You know, I'm supposed to be in the range for the Dogface Sulphur, and I can only recall seeing one of them before. It was way back when I first started and the people on Dave's Garden had to identify it for me. Haven't seen one since. Don't know why.
Elaine, Mother Nature takes care of a lot of invasives when those storms come through. You guys know my dad is a woodturner, and he works with a company called Viable Lumber. They only use salvaged lumber. They don't take trees down, but once they're down, they'll haul them off and sell the pieces as slabs or turning stock. A lot of the species they take are invasives - Camphor, Chinaberry, Australian Pines, etc. People don't realize how damaging some of those trees can be in a storm. I just read another letter to the editor the other day about how they removed all the Australian Pines from Fort DeSoto beach. They're replacing them with natives, but a lot of people are whining about how they removed all those beautiful trees. But they don't realize what shallow root systems they have and when a storm comes along, those trees are going down. Same with Norfolk Island Pine. They get struck by lightning and fall down on houses. I know quite a few of the trees Dad and his friends salvaged were taken down because the homeowner's insurance required it. One nice thing about my county is there's a whole list of trees you can take down without a permit because they're invasive. It's nice to see government removing the red tape for a good cause.
Elaine, did you survive all the flooding in Sarasota? I saw it on the news yesterday. Looked pretty bad and I thought about you.
