Places Showcase ⇒ Protected - Fate of the Swamp Child

[minniev]

Most of you know I've been grieving for the loss of my local photographic getaway, the little swamp I visit about a half hour from home. After last winter's storm, it has been a wasteland, and still looks like a bomb exploded there. In the past couple of weeks, some effort has begun to do something about it - some loggers have gone in to saw up some of the uprooted giant trees that are piled up 20 ft deep all around it. And one of those sawed up trees gave me a gap I could squeeze beneath and get down to the old riverbed that formed the swamp. I wanted to check on the Swamp Child, the little bald cypress I've watched grow from seedling to sapling over the past 12 years. Few of the cypress seedlings have survived but this one had made it through various storms and floods and droughts and snows. I was so relieved to see he had survived! It has always appeared to me that the ancient cypress and tupelos around him sheltered him and indeed they did: some of them had their tops sheared off by the storm, and some of them caught trees and limbs that blew into the swamp and would have crushed the thin little Swamp Child.

Here he is! Look closely in the center, his thin trunk silhouetted against a larger, darker tupelo. Proof that he survived is the few little sprigs of orange left on the branches. If he had died in the storm, he would not have had the winter color change these cypress are famous for. Some of the debris can be seen in the background and stuck in the canopy of limbs.

[Psjunkie]

Enjoy following this ones journey....

[minniev]

Enjoy following this ones journey....

I hope they’ll move some of the trees soon. It’s pretty depressing, but then so is everything.

[rmalarz]

Very nice, MInnie. I had to search a bit to find your tree but did locate it. What an interesting reward to see that growth over the years.
--Bob

[minniev]

Very nice, MInnie. I had to search a bit to find your tree but did locate it. What an interesting reward to see that growth over the years.
--Bob

Thanks Bob. I had to look a while to find him too and I was right there! He shows up much better when he isn't bare of course, but the storm damage has kept me out of the swamp for a full year now.

[uuglypher]

Good to see the little nipper holing it’s own!
Dave