Purple Chicken

I have not put anything on here for a little while, because we have just been relaxing and enjoying the nice weather and the peacefulness of the woods here. Work has been mostly prepping areas for prescribed fire and fence repair. Not very interesting to write about.  I took a few pictures of some lichens on some logs near the campsite here the other day.  

Every day, I pass by deer and turkeys on the way to work.

Janice and I did this puzzle yesterday afternoon.

And who could resist having their picture taken with a big purple chicken?

A Little Rain

We had a little storm pass through this afternoon, thunderstorm and tornado warnings for our area, but it didn't seem too bad here in the trees at our site.  We made a pot roast with potatoes and carrots outside in the dutch oven for lunch today.  It was done right before the rain came.  I made a run to the post office this afternoon to pick up our new Visa cards, our old ones were compromised again.  Could be from the Home Depot hacking last summer.  Last week was good as far as work goes.  Some invasive weed removal, some fence repair, some prescribed fire prep, and Friday was spent on the tractor mowing the roadsides.  All enjoyable with the nice weather here.  Every day brings more sightings of deer, turkeys, and fox squirrels on the roads.  Saturday we went up to Waldo (now we know where Waldo is!) to a big weekend flea market and spent most of the day.  Yesterday we drove around after Mass to see some more of the area.  Back to work tomorrow!

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.

Work on the Station

I am having a great time here so far.  I will be working Tue-Fri each week, so we will have Sat-Mon to explore.  The people here are great, I am working with Andy so far, preparing units for prescribed fire.  This involves trimming trees along the roads and cutting down and clearing dead trees from near the roads.  These are the areas that will be burned this winter to clear out the undesirable vegetation and help restore the land to its original form.  The areas are mostly long leaf pine sand hills and oak hammocks.  The areas that have regularly been burned look fantastic, almost park like.  They have prescribed fire training here for crews across the country. Click here for more information on the Training school.  I will try to get some pictures this weekend and post here. Janice has been to town to check mail and grocery shop.  Today she was organizing cupboards and watched a buck walk around our back yard.

We Are Here

We finally arrived at our destination for the next three months.  We got here early in the afternoon and were met at the gate by Andy who led us to the campsites and let us pick one out. Really nice sites, wide concrete pads, picnic tables, grills and fire pits.

He gave us a beautiful basket of goodies to welcome us here.  Cap, T-shirts, mugs, a can of peanuts, brochures on the local attractions, and an Audubon field guide to Florida.

Then he took us on a tour of part of the research station and introduced us to some of the staff. Looks like a great place.  We are excited to be here. I start work here tomorrow.

Quincy, Florida

We are at a campground in Quincy.  We missed the turn coming in and had to drive quite a ways to find a turn around.  After we got set up we took the Jeep into town to find the church and stopped for supper at a Pizza Hut.  Went to Winn Dixie on the way back for a few supplies.  We will be here tomorrow night also.  We stopped at a really nice visitor's center on the way into Florida.  We fixed sandwiches for lunch while we were parked there.