Field Trip #5 - Urban Area & Local History Museum - (Journal Entry #8)

This field trip assignment was to visit urban area and the local history museum. I live in Jacksonville, Florida and work as a paralegal in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. So – I go to downtown Jacksonville every weekday. My husband and I purposefully visited downtown Jacksonville on Sunday, June 6, 2010 to take pictures for the field trip assignment. Jacksonville, the largest city in area in the continental United States, is a rapidly growing metropolitan city in Northeast Florida, with approximately 850,000 residents. As a rapidly growing municipality, Jacksonville is recognized as a national leader in managing development. Mayor Peyton formed a growth management task force in 2005 which formed a vision for the next 25 years. The overall strategy involves balancing commercial and residential development with transit and infrastructure capacity and the preservation of green space.

One of Jacksonville's many natural assets is one of the largest urban park systems in the country. The active and passive parks and preservation lands are a key part of Jacksonville's quality of life. So are the miles of beaches and waterways, a major symphony orchestra, a sports and entertainment complex downtown and a myriad of special events that this sports-loving city hosts each year. The home of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars, the city welcomed its first Super Bowl in 2005. With a growing population, a strong economy, diverse cultural and recreational opportunities and abundant natural resources, Jacksonville continues to distinguish itself as one of the nation's most dynamic and progressive cities. I think that Jacksonville is a beautiful city. Whenever we have out of town guests we always take them on a tour of downtown Jacksonville.

One of my favorite buildings in downtown Jacksonville has a beautiful painting of a Jaguar like it is captured inside the building. Here is a picture:



I work for the law firm of Foley & Lardner in the Modis Building. The Modis Building contains 37 floors, and held the title of tallest building in Florida until 1981, when One Tampa City Center was completed. It remained the tallest building in Jacksonville until 1990, when the Bank of America Tower surpassed it in height. The building was designed by KBJ Architect and it takes up an entire city block in Jacksonville's downtown. A notable feature of the structure is a four story atrium of tropical vegetation where the public enters. The first floor also contained an auditorium with seating for 360 patrons, a bank, restaurants, and several retail stores. The beautiful plants in the atrium are wonderful. At Christmastime it is decorated especially nice!

As a paralegal in Jacksonville, I frequently visit the Duval County courthouse. Here is a picture of me in front of the courthouse:



The Police Memorial Building is right across the street from the courthouse . Here is a picture of me in front of the police station:



Also in downtown Jacksonville is our City Hall. It is across the street from Hemming Park. Every Friday there is a Farmer’s Market in Hemming Park that sells fresh fruit and vegetables. Here is a picture of me in front of City Hall:



Also in downtown Jacksonville there is a Veteran’s Memorial Wall. It is a wall with the names of people from Jacksonville that have died in all of the wars (going back to the civil war through the current war). Here is a picture of the wall: (It is a very moving experience to visit the wall. My husband’s father’s grandfather died in World War II and his name is etched in the wall).



Also downtown and right across the street from the Modis building where I work there is the Jacksonville Landing. It is like a little shopping mall on the water (St. Johns River) downtown. In front of the Landing is a statute of Andrew Jackson. Here is a picture:



And of course, we can't forget that Jacksonville is home to the NFL football team - the Jaguars. Here is a picture of me in front of the football stadium standing by the statute of the jaguar:



Also downtown is the Museum of Science and History (called the MOSH). Here is a picture of the MOSH:



My husband and I visited the MOSH on Friday, June 25, 2010. The cost to enter was $9.50 each. They gave us the “senior” rate – 55 yrs or older). This is primarily a children’s museum. I have been to the MOSH many times. I often take the grandchildren there to see the various exhibits. Also – when my youngest son got married we had the wedding rehearsal dinner on the second floor of the MOSH with the animatronic dinosaur exhibit. It was really cool – they put the tables amongst the moving dinosaurs. Also they have a planetarium and you can see laser light shows and cosmic concerts. I have been to them on several occasions.
Here is a picture of me at the MOSH parking sign:



The MOSH does have a great Florida history exhibit. It has many displays about the Indians and the history of Florida. Here are some photos of me at the history exhibit:






The MOSH has many murals on the wall of pictures of the way the City of Jacksonville looked many years ago:




They also have a conservation exhibit and naturalist exhibit – which includes reptiles and whales. Here is a picture from the whales exhibit:



I always like visiting downtown Jacksonville. It is a thriving and active place. It has many new buildings and also many historical buildings. I always enjoy visiting the MOSH – it has exciting and relevant exhibits. Downtown Jacksonville has many one way streets and this confuses many first time visitors. The things that impact me the most about Jacksonville are: the veteran’s memorial wall – I love it when our veterans are appreciated and honored; - also the St. Johns River runs through the middle of downtown Jacksonville. It is a beautiful natural resource.

