I took the family up and we spent several hours exploring our new property on Saturday, the kids got tired of course but I would have stayed longer, we didn't even see half of it.
So I bought 20 acres of mountaintop in Chattanooga. It covers two geologic formations, on one side it is a pretty thick soil layer and some sandstone on top of the limestone, with some rock outcroppings and other formations, on the other side its very thing soil and mostly limestone. The first side is all hardwood, oak and hickory and maple and beautiful. The second side changes to more soft woods, including some big old cedars.
It is really cool, in addition to the views I've got some very big trees. The biggest oaks are over 40" in diameter, I have probably 5 or 6 over 36". The biggest maple is approaching 40" and looks to have survived a fire at some point, some day I hope to tap it for syrup. There is also a big american persimmon, which was hard to find. I have a tree survey of the hardwood section but even still traipsing over 10 acres trying to find a specific tree among hundreds, but I think I did finally find it. All the trees are super tall though, being a forest stand, with the canopies 50+ feet in the air, I don't see how I'm harvesting any of this fruit, I did find some unripe drops on the ground so I'm pretty sure I found the right tree.
I plan to raise pigs in this forest, I'll need to build a paddock but then let them roam and eat all the acorns and hickory nuts. Just one or two a season.
There is a natural spring though the aquifer isn't strong right now. There is also a nice dry riverbed that only gets action in the rain, but its cool because it has all these rocks on it that have naturally collected, if I follow it all the way down it drains into the Tennessee River (not my property all the way to there though).
I did see one oak with a resurrection fern on it, something I've never seen before in the wild, which excited the gardening nerd in me.
I swear there must be ginseng around too, it is the perfect habitat for it, but I keep getting faked out by virginia creeper.
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dropped persimmons I collected
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one of the biggest trees, a huge oak, and check out that vine hanging off it
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Closeup of the resurrection fern
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resurrection fern on oak
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I'm not sure what this is. It isn't virginia creeper because it has petioles, but I don't think its ginseng because the serrations on the leave seem pretty large.
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