Earth (3 Viewers)

[faceman]

Don't you have to watch out for alligators?

That alone makes it a special area.

No they venture to close they are on the dinner table

 

[tenordas]

I am generally curious. You said a live oak is a trash tree. Must be local verbiage. Along the gulf coast a Live Oak
is considered a treasure and a permit is required to remove one. I live 10 miles from this one.



This will stop a semi in its tracks

Have to admit growing up in San Antonio, I hated those live oaks. They are a haven for roaches (the big palmettos) for one thing, and I just think they are supremely ugly.
The only tree that's uglier is the other most prevalent tree in south Texas, the honey mesquite tree, which look like overgrown weeds that have developed trunks.

I still hate Live Oaks. When we moved back south from Jersey, we bought a house being built and they planned to put a live oak in the front yard, but I talked them into planting a pear tree instead. I think trash tree is a perfect description for them.

 

[faceman]

Have to admit growing up in San Antonio, I hated those live oaks. They are a haven for roaches (the big palmettos) for one thing, and I just think they are supremely ugly.
The only tree that's uglier is the other most prevalent tree in south Texas, the honey mesquite tree, which look like overgrown weeds that have developed trunks.

I still hate Live Oaks. When we moved back south from Jersey, we bought a house being built and they planned to put a live oak in the front yard, but I talked them into planting a pear tree instead. I think trash tree is a perfect description for them.

Live oaks are the ultimate protection from wind and sun. When i Built my home the first thing i did was plant a live Oak on the east and west side. My power bill has thanked me since

 

[SamAndreas]

Live oaks are the ultimate protection from wind and sun. When i Built my home the first thing i did was plant a live Oak on the east and west side. My power bill has thanked me since

Deer like to sleep in live oak clusters. At least they do if coyotes haven't made that particular cluster in to a coyote den for themselves. They are kind or natural growing forts for critters to modify to sleep in.

What about Pinus sabiniana, (digger pine)? Wherever live oak grows, those kind of pines also tend the grow.

They also have a similar generational cluster growth pattern. At first a lone tree grows, dies, then falls down, Then from around that center a cluster of pines grow and all of them grow leaning outward from that center. After that cluster grows old and dies an even larger cluster of new growth is formed from the roots of the old.

They are the Sierra foothill pines which I also consider to be trash trees, or in other words gigantic weeds. What makes them unusual is they do not grow in proper pine tree shape. They grow something which looks more like the working end of a broom lofted 100 or more feet into the air. Larger than Ponderosa pine, more comparable in size to sugar pine.

They also grow and then drop pine cones which are the largest cones I see, keep in mind I see sugar pine, pine cones.

I'll call them Sabin's pines, calling them "diggers" is uncouth if one happen's to knows the racist history of around here.

About those cones, once they've dropped on a road I slow down and carefully make my way around them with my car. The cones are very hard, one could say that they are hunks of hardwood shaped like a pine cone. A huge pine cone, the correct size to roll under my car and make it like the bottom of my car is up on ball bearings. That would be if there were several of them under my car all at once, and where they are there usually are several of them.

My car has 6 inches of ground clearance under the front, 9 inches under the rear. So those pine cones are bit larger than that. If one gets under the car it makes a horrible metal damaging noise from the front all the way to the back of the car as it rolls under. At 45 mph that can be scary.

 

[SamAndreas]

I forgot to mention this about Sabin's pines, they have a significant, useable, amount of Heptane oil in their needles and twigs. An unusual chemical for a tree to produce naturally.

Heptane is a chemical oddity, it defines, and is used as the zero knock resistant fuel in test engines. In this case zero meaning it knocks when used the most. 100% heptane fuel defines what is fuel of 0 octane is.

One gets about 1% heptane in gasoline at best, less is best, they try to remove it.

But it is useful to have a test fuel which defies what awful is. An oddity.

Heptane - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[mjcouvi]

I think this is the best thread on SR Sam. Just beautiful and filled with love. Reading what you write fills me with joy.

I'm at Buffalo Wild Wings watching the game, analyzing my environment in a similar way