(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)
Spring has finally sprung. I’m sure you can attest to the fact by looking around you, wherever you are (again, except in the snow belt). I couldn’t resist a picture of the little Dogwood tree in full bloom that you see above. It seems to be a time of new growth, beautiful blooms and sneezing, runny eyes and misery, if you are prone to allergies. Such is Spring!
Warm weather in South Georgia brings out the Gopher Turtles from there deep burrows. Many people visit General Coffee State Park to seek out the tortoises. They tend to come out to get sun (the tortoise that is, perhaps the people too). We encountered a student from the University of Georgia who was a biology major and had come down just to see the tortoise. We found him in the middle of a paved road (closed to vehicular traffic) patiently waiting, camera on tripod, for a tortoise to appear from its burrow a short distance down the road. He had startled it on his walk (and vise versa) and decided to wait for it to come out again. He virtually spent the day sitting in his lawn chair waiting for the tortoise. Whether he was successful or not, I don’t know. But I was. Not at that tortoise burrow, but another.
The second picture above shows Gertrude outside her burrow. One of the other camp host named her. She occupies a burrow just across from out campsite. I suppose you can see the pieces of lettuce laying near her. People tend to want to feed her, perhaps to entice her out of the hole. The second picture shows her just inside her burrow. Let me tell you a little about Gopher Tortoises. I’m sure you are dying to know.
The life of a gopher tortoise revolves around a tunnel-like burrow that is excavated using its shovel-like front feet. Burrows can be up to 40 feet in length and 10 feet in depth. Each burrow has a single opening and the width of the burrow is approximately equal to the length of the tortoise. Therefore, the tortoise is able to turn around at any point within the burrow, and consequently, burrow width is a good indicator of the size (and approximate age) of the tortoise. Gopher tortoise burrows are usually easy to spot in the landscape because of the characteristic mound of loose sand at the burrow entrance (called the "apron").
Gopher tortoise burrows remain at a fairly constant temperature and humidity level year-round, thus providing shelter for the tortoise during periods of extreme temperatures, drought, and fire. Tortoise burrows also afford refuge to other animals including more than 360 animal species. The list includes the indigo snake (a picture of the indigo snake at the entrance to the borrow is above), pine snake, gopher frog, opossum, armadillo, burrowing owl, gopher cricket, scarab beetles, and many others. But, of course, these creatures do not usually reside in the burrow together, but in succession.
Gopher tortoises feed mainly on low-growing plants that require abundant sunlight. Although grasses and legumes make up the bulk of their diet, gopher tortoises eat a large variety of plants including gopher apple, pawpaw, blackberries, saw palmetto berries, and other fruits.
Gopher tortoises are thought to live in excess of 60 years. They grow relatively slowly and growth rates vary by geographic region. For example, in northern Florida, female tortoises reach adulthood at 10 to 15 years of age, when the shell length is about nine inches; in southwest Georgia, tortoises may take 21 years to mature. Adult female gopher tortoises are slightly larger than males, and at maturity, male tortoises can usually be distinguished from females by a concave lower shell (plastron).
Gopher tortoises typically breed from April to June. During May and June, female tortoises lay 3-15 eggs, either in the sand mound in front of the burrow or in another nearby sunny place. The incubation period for eggs varies from 80 to 90 days in Florida to more than 100 days in Georgia. A mature female generally produces one clutch of eggs annually. Nest predation can be quite high and an individual female may produce a successful nest as infrequently as once in 10 years. Nest predators include raccoons, foxes, skunks, armadillos, and fire ants.
Hatchling gopher tortoises may use an adult burrow or dig a small burrow of their own. Young gopher tortoises are vulnerable to predation until their shell hardens at about 6-7 years of age. Raccoon, indigo snake, black bear, and red-tailed hawk, among others, eat hatchlings and young tortoises. Adult tortoises have few enemies other than humans, although domestic dogs and raccoons are known to eat them.
A variety of jobs around the park continue to need doing. Somehow I seem to get in the middle of them. Jackie, the Ranger who runs the farm asked if I would accompany her to a neighboring farm to borrow a horse trailer so she could take a mule to a vet. She needed help hooking up the trailer. That accomplished, I went about other tasks. Later, a call came to help load the mule in the trailer. They were having problems.
When I and another host arrived, four others were struggling with the mule. He refused to get in. The six of us struggled, pushed and pulled. At every effort the donkey would hunker down and dig in its feet. The mule was not large, the top of his head came only to my shoulders, but he was one stubborn creature. The Camp Manager and another host manned a rope through the trailer’s front window and pulled. I and the Assistant Camp Manager got behind the mule to push. Now, I had already experienced the effects of a mule kick in “another life” that I told you about in an earlier blog, so I was a little cautious. The Assistant Manager put his knee under the left hind leg and lifted, we pushed and moved forward six inches. We repeated this operation until the mule was finally in the trailer.