The city has been trying for years to redesign the urban area to encourage more community involvement – but it really is just not working. Most people work downtown and then they want to go home when they get off of work – they do not want to “hang around” downtown after work. Many people have children or pets at home and cannot just stay downtown after work. Jacksonville has a serious homeless people problem and there are a lot of homeless people that are downtown at the bus station and in the parks.

I really do not have any idea how to redesign the urban area to encourage more community engagement – because Jacksonville is already doing a very good job of that. They have Farmer’s Markets on Fridays in the downtown area and they also have Art Walks on Wednesdays during the summer. They have built condos downtown. They have the Jazz Festival and other festivals downtown on a regular basis.

The thing that impacts me the most about Jacksonville is how very beautiful it is. The river runs through the middle of the city. The downtown buildings are a mixture of modern architect and old architect. The churches downtown really stand out and are gorgeous. We have a beautiful new arena, a beautiful new baseball stadium and a state of the art football stadium. They have a huge municipal park downtown on the water where outside concerts are held. I am glad that I live in a city like Jacksonville.

(NOTE: All photos were taken by me and my husband (Steve) with our camera)

Field Trip #4 - Agricultural Area - DOWN TO EARTH FARM (Journal Entry #7)

On Thursday, June 10, my husband (Steve) and I visited “Down to Earth” Farm. The address for the farm is 9355 Old Plank Road in Jacksonville, Florida. Brian Lapinski is the owner of the farm. It is a small family farm that began in late 2007. Brian says he and his wife started the farm because they believe in the importance of vibrant, local, sustainably-grown agriculture. His goal is to grow healthy, delicious vegetables in a manner that is gentle on the Earth. He uses compost and CMRI listed products instead of petroleum based fertilizers to feed his plants.

Here is a picture of Brian on his tractor working on the farm:



Down to Earth Farm grows plants year round as follows: Vegetables include: arugula, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, cucumber, eggplant, green beans, green onions, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, okra, onions, potatoes, radishes, salad greens, salad mix, spinach, summer squash, sweet peppers, swiss chard, tomatoes, winter squash and zucchini; Fruits include: cantaloupes, strawberries and watermelons; Fresh Herbs and also Edible Flowers and Fresh Flowers. When visiting the farm I noted a long row of sunflowers – here is a picture:



He uses organic potting soil and he fights bugs and disease with responsible techniques such as crop rotation and regular scouting. He does not use any chemical pesticides or herbicides. Brian explained that the biggest agricultural challenges he has been faced with are stink bugs and excessive rain. He said the stink bugs are very bad this year and he is putting soap on his plants and kaolin clay to ward off the bugs. I wasn’t sue what a stink bug was so I looked it up and learned they are bugs ranging in color from brown to green and they are recognized by a triangular shaped plate on their backs. They are plant eaters and have an ability to reproduce rapidly. They are particularly common in southern parts of the United States. Stink bugs do not harm you, but they will emit their odorous production, which most people find very offensive to their olfactory senses – hence the name stink bug. The odor of a stink bug does tend to linger, but it can be washed away with soap and water.



The farm grows a wide variety of vegetables that they sell through the Green Market in Neptune Beach, Florida and at the Riverside Arts Market. Brian also has a small CSA for the ease of a weekly share of fresh food and connection to the farmer. I didn’t know what a CSA was, so Brian explained that it stands for Community-Supported or Community-Shared Agriculture and is also sometimes called subscription farming. You buy a subscription from a local farmer and you receive a “share” of fresh, locally grown or raised fruits and/or vegetables and/or eggs. Brian further explained that CSA fruits and vegetables are “in season.” Grocery stores know no seasons and are disconnected from nature (and thus so are the shoppers). With a CSA you know where your food comes from and you eat in harmony with the seasons and enjoy delicious, healthy, pure, fresh foods. You can buy fruits and vegetables from the grocery store – but they are of picked weeks ago and blasted with ethylene gas before being sent to the store. While the supermarkets are convenient for shopping – you lose flavor, freshness, nutritional value and human connection to each other and to the land. He highly encouraged joining a CSA.

