[Loch-Ruadh] Mini GW Land Trip

Terry Sikes tdsikes at prodigy.net
Mon Dec 11 15:34:57 PST 2006


Rolf deserves a lot of the credit, without his help the trip would have taken all weekend.  Instead it wound up being only a Friday night and Saturday trip since we took turns and slept while the other drove.  He also had a lot of good insight and advice on things that need to be worked on and things to take note of.
   
  Terrence

Kathy <dkv250 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
  Thanks to both for your time and hard work.
I appreciate the run down on conditions and future needs.
You're doing a fine job!



Terry Sikes wrote:
Hi, we're back. Here's a report about the Gulf War
land.

Rolf and I left about Friday night after doing some
light packing and getting ready. We drove all night
and arrived about 7:30 Saturday morning. The Loch
Ruadh land was badly overgrown and needed mowing, but
the site looked as if Larry Stanford had been taking
the site in turns, mowing grass and stacking wood and
limbs and was about to start on Loch Ruadh and the
other sites on Duvant Circle.

Rolf and I went to work and spent a lot of attention
clipping small trees and brush that were springing up
all over the lot. These were hard to find as the
grass was high. We also clipped off any low hanging
branches and twigs sprouting low on tree trunks. Rolf
spread long term ant poison with a spreader over the
most of the lot. We also checked the corner boundary
markers.

The site has a lot of small trees and shrubs sprouting
from roots. There are also a lot of thorny vines on
the site. We cut all of these we could find, but I
recommend that those going to Gulf War bring a small
pair of pruning shears, loppers, or a small hand ax in
case they have a sprout in the middle of their tent
spot. We left one oak tree that was 4 or 5 feet tall
as we thought it might make into a good shade tree in
a few years. I measured the location of this tree and
will point it on for our camp plan. It is still small
enough that it might get run over by a brush hog, and
if it interferes with the camp plan it will not be too
big to cut down at Gulf War or the next land trip. We
also left quite a bit of the shrubs on the bank by the
road, as they are not in the way there and discourage
people from walking through the camp.

The corner markers were standing and in good shape. 
The marker by the water hose end at the corner of
Queens Hwy. and Duvant Circle had a couple of dings
about the size of a nickle that needed a touch of
cement as the burlap showed. It also looked as if it
had been bumped at the bottom by a mower and the
bottom edge pushed inward, but didn't really look bad.
I trimmed sprouts around both of them and the water
connection.

Rolf commented that quite a bit of the firewood was
gone, but it looked like most of the stumps we had
used around the campfire were still there.

We also noted that there are spots in the road (I
guess it would be the continuation of Queens Highway)
between the land and the bath house where rain has
made gullies where a car or truck would get stuck. 
Unless these have been filled we might want to block
traffic again this year or cars will be getting stuck.

Before leaving the site we went and found Larry
Stanford, who has obviously been hard at work. Quite
a few of the trees that had been knocked down by the
hurricane last year had been sawn and removed and the
cabin by the merchant area had been put back on it's
foundation. The fort needs some repair as the gates
are off hinges and one of the towers is leaning (not
sure if it wasn't leaning last year). Several of the
groups have been hard at work adding fences and
gateways. We saw at least one new gate (forget whose)
next to the Green Dragon Inn and several buildings in
progress at Camp Nova. Near us, Seleone has a new
gateway made of a "house" shaped frame of 4x4's. 
Several sites have repaired, added to, or built new
fences of various types of pickets.

We ran out of things to do by about 9:30 and decided
to forego staying the night and started back. We both
agreed on the trip back that Mississippi doesn't pay a
lot of attention to smoothing the dips in the
interstate. We arrived in Terrell just after 6, a
round trip of 960 miles. Rolf arrived home at about
8:30.

Next trip we will need to take several people and
quite a few more tools. In addition to making a start
on the gateway, we may want to mow closer that what
gets done with the brush-hog, as the tall weeds are
choking out any grass we have been planting. We
didn't notice much in the way of fire ants, but these
would be dormant with the cold weather so it may be
necessary to treat a second time.

Terrence 

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Catrin
Seneschal, Loch Ruadh
Loch Ruadh Rocks! 



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