My favorite tree is the pine, and if I had a choice I would like umbrella pines around my house. I live at 24 degrees north latitude on a small island with not much soil so I enjoy palm trees instead.
These are not big pine trees but they will do. On a hot afternoon you can smell their resin and hear bees buzzing through the palmettos and thorn bushes. I look aloft and see pine needles and I feel at home.
I am impressed by redwoods among whom I lived for twenty years in Santa Cruz, California. This dead pine tree on Big Pine Key reminded me of the sequoias that fall over from time to time as their shallow roots lose their grip and the huge trees topple. Only that or lightning kills redwoods. 
This modest little pine tree died through human intervention, something like a chainsaw:
Here you have to crane your neck to see the stump right side up.
My dog is too handsome not to be photographed. Who were those people that gave her away? Idiots.
This little pine tree below got uprooted like a redwood but refused to die.
Pine needles and pine cones.
In the Keys, the wilderness is never far from civilization, worse luck. 
Pines galore.
Thanks to the Nature Conservancy for preserving wilderness for us all.
They have bigger pine trees in other places, like the Italian hills where I grew up. But here there is no frost, not ever. that counts.
These are not big pine trees but they will do. On a hot afternoon you can smell their resin and hear bees buzzing through the palmettos and thorn bushes. I look aloft and see pine needles and I feel at home.I am impressed by redwoods among whom I lived for twenty years in Santa Cruz, California. This dead pine tree on Big Pine Key reminded me of the sequoias that fall over from time to time as their shallow roots lose their grip and the huge trees topple. Only that or lightning kills redwoods. This modest little pine tree died through human intervention, something like a chainsaw:Here you have to crane your neck to see the stump right side up.
My dog is too handsome not to be photographed. Who were those people that gave her away? Idiots.
This little pine tree below got uprooted like a redwood but refused to die.Pine needles and pine cones.
In the Keys, the wilderness is never far from civilization, worse luck. 
Pines galore.
Thanks to the Nature Conservancy for preserving wilderness for us all.They have bigger pine trees in other places, like the Italian hills where I grew up. But here there is no frost, not ever. that counts.
12 comments:
I finally got the blog that I had planned on using the southernmost point picture you took finished. If you'd like to see what it looks like and how I used it you can see it at http://keywesttv.tumblr.com/post/446572462/southernmost-not-really-southernmost-marker
Know the old folk song,
"In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun don't ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through "
Here in southern Virginia the paper companies grow pine trees like crops. It takes a decade to grow one large enough to be useful. Then they'll harvest 25 acres at a time leaving nothing but mud and uprooted stumps.It's ugly and leaves me in tears every time I see it. But...I keep using paper.
Conch:
I like the pines as well, and the sound of a good summer wind blowing through them leaving that haunting reverie... What sucks is scooping up pounds of needles from my gutters and removing assloads of them from my pool screen at angles that only the blue man group could successfully remove without significant discomfort. Other than that, I do love the rustic appeal.
Dear Sir:
The pine tree is a noble representation of the great north American continent, and by that I mean the United States. (No offense meant to my friends in the Soviet of Canada.) I was surprised t discover that palm trees are a fradulent representation of the Florida Keys and that they transplants for a Hollywood effect.
Yet the pines, as you depict them in this blog, are honest, God-fearing examples of trees that adapt to any circumstances. In New Jersey's pine barrens (which should have national park status if it was possible to confer such an honor without the burden of the Federal Code Of Regulations), one experiences hundreds of square miles of scrub pine which guard one of the largest and purest aquifers in the country. The trees sugges a kind of desolation that is very hard to find a scant 100 miles from Times Square, in New York City.
Yet I would urge anyone who wants to experience the true brotherhood of the balsam to drive to the Adirondacks (upstate New York), and park at Heart Lake, seven miles or so just outside of Lake Placid. Then hike the trails up to Wallface Pond. Depending on your physical condition, it is an eight- or ten- hour walk. Prepare to spend the night. I suggest doing this in late spring, when the rain has ended and before the black flys can get the range.
The aroma of the balsams hangs in the air like the scent of a woman's body. On the cool breezes of dawn, it will permeat your tent and drug you into a reverie of primeval thoughts. The reasion I suggest such a remote locale is that there is absolutely no chance of hearing any sounds connected to traffic. Your own voice sounds flat in this environment. Everyone should experience something like this once.
Regarding the short-sighted a-holes that gave away your dog: they did you a favor.
I view deer in the US in much the same light as Iight as I do Canada Geese. They are merely rats on stilts and can be easy hunted each year to within 15% of their total number... Guaranteeing a recovery to the previous number in 12 months.
Nice blog today.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
Quick question about the pines: Are they Australian Pines too? The same ones that developers have tried to claim are foreign to the Keys and should be destroyed because they "threaten the natural environment?" Just asking because it's just hard to tell from the pictures.
Palmettos and Pines is the place to build in FL (you know it doesn't flood then).
To me they don't look like Australian pines, but scrub pine found else where in FL. Australian pine don't get the "bunches" like these. However, I am not a botanist.
They are regular pines, but like the deer, smaller than you might expect.Thus no needles in gutters. In the Keys you have to get used to the idea that everything is seen from ground level. No views, no mountains and no lakes. I lopk forward tod riving upstate New York this summer with wife and dog.
Big Pine Key, my new home. We chose Big Pine because of the deer. We loved our deer in WV, and we love the little ones here.
You might guess that I'm not a hunter. My husband has no problem with shooting and eating something, but if it's cute, I'm not gonna eat it.
Fortunately for my beef-loving appetite, a big old cow once stood on my foot for several minutes, and another one kicked me in the knee while I was attempting to AI her.
I'd probably respond in a similar manner.
Congratulations! Now read the Coconut Telegraph to see how crazy and ornery your new neighbors are...
I have been reading it, but we've already become acquainted with some of our more eccentric neighbors....... We moved from the wilds of WestByGodVirginia, so we're well-acquainted with crazy and ornery.
A friend of mine calls her hoem on Big Pine Key "West Virginia By the Sea"
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