Saturday, January 1, 2022

A Brief Respite From Geology

Here's hoping for (but not expecting) a more-sedate 2022.  As trees can have a calming effect, evergreen-related and other forest-related videos and posts are planned for the next few days at least.

I became reacquainted with Ponderosa Pines in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Eastern White Pines in Frankenmuth, MI during our August 2021 van camping adventures.  Reading up on (and watching videos) about "pine trees" was the next step in the learning/relearning process.  There were other conifers encountered while crossing the Michigan Upper Peninsula and other places that await further study as well. 

In my native Georgia Piedmont, the dominant native conifers are Loblolly Pines with scattered occurrences of Short-leafed Pines and Cedars and "white pines" in the Blue Ridge "foothills".  Of note also are areas of the Blue Ridge Province where Hemlocks are the dominant evergreens.  Within this Georgia Piedmont area northeast of Atlanta, I grew up playing in the "Temperate Deciduous Forest Biome" (in a Transition Forest with these very trees, some of which were "juveniles" planted by my parents).  

Sadly, most of "the old homeplace" forest was devastated by an April 1998 tornado. a January 2000 ice storm and finished off by inheritance taxes and property taxes after my Mom's late- 2000 passing.  In a rapidly-growing area, we had to sell to developers in 2002-2003.

The Figure 1 image (below) was one of my first digital photos, from the Spring of 2002.  The three hemlocks, planted by my parents, escaped damage from the tornado and ice storm.

Figure 1.

If I had "life to do all over again", knowing what I do now, perhaps a "double major" of Geology/Forestry would have been an interesting choice, but my choice of an undergrad college would have been different.  The University of Georgia probably had some sort of Forestry Program in the early- and mid-1970s.

Growing up in this setting also gave my sister an avid interest in nature as well.  She and her husband have been heavily involved in bringing back Longleaf Pines and 15/16ths hybrid American Chestnut Trees to the "Gainesville Ridges" region of northeast Georgia. 

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