This is Twig Forest. Twig Forest is a 20 acre triangle of land. We joined forces with my brother and jointly invested in this project. The land is just down the road a few miles which makes it nice for exploratory walks.
A little history of Twig Forest.
1) The Name, Twig Forest: There is no history here, I made it up. My brother may not even like it and may tell me to stop calling it by that silly name. If so, I will, but he's pretty easy going.
2) The trees: Most of Twig Forest is covered in rows of densely planted pine trees, a major crop in our region. The pines are about 12 years old, based on one or two that the surveyors cut down. They are not far from harvest age for pulpwood.
3) The terrain: Flat and low. It's what we call piney flatwoods down here. The understory is palmetto and gallberry. The ground is lightly mounded in long rows that the pines were planted on. There are a few intermittent wetland areas with some small cypress. These are pretty dry right now.
4) The wildlife: Mostly unknown since we have only owned it for about a week. I did get snorted at by a deer on a recent walk and there was plenty of evidence of feral hogs. Mostly it's an open book needing to be read.
In our "Big Bend" region of Florida, the planted pine is everywhere. Twig Forest was timbered (I assume) and replanted with pines back around 1993. I would rather see planted pines than houses and condo's, but a planted pine forest is not the most natural habitat for our native critters. The diversity of all types of life will be much lower on an acre of planted pines compared to a mixed Florida forest in it's natural, unmanaged state.
Still, they are trees and not concrete, and that is good.
We, the trilateral commission of Twig Forest...me, wifey, brother...have agreed to hold our joint venture for 5 years as a target. We could have turned around and sold it for a profit the day we closed the deal...CRAZY...but we are patient people.
In the meantime, it's a place to explore, manage, tweak, photograph, camp, hunt, plant collect, ride the gokart, and enjoy.
Try doing that with your stock portfolio.
11 comments:
WOO HOO! Let's hear all about it. Photos. Observations. Touching anecdotes. Sights. Sounds. Smells. Posts. Posts. Posts.
Pablo,
Will do, but I have to get kids to a soccer game 30 miles away...stay tuned!
Yikes! A pine plantation...
Now, if you were to do some prescribed burning and managed it for RCWs, that'd be pretty cool :)
Swamp,
Our trees are pretty skinny still, but we have a 45,000 acre new state forest nearby (Goethe) thanks in part to the RCW's. Their status provided the push to get the land a few years ago. Bless their feather little heads.
What kind of pines are they?
We have thousands of pines here, but they are mostly Jeffery Pine and some Scrub Pine. The best ones are Sugar Pines, but we probably only have 10 or so of those on the property. They won't let us harvest any of the pines if they are over 8" in diameter, though. I guess they are afraid we may clear cut the property.
Congratulations on the acquisition.
FC,
Too cool! My company used to be in the pulp wood business and owned a quite a bit of property just north of you, but they sold that end of the business and we are more into synthetic non-woven materials now (sometime when we're talking in person I can bore you with detials, but I'll spare everyone else).
Hick,
They are probably a variety of improved Slash Pine. I haven't even looked at their needles close, it's such a new chunk and I was mainly looking down for rattlesnakes and wildflowers when I hacked my way in.
ThunderD,
Talking in person would be good. The counties north of us are even more piney.
These picts remind me of the land we owned just east of Hawthorne for awhile. Georgia Pacific had a plant about 4 miles north of our property.
I was fresh out of Miami when we bought it. I'd never seen so many rattlesnakes in my life as I did when we lived there. boy, the things you learn!
Congrats on the purchase. Remember the old adage: "Buy land, they aint making any more of it."
I think that pertains to Florida now more than ever!
I'm officially sick with envy. PINEY WOODS!! This is awesome. Hopefully you can hold on to it and stave off developers for a long, long time.
So....did Pablo's RoundRock inspire you to have a piece-o-terra all your own?
I always get a warm feeling, and know I'm in the south, when I step off an plane and smell that awesome combination of sandy soil and piney woods. They could bottle that smell and make a million.
Congratulations Mr. Land Baron.
Laura,
How do you get from Miami to Hawthorne? That must have been a big change!
Zanne,
Pablo inspires many things...admiration, puns and clever wordsmithing mostly, but the land was something I had been itching to get for a while. Prices have climbed and it was now or never.
Great job acquiring this bit of the earth!
It looks so peaceful and beautiful.
and pssssst ... I like the name!
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