While at the farm I also noticed that they had a chicken coop and lots of chickens. Brian said they sell the eggs. Here is a picture of the chickens at the farm:



I enjoyed the trip to the farm. I had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon at 2:00pm (and my husband has to drive me, since I am still in the boot/cast and cannot drive yet) – so we both took off work for the rest of the afternoon. I had emailed and then telephoned Brian to get a time we could come out and meet with him and he had said that afternoon was fine. So after the doctor’s appointment we drove out to the farm. It was easy to find. Brian’s home is in the front of the acreage and you then the farm is out behind his house. He was very friendly and very relaxed. Years ago he probably would have been called a “hippie” – but he is too young to be a hippie. He enjoyed talking about the farm and he was particularly proud of his tomatoes. They were very small and not large like the ones in the grocery store. It is a pretty rural area – but actually not that far from the city. It was very quiet and very little traffic on the road leading up to the farm.

Brian had a wall of one the buildings on the farm with this sign: “You are Where you Eat.” I still am not really sure what that slogan means. Here is a picture of me standing by the sign:



I do not have any personal experience growing plants or gardening. My mother was divorced and worked two jobs and my sister and I stayed home by ourselves most of the time when we were not in school. We fixed our own meals which usually came from canned goods that we would heat up – no fresh vegetables. My husband, Steve, grew up on a farm in Alamo, Georgia. They grew tobacco and cotton. When we first got married, I visited the old relatives on the farm – but they have all died now. My husband’s grandmother lived next door to us years ago and she would always have a garden in her yard. I would watch her work in the garden, but she never liked me to help her because I didn’t know what to do and she just enjoyed doing it all herself. She grew mostly peas and butter beans and other green vegetables and tomatoes. She also had a grape vine and she would make jelly. I would help her make the jelly.

By myself, I could not grow my own food. With my husband’s help and experience we could grow our own food if we had to. He knows how to do it and has done it before. We do have two orange trees in our yard at home and we love growing, picking and eating all of the oranges when they are in season. My husband mentions occasionally that he would like to move to Georgia and live on a farm again. I think that farming is very hard and difficult work. It is extremely weather dependent. Farmers work very hard – from dawn to dusk doing physical labor.

The Down to Earth Farm operates year-round – here is a picture of a row that is dug up and ready to plant:




NOTE:
Picture of Brian Lapinski on tractor from website: http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M32162

Picture of stink bug from website http://www.flowers.vg/flowers/stink-large.htm

All the other photos were taken by my husband at the farm on the day of our visit.

Field Trip #3 - Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve (Journal Entry #6)