Some of us wondered why a simple cattle prod was not used to move the mule. The fact that we did not have one was one reason. The reason we had none was that the Farm Manager, Jackie, felt that it was cruel to use one on an animal. I guess that if one has free labor to do the job, it doesn’t matter. One wonders how she would feel if she didn’t have the luxury of more manpower. I guess we won’t know.
I have also learned the principles of fire-fighting by helping with prescribed burning of the grounds in the Park. I manned the fire-line and created a fire-break, put out stray fires and generally kept the fire from burning the trees. The aim, of course, is to only burn the ground growth to help maintain the forest. After a day of this, I smelled like a fire myself, so it was home, strip and shower. Of course, one could smell the smoke that resulted for days.
One day, on the way home for lunch, another host and I, in a Mule (a four-wheel vehicle), passed the dump station (where RVs empty their tanks) and noticed a car setting at the dump with a gray-haired lady inside. This seemed odd. Cars have no need to be setting at the dump. On our way back an hour later, the car and lady were still there. We informed the Camp Manager and he said he would check it out. Perhaps she was in trouble and needed help.
She was in trouble alright, but she didn’t know it. She was as “drunk as a skunk.” I’ve never understood that expression fully as to how drunk that is, but she was highly inebriated. We found later that she had been in the Park since early morning, moving from place to place drinking, without an entry permit. She was promptly written a ticket and the Sheriff was called to take her to jail. We passed by again later in the day and Jackie was keeping the car company, waiting for the wrecker to tow the car. We don’t know the lady’s situation, but her car had been damaged in the front, and the back seat was piled high with what looked like her worldly possessions.
The last picture above shows the Park Manager (on the right) and another Camp Host (Woody) overseeing the barbecue of chicken quarters for a gathering we had in March. It was an appreciation meal given by the Park for the volunteers. Counting Park personnel and Camp Host couples, there were some 20 of us. We enjoyed the time and the meal.
Such is life in the Park!
At this writing, we are parked at a campground in Tennessee. We decided to leave General Coffee a little early (we left on March 22) to come here for some doctor visits. Some family and friends in Tennessee know we are here, but the rest of you don’t, until now. We will be leaving here on April 1st (not an “April Fool”) and head back south to Fort Yargo in Winder Georgia. Our new address for a few months will be:
Fort Yargo State Park, 210 South Broad Street, Winder, GA 30680.
As they say in the entertainment business when a project is finished, “that’s a rap.”
Spring has finally sprung. I’m sure you can attest to the fact by looking around you, wherever you are (again, except in the snow belt). I couldn’t resist a picture of the little Dogwood tree in full bloom that you see above. It seems to be a time of new growth, beautiful blooms and sneezing, runny eyes and misery, if you are prone to allergies. Such is Spring!
Warm weather in South Georgia brings out the Gopher Turtles from there deep burrows. Many people visit General Coffee State Park to seek out the tortoises. They tend to come out to get sun (the tortoise that is, perhaps the people too). We encountered a student from the University of Georgia who was a biology major and had come down just to see the tortoise. We found him in the middle of a paved road (closed to vehicular traffic) patiently waiting, camera on tripod, for a tortoise to appear from its burrow a short distance down the road. He had startled it on his walk (and vise versa) and decided to wait for it to come out again. He virtually spent the day sitting in his lawn chair waiting for the tortoise. Whether he was successful or not, I don’t know. But I was. Not at that tortoise burrow, but another.
The second picture above shows Gertrude outside her burrow. One of the other camp host named her. She occupies a burrow just across from out campsite. I suppose you can see the pieces of lettuce laying near her. People tend to want to feed her, perhaps to entice her out of the hole. The second picture shows her just inside her burrow. Let me tell you a little about Gopher Tortoises. I’m sure you are dying to know.
The life of a gopher tortoise revolves around a tunnel-like burrow that is excavated using its shovel-like front feet. Burrows can be up to 40 feet in length and 10 feet in depth. Each burrow has a single opening and the width of the burrow is approximately equal to the length of the tortoise. Therefore, the tortoise is able to turn around at any point within the burrow, and consequently, burrow width is a good indicator of the size (and approximate age) of the tortoise. Gopher tortoise burrows are usually easy to spot in the landscape because of the characteristic mound of loose sand at the burrow entrance (called the "apron").
Gopher tortoise burrows remain at a fairly constant temperature and humidity level year-round, thus providing shelter for the tortoise during periods of extreme temperatures, drought, and fire. Tortoise burrows also afford refuge to other animals including more than 360 animal species. The list includes the indigo snake (a picture of the indigo snake at the entrance to the borrow is above), pine snake, gopher frog, opossum, armadillo, burrowing owl, gopher cricket, scarab beetles, and many others. But, of course, these creatures do not usually reside in the burrow together, but in succession.
