibly concerned I’m just someone who is looking to make a buck off them.  At any rate, I’ll have to wait until I see them working in the yard to approach them about it.  In the mean time, I decided to purchase this pond liner material and stakes that assemble into a raised bed.  My rational was that it’s affordable, easily rolled up and stored or can be moved to another location in the yard when I’m ready to build the permanent bed.

On the seed front, I’ve started some fresh ones: chantenay carrots and bulls blood beets.  Determined to have as little initial investment as possible, I made these little seed trays (pots?) out of rolled up newspaper.  So far so good.  The lettuce is doing well, there just isn’t enough to have more than one salad a week.  On a positive note, my next door neighbor told me she was inspired by my earth box garden and she’s started a few vegetables of her own.

And then there’s the animals… (big sigh) Elvis is great for a rabbit going on 10.  I strategically placed the compost bin near his cage so the compost is fed regular shovelfuls of rabbit poop.  Most Excellent!!  Cool, the sigthers 18 year old cat, is also in the same geriatric club as Elvis, though he gets along quite well.  Last week, he punctured his paw and wound up with an abscess that had to be drained.  Needless to say, he had to wear one of those Elizabethan cones while it healed.  We felt sorry for the little guy and at the same time it was a bit humorous.  Tango, the please rescue me-parvo puppy turned mange face, was completely mesmerized by “the cone” and couldn’t take his eyes off Cool.  Tango has turned into a handful and is beginning obedience classes next month.  The vet wanted to postpone neutering until he was healthy enough and now we are counting the days.  Meanwhile, Lola has turned into a complete mush pot, though she still maintains her position in the household and continues to startle unsuspecting guests.

  

Pine Bark Beetles

To root rake the land or not…

I had that option when I purchased my lot.  Of course, the pervasive thinking where I live is that you SHOULD just clear the lot because as one good ol’ boy told me just the other day (flicking his cigarette butt onto my yard) there are snakes out there.  This I don’t doubt.  I’ve seen them on my walks around the hood.  He informed me, for a few hundred more dollars, he’d be happy to mow all that vegetation down, pointing to the back yard.

Back to when I purchased the lot (50′x150′), it was completely wooded w/ mostly pines.  I directed the clearing which entailed the driveway, the footprint of the house and a 5′ to 10′ barrier around the perimeter of the house.  Being the nature lover-environmentalist that I am, I wanted to save as much as I could even though they were “just pines”.  Since that day I’ve wondered if I did the right thing.  Those pine trees I HAD to save, sap on the cars, sway in the wind when there’s a hurricane and now it appears they are infested with pine bark beetles.  That’s right.  I had a bamboo fence built recently that was attached to one of these sapping pine trees.  That tree is now dead.  Naturally, I wonder if the nails killed the tree.

Fast forward to the good ol’ boy that I called to give me a quote on taking down said tree.  No, the fence didn’t kill the tree.  If I look closely I can see the bark of the tree riddled with holes.  He points out that almost all my pine trees are infected and will probably need to come down.  That’s nice and gives me a warm cozy feeling when I think about Ernesto swirling around toward the gulf.

Ernesto turns out to be a non-event and I can breathe a little easier this week, but that tree is still looming over my solar water tank.  Sometimes it just feels like an exercise in futility when it comes to weighing decisions regarding the environment.  *sigh*