Yesterday my wetlands class had a speaker from the St John’s River Water Management District. She gave a very nice presentation. I learned that 50% of the water use in Florida goes to lawn irrigation. That is horrible! Most of this can be blamed on developers, who are not using native plants and grasses in lawns. This should be mandatory for new developments. Property managers need to be educated about these issues and enforce water regulations. 

She also suggested that if we take shorter showers we can save thousands of gallons per person every year. I am a short shower person already. Soap down, rinse off and done. She suggested four minute showers. 

It seems to me that there is a need for educating our local, state legislators, and developers, about our needs to preserve water. Desalination is very, very expensive, so that is not a good solution for our future needs. The more I learn in my Master Naturalist program, the more I worry about Florida’s future. Let us try hard to save what is left. Please support water and land trust organizations.

Natural Florida is swell for this country painter.......

My enhanced hand painted paper

5x7 inches

painted on both sides.

This week my field trip was outside my studio door to the swamp behind my studio. I have land and I’ve carved trails in it. It includes long leaf pine, Magnolias, red and water oak, as well as Tupelo, swamp maple, and turkey oak. There are lots of birds and indigenous animals as well. Here are my field noted from my trip down the trail.

The swamp runs behind my studio and I enjoy watching it from the windows every day. I have an otter skull hanging from a peg on my studio deck that I found on the swamp trail a couple of years ago. 
I am able to find all kinds of mosses, fungi and animals on the swamp trail. My trail system is a huge influence on my art and love for nature.

Nature is wonderful for country painters......

Yesterday I gave my five minute talk for my Wetlands module assignment for the Florida Master Naturalist certification. This time it has been a bit easier for me. I managed to actually put a screen up with photos for the class to view while I talked. A miracle that it worked. Here is the text of my talk, for my fellow cypress lovers.

There are two principal types of cypress that grow in Florida: pond cypress and bald cypress. Both are conifers. Unlike other conifers, they are both deciduous, losing their leaves and their cones each winter. Both pond cypress and bald cypress grow in wetlands, along river floodplains, in marshes or along shallow ponds. They belong to the Taxodium genus and the distichum species. Within the species, bald cypress is termed the "distichum" variety and pond cypress the “nutans”. 

Their natural habitats are usually inundated with water for the majority of the year. These habitats offer slow but steady flows of mineral-rich water from which the trees derive necessary nutrients. If you plant a cypress in typical soil that hasn't been enriched with organic matter, it may show signs of various mineral deficiencies. 

The habitat also protects cypress from fire outbreaks. Though both trees favor these marshy, fire-resistant areas, pond cypress is considerably more tolerant of fire than bald cypress due to its thicker bark. Both trees require relatively little oxygen, as occurs naturally in the shallow and poorly drained ponds where the trees thrive. Often cypress grow in large, dense populations, known as cypress domes for the rounded effect of the trees' canopies. A wide range of soil types will accommodate cypress growth provided that they are sufficiently moist.
Bald cypress can grow to an extremely large size, measuring up to 150 feet tall with trunks measuring 12 feet across. By contrast, the pond cypress does not grow to nearly as large proportions. When they receive ample watering, either variety can grow quite rapidly, reaching a height of 12 feet in three years' time. Bald cypress leaves have a featherlike shape, whereas pond cypress leaves grow in like scales, very densely packed together. Both pond cypress and bald cypress form root outgrowths called "knees," the knobby, vertical extensions from their root system, protruding out of the shallow water where the trees most typically grow.
Small stunted cypress savannas sometimes encroach into sheet flow wetlands. They are quite small but mature. They are stunted due to poor nutrients. They are also called hat rack cypress.   

As a Florida native painter, I have spent most of my career studying the visual characteristics of bald and pond cypress. They grow in all the wetlands in my part of Florida. I have painted hundreds of them in my career. One of my favorite specimens lives at the Polasek Museum in Winter Park Florida. It is truly a beautiful example of Bald Cypress. 

I am almost ready to start on my final project for the wetland’s Master Naturalist program. I decided to do a 16x20 framed painting to give to Alachua Conservation Trust to use as a fund raiser or in any way they see fit. 

I’m excited by the challenge and the opportunity to help a land trust organization I trust and believe in. This fits the bill to support ACT and to promote conservation for the Master Naturalist program. 

I’m going to paint a scene of Bald Cypress for the project. I am so fond of them and there are many in this area. I will show the step by step painting, hopefully generating interest for ACT when they decide to sell it.

Life is wonderfully fun for country painters....