Gopher tortoises feed mainly on low-growing plants that require abundant sunlight. Although grasses and legumes make up the bulk of their diet, gopher tortoises eat a large variety of plants including gopher apple, pawpaw, blackberries, saw palmetto berries, and other fruits.
Gopher tortoises are thought to live in excess of 60 years. They grow relatively slowly and growth rates vary by geographic region. For example, in northern Florida, female tortoises reach adulthood at 10 to 15 years of age, when the shell length is about nine inches; in southwest Georgia, tortoises may take 21 years to mature. Adult female gopher tortoises are slightly larger than males, and at maturity, male tortoises can usually be distinguished from females by a concave lower shell (plastron).
Gopher tortoises typically breed from April to June. During May and June, female tortoises lay 3-15 eggs, either in the sand mound in front of the burrow or in another nearby sunny place. The incubation period for eggs varies from 80 to 90 days in Florida to more than 100 days in Georgia. A mature female generally produces one clutch of eggs annually. Nest predation can be quite high and an individual female may produce a successful nest as infrequently as once in 10 years. Nest predators include raccoons, foxes, skunks, armadillos, and fire ants.
Hatchling gopher tortoises may use an adult burrow or dig a small burrow of their own. Young gopher tortoises are vulnerable to predation until their shell hardens at about 6-7 years of age. Raccoon, indigo snake, black bear, and red-tailed hawk, among others, eat hatchlings and young tortoises. Adult tortoises have few enemies other than humans, although domestic dogs and raccoons are known to eat them.
A variety of jobs around the park continue to need doing. Somehow I seem to get in the middle of them. Jackie, the Ranger who runs the farm asked if I would accompany her to a neighboring farm to borrow a horse trailer so she could take a mule to a vet. She needed help hooking up the trailer. That accomplished, I went about other tasks. Later, a call came to help load the mule in the trailer. They were having problems.
When I and another host arrived, four others were struggling with the mule. He refused to get in. The six of us struggled, pushed and pulled. At every effort the donkey would hunker down and dig in its feet. The mule was not large, the top of his head came only to my shoulders, but he was one stubborn creature. The Camp Manager and another host manned a rope through the trailer’s front window and pulled. I and the Assistant Camp Manager got behind the mule to push. Now, I had already experienced the effects of a mule kick in “another life” that I told you about in an earlier blog, so I was a little cautious. The Assistant Manager put his knee under the left hind leg and lifted, we pushed and moved forward six inches. We repeated this operation until the mule was finally in the trailer.
Some of us wondered why a simple cattle prod was not used to move the mule. The fact that we did not have one was one reason. The reason we had none was that the Farm Manager, Jackie, felt that it was cruel to use one on an animal. I guess that if one has free labor to do the job, it doesn’t matter. One wonders how she would feel if she didn’t have the luxury of more manpower. I guess we won’t know.
I have also learned the principles of fire-fighting by helping with prescribed burning of the grounds in the Park. I manned the fire-line and created a fire-break, put out stray fires and generally kept the fire from burning the trees. The aim, of course, is to only burn the ground growth to help maintain the forest. After a day of this, I smelled like a fire myself, so it was home, strip and shower. Of course, one could smell the smoke that resulted for days.
One day, on the way home for lunch, another host and I, in a Mule (a four-wheel vehicle), passed the dump station (where RVs empty their tanks) and noticed a car setting at the dump with a gray-haired lady inside. This seemed odd. Cars have no need to be setting at the dump. On our way back an hour later, the car and lady were still there. We informed the Camp Manager and he said he would check it out. Perhaps she was in trouble and needed help.
She was in trouble alright, but she didn’t know it. She was as “drunk as a skunk.” I’ve never understood that expression fully as to how drunk that is, but she was highly inebriated. We found later that she had been in the Park since early morning, moving from place to place drinking, without an entry permit. She was promptly written a ticket and the Sheriff was called to take her to jail. We passed by again later in the day and Jackie was keeping the car company, waiting for the wrecker to tow the car. We don’t know the lady’s situation, but her car had been damaged in the front, and the back seat was piled high with what looked like her worldly possessions.
The last picture above shows the Park Manager (on the right) and another Camp Host (Woody) overseeing the barbecue of chicken quarters for a gathering we had in March. It was an appreciation meal given by the Park for the volunteers. Counting Park personnel and Camp Host couples, there were some 20 of us. We enjoyed the time and the meal.
Such is life in the Park!
At this writing, we are parked at a campground in Tennessee. We decided to leave General Coffee a little early (we left on March 22) to come here for some doctor visits. Some family and friends in Tennessee know we are here, but the rest of you don’t, until now. We will be leaving here on April 1st (not an “April Fool”) and head back south to Fort Yargo in Winder Georgia. Our new address for a few months will be:
Fort Yargo State Park, 210 South Broad Street, Winder, GA 30680.
As they say in the entertainment business when a project is finished, “that’s a rap.”
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