turpentining..

do you know what the term means? all of the slash pines on saint george island of any age have been turpentined. that is the drawing of the sap to make turpentine or spirits of turpentine. about 100 years ago the slash pine forest on saint george were bled of their sap by slashing a slice of the bark and bathing the new cut with sulphuric acid to make the sap flow. most all of the older trees have the slash scars on them. it is amazing how they survived this practice but they seem to have survived and are still alive today.

while at the state park campground we saw signs advising not to swim in the ponds because there were alligators in them. the ponds were quite small and one wondered why any gator would choose to live there when they had most of the state to consider and there seemed to be nothing for them to eat in the small ponds. so there was some doubt there were gators in the ponds. at least i doubted there were gators in the ponds. well... as you can well imagine, the last day we were there the sun was shining and there was a gator sunning itself in the pond. i was able to get a picture of it... you will have to look in the center of the picture, it looks like a log but it is a gator. so there you go... don't swim in the small ponds because you may lose a limb or something important to a hungry gator. it was large enough to do damage!