The third field trip assignment is to visit a marine area. Since I live in Jacksonville, Florida, I obtained approval from the instructor to visit Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve & Fort Caroline National Memorial for this assignment. My husband (Steve) and I visited Timucuan Preserve on Sunday afternoon, May 16, 2010. Due to my upcoming foot surgery on May 21st – I was trying to get some of the field trip visits accomplished before the surgery. We had visited University of North Florida campus and natural trails that morning and then gone to church. After church we came home and changed clothes and drove out to Timucuan Preserve. It was very hot that afternoon. Timucuan Preserve provides a very unique look at the history of Florida. Pre-Columbian and Timucua Indians once lived at that location. The Preserve was established in 1988 and consists of 46,000 acres that includes Fort Caroline National Memorial, the Theodore Roosevelt Area, Kingsley Plantation, Cedar Point and thousands of acres of wood, water and salt marsh. The area we actually visited on May 16th was the Timucuan Preserve Visitor Center and Fort Caroline. (In the past I have visited the Kingsley Plantation also – it is located in Fort George Island. It is a beautiful location with slave quarters and all things related to an old southern plantation.) The Timucuan Preserve Visitor Center is a very large, nice, modern center. It has interesting and colorful exhibits. I enjoyed the visitor center . There was a ranger at the front door that you could talk to. They had a huge Timucuan Indian display. I found that particularly interesting since I had started reading “A Land Remembered.” The Timucua Indians settled along the rivers and islands near the Atlantic Ocean and took advantage of the waterways for transportation. The Timucua of this area first encountered Europeans in 1562 when French settlers arrived at St. Johns River. The Timucua helped the newcomers build a fort. However, as with other Florida native peoples, they did not survive contact with the Europeans. The Timucua had no immunity to European diseases and their population was devastated. Only 550 Timucua were recorded in 1698, from a population once in the tens of thousands. Today, no known indigenous people call themselves Timucua. My favorite display at the Timucuan Preserve Visitor Center was a large wooden owl. It is a rare surviving artifact from Florida’s pre-Columbian Indians. Here is a picture: My husband and I visited the remains of Fort Caroline. It was constructed right on the water’s edge. It is a beautiful view of the river. I enjoyed just standing there and looking at the water. There is not much left of the fort. The National Park Service acquired land from Willie Browne (600 acres) that make up the Theodore Roosevelt Area of the Timucuan Preserve. It has miles of peaceful, wooded nature trails. All along the trails there are piles of oyster shells. The Willie Browne Trail winds through a variety of habitats that include maritime hammocks, scrub vegetation, freshwater swamp and salt marsh. There is a shell peninsula that consists of mounds of oyster shells left over from 1,000 years of Indian habitation. The trails were very rooty. (The nature trails we had been on earlier that morning at UNF had been wooden planks for trails.) The trails were easily defined and well marked with signs, but the land was very uneven and the roots were tough to travel over. This is where the field trip became much less enjoyable for me. Since I am still recovering from surgery on my left foot – walking the trails over the uneven land was very uncomfortable, and painful towards the end. It is difficult to take in and appreciate the beauty when you are having trouble walking along a trail. We did not see any special wildlife. We saw some fish in the water, some birds in the trees, some squirrels. The Preserve has year round residents that include wood storks, ospreys, great blue herons, belted kingfishers, snowy egrets and bald eagles. We were told that it is also possible see alligators, otters, dolphins, bobcats, gopher tortoises, marsh rabbits and snakes on the trails. We did not see any snakes this time (like we saw snakes when we visited the swamp and that cut our trip short!). I enjoyed the beauty of the Nature Preserve. It was very hot though and not very comfortable. I very much liked one of the Indian tee-pees we came upon along the trail. I went inside of it. This reminded me of some tee-pees I had seen when we went to the Grand Canyon Skywalk last year. The skywalk is owned by the Hualapai Indian tribe. Many tribes travel to the location because it is sacred and reconstruct tee-pees. We saw many of them there and entered into them. They had a way of being cool in the summertime and warm during the wintertime. They also planted specific plants around the tee-pees that were snake resistant to keep the snakes out. Anyway – seeing this palm fron tee-pee along the trail reminded me of that. But it was not very cool in the summertime. I don’t know if it was because the palms were all dried out or not. I was surprised by the number of people at the Timucuan Preserve. There were dozens of families with children walking around the fort and along the nature trails. There were several joggers on the trails. There were lots of dogs on leashes being walked along the trails. It seems like a lot of people in this area are taking their children out to experience nature. I am glad the National Park Service protects and preserves this location. It is an important piece of Old Florida history. It is definitely a place someone could go to “get away from it all” – because when you are there you really do feel like you are out in the wilderness. The field trip was interesting, but I paid the price for walking so much when my foot became swollen and I had to spend the rest of the evening with ice bags over the area of the foot where the stitches are still healing.





NOTE: All photos on this blog entry were taken by my husband and myself with our camera at the time of our visit to this location.

Field Trip #2 - Twelve Mile Swam (Journal Entry #5)

For the second field trip assignment, I visited Twelve Mile Swamp Recreation Area. It is located in St. Johns County, Florida, approximately eight miles north of St. Augustine. This was a miserable experience. I was scheduled to have my foot surgery on Friday, May 21st. I received approval from the instructor that she would accept Twelve Mile Swamp for this field trip assignment on Tuesday, May 18th. I was trying to get as many of the field trips accomplished as I could prior to my surgery. So, my husband and I left work early on Tuesday to go visit Twelve Mile Swamp.

We came home from work and changed clothes, got some bottled water to drink and loaded up our two German Shepherd Dogs into our vehicle for the trip. I had read on the internet write up about Twelve Mile Swamp leashed dogs were allowed at the swamp and on the trails. We thought it might be fun to take the dogs walking on the trails. According to the internet write up about the location, there was fishing, hiking and horseback riding allowed at the location.

