Nature's recovery continues

Nature's recovery continues

I have been fascinated by all the new growth I see everywhere

One of the most shocking things for me when I returned home to Saucier - after seeing all the trees down everywhere - was the fact that almost every leaf was blown off of every tree. I posted a picture oa few days ago showing one of our surviving Pecans sprouting new leaves. Today I snpped a second picture showing the change in only a few days.




Since noticing this new growth, I have been looking out for it elsewhere. I see lovely bright green leaves sprouting everywhere At this rate we will have lots of trees with normal-looking compliments of leaves in another two or three weeks. For many that will be just in time for Autumn - oops, Fall :-) - but for the live oaks the plumage should be here to stay.

The single sad thing about this is the number of trees I have seen that are lying on their sides, doomed to be cut up and burned over the next few months, but still valiantly putting out new growth. My wife spoke to a tree expert about this earlier in the week. He said that the trees will, unfortunately, grow themselves to death. They will quickly outgrow the ruined roots that remain in action and essentially starve to death :-(

County assistance with clean-up?

We discovered this week that we should be able to get official assistance with the cleanup. Most people here in Saucier are not wealthy, but 5 acres of land is pretty normal for a typical household, and even the most meagre plot is an acre. Many older families have several tens of acres.

Everyone has lost many trees, but if we individually call lumber companies individually to get trees taken away, they will not be interested in clearing a couple of trees from a two-acre plot, or even 5 or 6 trees from a 5 acre plot, or if they are interested the cost would be prohibitive.

My wife Amy spoke with the local chairman of the marchants association and they have plans to gather together a town meeting to see if we can go forward and find a contractor or group of contractors who can help the entire town of Saucier clear away the worst of the trees.


As a possible added bonus, maybe they can help us get this tree of the little trailer we have on our property. Then we can quickly make it available to one of the poor families who are now homeless!