Florida Man: Father of the Year??

[rjmacs]

Sarcany wrote:
[R]eplaced the woods in his back yard...

::igh:::

To be fair, they were Ft. Meyers "woods." Not exactly forest.

[MrNoBody]

geez, that is southern yellow pine. It's cultivated & harvested as a crop
in the southern states. It's not like Mr. Friga was cutting down ebony or
California redwoods. And he certainly didn't fill in swampland to build
resort properties.

[hal]

that's just bad writing - from the pics, it's obvious that the woods weren't 'replaced'. The article should have said, 'cut down a few trees' if mentioning tree cutting at all (which isn't necessary).

[Sarcany]

MrNoBody wrote:
geez, that is southern yellow pine. It's cultivated & harvested as a crop
in the southern states. It's not like Mr. Friga was cutting down ebony or
California redwoods. And he certainly didn't fill in swampland to build
resort properties.

Take another look.

Pine and oak and palmettos from what I can see.

...The longleaf pines are endangered and some of those sure look like longleafs.

Sure, maybe it wasn't old wood, but he cleared acres. He destroyed the homes of how many animals and insects and killed off the foliage that was stabilizing the ground there for a lark.

The huge basketball court is especially awful.

[rz]

Nah, they're slash pines. They're everywhere in FL. Not endangered at all. The BB court is probably less than 1/4 acre in size. Ditto for the gym. And for the rollercoaster, it's obvious he left a lot of the trees around. So he might have cleared 1/2 acre total.

And it's Fort Myers, not Fort Meyers! Geez, the news site couldn't even get it right. Admittedly, Tampa is about 2 hours north of there.

[macphanatic]

Much better use of land than all those mansions and mini mansions along the coast of Florida.

[MrNoBody]

macphanatic wrote:
Much better use of land than all those mansions and mini mansions along the coast of Florida.

Yep way better use and far better than buying up swampland to build
resorts for Mr. Mouse, NBC-Universal, et al.

The longleaf pines are endangered and some of those sure look like longleafs.

Not according to the USDA.
Take another look.
And, the area in question is Fort Myers which is in southwest Florida
not Northern Florida where the majority of 'longleaf' forests exist.
Take another look indeed.

Southern pine from managed forestry is used in everyday items.
House framing & trim, OSB, plywood, utility poles, furniture, medicine,
and even food stuffs.