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(Click on images to enlarge. Click again to zoom) The recently plowed ground was unsettling in several ways. There had always been orange trees here. Across the road were ghosts of orange trees. Some dead and withering hulks of their former selves. Some were newly planted and wrapped in plastic giving them an ethereal appearance in the pre-dawn light. Two miles south, about 100 acres of former citrus grove is now filled… Read More
(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) Pre-dawn mist which had settled into depressions appeared as little ground-clouds across the vast pastureland adjacent to the Green Swamp. Morning flights of White Ibises were landing among the browsing cattle hoping for breakfast to be hopping and crawling away from moving hooves. Abruptly, now we were driving through what seemed like a tunnel of trees. Mostly long-leaf pines with an occasional bay… Read More
(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) “Withlacoochee”. I like the sound. I really like the river. The name may have evolved from Native American for “crooked river”, an apt description. Florida’s Withlacoochee River bubbles up within the depths of the Green Swamp and winds its way north and west for 140 miles where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. It is a beautiful waterway. Near the place where… Read More
(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) We continued our slow, stop-and-go travel along the old logging road. It seems we were behaving like the insects who land on a flower, enjoy it, flit away to another bloom and continue on their merry way in the same fashion. Our progress through the forest was slow. But ever-so-enjoyable. Birds continued their singing beyond our visual range. We anticipate seeing youngsters learning… Read More
Our Natural Places 