A Long Friday

This morning they had me scheduled for a medical screening for the job here.  We had to go into Gainesville to the University medical center by 9:30.  There was a long wait for the doctor who was tied up with an emergency, so finally a nurse practitioner did the exam.  After the exam, she said that she didn't know why they sent me in for it because it wasn't required for my position.  We stopped for lunch on the way back and finally got to work about 1:30.  Janice went out with me on the Ranger to pull an invasive called Natal Grass.  We took the camera along and got a few pictures to let everyone know what the station looks like.

This is sand hill country so most of the internal roads are sand.  4 wheel drive is a plus.

Most of the roads are lined with oak and pine trees.

There are several lakes here, not all as beautiful as this one.

We both like the spanish moss hanging frome the trees.

Our "work truck".

This is a plant called Florida Rosemary.

Mosses are everywhere.

The spiders here seem to be a lot bigger that the ones at home.

Many of the pines here have what are called cat-faces.  They are an injury to one side of the tree caused by them being tapped for their sap to make turpentine early in the 1900's.  See this link for more information and pictures.  When preparing for burning through a section of the woods, we have to rake around these to keep the fire from causing more damage to the tree.

After work today, we loaded our trash into the Jeep and took it up to the Conservation Center which is about 20 minutes into the research center from our campsite.  After unloading there, the Jeep wouldn't start.  Dead battery.  We tried a battery charger and jumping it with another truck.  When that didn't work we just pushed it to start it.  Gotta love manual transmissions sometimes.  I guess we will try to get a new battery tomorrow.