Thursday, February 12, 2009

Thursday News and Notes

Blatant advertisement

Some wonderful photos of a Civil War demonstration at Camp Milton are located at La Florida. Most don't really realize that Florida was a pretty busy place during the Civil War. Jacksonville, a river town, was occupied (and burned) several times. Camp Milton is on the Westside of Jacksonville and was saved from becoming a septic sludge dump by the City in 2001. It's now a park. See CampMilton.com

The Battle of Olustee reenactment takes place this weekend.

The Camp Milton photos were taken by Wes Lester.

Caption contest winner

will be announced this weekend before I head to Washington.

Terrorists that slither

Oldest son Mike, who is a staff biologist in St. Lucie County, yesterday encountered one of Florida's best known terrorists - a six-foot diamond back rattlesnake. Mike was on some type of ATV when the snake crossed a trail at one of St. Lucie's preserves. The snake took one look at Mike and decided it was still hungry. The snake stood its ground and then advanced toward him. Mike said he backed up about 20 ft. before the snake decided to move on to seek other non-motorized prey.

Dad's Christmas present to Mike last year: snake boots. He had them on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wohoo, thanks for the history lesson. I love that stuff.

I hope you are traveling safe. And are you getting any pictures in between business?

And snake boots? Ha ha, you crack me up. Did you really get him those? Well, you have good foresight I'd say.

Airborne dad said...

I did Civil War reenactments for years until the kids out grew them. Sort of a different version of Boy Scouts.

I will take a point and shoot with me to DC. It's a short trip and I won't have enough room to haul my gear. The meeting is across from the White House, though.

Snake boots are essential for land managers. I've never bought any but my son is encouraging me to do so. I've been tromping around in the woods for nearly 10 years now and have seen very few snakes. But I know they are there.

MightyMom said...

Mr I'm hiking in SC wearing shorts and flip flops!! (no, you're NEVER gonna live that down with this Texas girl!!!)

snake boots are GOOD!! go get you some!!

chaps or chinks aren't bad either! .22 woulda been great right then!!
good thing he wasn't on foot!!


"ran" into a cotton mouth water moccasin in Ok as a kiddo. about 4-5 feet I'd guess (hard to judge when you're a kid and all you see are ENORMOUS fangs.)

he and I stared at each other for a couple minutes before my Dad got there and distracted him so I could move out of range.