March 21, 2011
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Spring in North Florida
We always beat the season here. My yard is full of azaleas - the white ones so bright that you can't look at the bushes without sunglasses. Our Lorapedlum hedges are bright magenta and our dogwood (we have the pink variety) are doing their thing. So far the only things missing are the Camellias - I guess the buds must have gotten nipped.
We took a ride out in the countryside yesterday to look at a small farm which my nephew is considering buying and saw the wild wisteria and other wildflowers which are so common here - lots of dogwood. this time of year, this area supposedly has the greatest variety of flora of any part of the U.S. Our road and most of the others we drove on were "Canopy Roads"which, as I think I've mentioned, have the spanish moss drooping live oaks meeting across them. Many roads have "low clearance"signs posted. Hitting a live oak branch (which may be over two feet in diameter) with the roof of your truck would do major damage to the truck, but not much to the branch.
The farmhouse we looked at was built in 1935 by the Farm Home Administration (?). Small - tiny by today's standards, but very solidly built. The floors are heart pine - now almost instinct.
This week, maybe we'll drove down to the Gulf and pig out on the local seafood. There is no evidence of the oil spill - and never was along this part of the "Forgotten Coast". The only fairly large town, Apalachicola, may be getting its first traffic stoplight one of these days. further west along the coast (Panama City, Pensacola, etc) its's pretty much over-developed, but not here.
