Plants to teach on the sensory trail
- Southern live oak
- Sand live oak
- Burl. Causes, soon on the right you'll be able to see the river through the trees.
- Sabal Palm
- Yaupon, Holly
- Southern magnolia
- Christmas lichen
- Wax myrtle
- Red Bay
- Bayberry
- Northern bayberry
- Saw palmetto
- Greenbrier
- Yellow-Bellied sapsucker
- Red-Bellied woodpecker
- Carolina Wren
- Northern Cardinal
- Gopher tortoise
- Armadillo
- Old man's beard
- Ambrosia beetle
- Red cedar
- Plants that require pollination, dual sex
- American Holly
- Pignut hickory
- Resurrection Fern
- Muscadine grape, Dangles tentacles at the end of the trail
- Golden orb weaver
- Orchid
- Spanish moss
- Brown anole
- Deer tongue grass might be Bermuda grass
- Squirrel nest
- Crossvine
- Tall flatsedge
- Pincushion Moss
- Ponyfoot
- Dwarf, palmetto
- Osprey
- Sarsaparilla vine
- Monitoring tubes
- Crust
- Pill bug
- Lyreleaf sage
- Yellow woodsorrel
- Whose roots are hanging trying to reach the ground? Muscadine
- Solid yellow butterfly
- Bermuda grass
- Coast sandbur
- Southern sandbur all over Marge's apron
- Not a single pine tree?!
Activities
- Make and take a sip every time we pass a yaupon Holly tree.
- Make a checklist and tally how many you find of each thing. Encourage guests to guess ahead if they think they spot a match that's on there checklist before we see it. Just by the name.
- Tell the story of the yellow-bellied sap sucker before we get to that tree. Till it in first person. Like you are the bird.
- Find out what settles an upset stomach after drinking too much black drink. Saw palmetto? Pretend to harvest and process the berries after we drink too much black drink. When we see the the saw palmetto Bush.
- Breathe Deep oxygen when we see lichens
- Grade each participant on their checklist for identification. Give a a green trail Master naturalist certificate to anyone with 100% correct.
- Do the trail in advance to create a checklist of things I know we will see. Make that The benchmark for what someone who wants to get 100% must find. Invite anyone who still wants to try for 100% to make multiple rounds after the hike until they get there certificate.
- Chew gum every time you see a sweet gumball
- Blue trail to WMA past Big Savannah pond. Call it a bird resort. Mama alligator lives here with her kids. Dad lives in the ditch across the trail. He visits sometimes. When Mom thinks the kids are eating her out of house and home, she kicks him out. They go wandering around looking for somewhere else, some other territory to claim and grow up. Sometimes they wander out into the iguana lake and Guana River. They don't stay long because they find out it's too salty over there. If they have good instincts, they will swim North in the lake. After the 5 Mile Mark, the salt dissipates and it becomes a resort for alligators for the top half of the lake.
- Add a an artifact identifier chart to the trail guide.
Trail etiquette
- Wildlife voices so we don't scare away wildlife
- No music
- At GTM, Bicycles should walk around pedestrians, not vice versa. Bicycles can have the right-of-way in the WMA.
Homework I need to do
- What is that mound?
- Learn how to identify a pig nut hickory tree after finding the nuts. Find indigenous uses for the nuts.