The Twelve Mile Swamp Recreation Area is a 378-acre recreation area which is part of a 21,898 acre tract that is under a long term timber reservation. The larger tract – Twelve Mile Swamp Wildlife Management Area is managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and is open for public hunting season. Together, these swamps form the headwaters for six major tributary systems. Three of these tributaries (Turnbull Creek, Mill Creek and Sampson Creek) discharge into the St. Johns River. Two other tributaries (Moultrie Creek and Red House Branch) discharge into the Matanzas River, while Stokes Creek discharges into the Tolomato River. Preservation of this site serves to protect the water quality and quantity of these creek systems and benefits the groundwater and water supply for St. Johns County, Florida.





It was about a 35 minute drive from our house to the Twelve Mile Swamp. The directions took us down Nine Mile Road at International Golf Parkway. Nine Mile Road is a BEAUTIFUL road with a large canopy of trees the entire length of the road. We have ridden on that road many times with the motorcycle club because it is such a scenic route. The road is wonderful to ride on when you are on the motorcycle because the tree canopy creates wonderful shadows on the road of dark and then light and then dark and then light as you are driving along. Here are some pictures of Nine Mile Road I took while we were driving down the road:





Even though we had been on Nine Mile Road on several occasions, we had never heard of or seen Twelve Mile Swamp. It was very difficult to find (even with the google directions and directions from the website). There are several entrances to the area. Many of the entrances are closed off with locked gates. We drove around about an hour and a half looking for an entrance we could actually access. This was extremely frustrating.





We did stop at one of the gates and walk behind it up to a map box and it was part of the Twelve Mile Swamp Wildlife Management Area. I picked up a copy of the 2009-2010 Hunting Season brochure. I thought it was extremely interesting to learn that animals you could hunt at Twelve Mile Swamp include deer, wild hog, turkey, gray squirrel, quail, rabbits, raccoon, opossum, armadillo, beaver, coyote, skunk, bobcat, otter and some migratory birds. I never knew we had coyotes and otter in that area!






Anyway, we could not access the area there because of the locked gate, so we drove around to another access point.






According to the website, the common wildlife sightings at Twelve Mile Swamp Recreation include white-tailed deer, foxes, songbirds and a variety of snakes. We should have paid more attention to the “snake” part. When we finally found a place we could park and get out with the dogs to walk the trails, we had only gone a little way when we saw snakes all along the trails. Here is a picture of one of the snakes we saw crossing the road right in front of where we were walking:




Well, of course, the dogs wanted to go after the snakes, so we had to take them back to the vehicle, for everyone’s safety. After seeing all the snakes, I was not at all inclined to walk any further on the trails or any deeper into the swamp area. We could see the swamp and the water in the distance but had no desire to venture further. Plus, by now, since we had driven around about two hours trying to find an access point, it was starting to get dusky dark and this was no time of day to be wandering out in the swamp.







Anyway, it was a miserable experience – because my husband was mad and annoyed because of all of the driving around to find the access point; the two dogs were frustrated in the car because they could not get out and walk and we wouldn’t let them chase the snakes. I was upset because I did not get to see or explore the swamp area as much as I would liked to have done – because I am afraid of the snakes and it was getting dark. I knew we would not be able to come back any other time, because of the distance to get there and because of my foot surgery, I will not be able to drive myself and would have to ask my husband to go back and I knew he would not want to do that because of the events of this day. The swamp area was really like you would expect a swamp to be. It seemed like a very “wild” area with all the animals I read about that were in the area. The grass and the trees were very green.
Seeing the swamp reminded me that Florida’s swamps remain threatened by human activities which include draining, pollution, logging, mining, flood plain alterations and introduced invasive plants. Human impact on swamp lands also threatens associated rivers and lakes and directly affects the plant and animal species that depend on them. I am glad that the St. Johns River Water Management District is working to protect the Twelve Mile Swamp Recreation Area and the Twelve Mile Swamp Wildlife Management Area.





NOTE: The very first photo at the top of the blog entry (swamp trees at sunset) was taken from the Twelve Mile Swamp website at http://myfwc.com/recreation/WMASites_TwelveMileSwamp_index.htm. All of the rest of the pictures were taken by me and my husband at the time of our visit to the swamp.