No way to treat a tree!

Obviously, trees that grow near power lines need to be trimmed but in a perfect world, these trees wouldn’t have been planted under existing lines in the first place.

I love trees and it bothers me when planners are so shortsighted that what they thought looked good 15 years ago wouldn’t look good as the tree grew.

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This once beautiful oak is now a hacked up mess. I’m thinking it’s borderline dangerous to split a tree like this oak so severely.

Here’s another situation where the county planners didn’t account for a building’s final height. How long after this building becomes operational as a hotel before they request the local government to cut it down?

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An approximately 70-foot tall oak is touching this building that’s still a couple of months away from opening. The building’s foundation covers at least half of the trees root zone and the paved parking lot covers another quarter of the tree’s roots. Doomed. I suspect that within a year, these three trees will have been removed and three or more smaller trees and palms will stand in their place. A constant trade-off that shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

At the same construction site, heavy equipment stands parked within a few feet of these oaks violating the root zone of these gorgeous trees. The paved parking lot will further cut the roots off from water and air.

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During the construction process, our county tree ordinance clearly prohibits this practice. The minimum tree protection zone is 20 feet from the trunk of the tree(s). Ideally, the zone should extend out to the furthest point of the tree’s canopy.

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Right after the clear-cutting of the forest last May (2018). The tree that is now leaning against the building is just to the right of the first pile of sand nearest the blue tank.

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A closer look at the “leaning tree”. Notice how close they cut through the roots to these trees. Most of the roots of the tree are exposed to the air and it will surely die or become diseased and therefore a hazard which will allow them to cut it down. A typical practice around here.

Here was the Stop Work order dated June 1, 2018.

Stop Work Order

This Stop Work order was issued after the above clear-cutting was done and only after a citizen pointed out the violations of the tree ordinance to the appropriate county authority.

Location: Sadler Road, Fernandina Beach, Florida. If you want to see this for yourself, visit Google Earth and enter 2246 Sadler Road.

Thanks for stopping by! – Chris

 

Yashima Flex Box – revisited

As a die-hard collector of Yashica cameras and photo gear, I can’t pass up the opportunity to share interesting bits that represent Yashica’s history. Of course, Yashica started off as Yashima and this represents the only camera that bore the Yashima name. Subsequent cameras quickly were named Yashica while the company name remained Yashima (until 1958).

So the Yashima Flex is pretty unique as it is a one-off. Here’s a pretty rare find – an original box for the Yashima Flex from 1953. The box structurally is sound and the graphics are clear and still appealing. There is some embedded soil that stained the paper on the top of the box but that’s to be expected as the top receives the most fallout from pollutants.

YashimaFlex Box

YashimaFlex Box 2

YashimaFlex Box 3

This is spot on to the actual color of the box (faded I’m sure after all these years).

These boxes are often called presentation boxes as they were inside of an outer cardboard shipping box. As best as I can tell, the boxes were never intended to be a place to store your camera when not in use so most were disposed of as soon as the camera was used. There’s no reason not to store your camera in its leather case in the box other than it wasn’t very convenient to do so. Finding an intact box for a camera made in Japan sixty-five years ago is pretty amazing especially considering that there weren’t many made.

Yashima was a startup just like hundreds of others in post-war Japan. How their boxes looked in a dealers display mattered so these early 1950s boxes often were made extremely well. To give an idea of its size here are its dimensions. About 7 inches tall, 5 inches wide and 4.25 inches deep ( 170 x 124 x 110mm).

Yashima Flex Box Set (1) with logo

Yashima’s pride and joy! Not quite as good a representation of the actual color of the box compared to pictures earlier in this post.

Thanks for stopping by! Chris