Free Republic

Need help from you arborist FReepers in identifying what kind of tree this is. Right now it's got a bunch of pussywillow-esque buds on it, but from what I've seen online of pussywillows they look more like bushes, not trees. During the fall it produced a weird-looking pod of some sort. Sorry, don't have a photo of that.

Not many birds or critters around right now, I have to go looking for new things to shoot at. These are seed cones on a Southern Magnolia tree.

The Southern belles sip from fine antique china on a linen-covered table, lamenting that their husbands can hardly squeeze into their Confederate costumes for Pilgrimage season. Elizabeth Boggess, her sister Anne McNeil, and Nancy Williams are typical of this small town on the shore of the Mississippi River, a place that hovers in a dreamy antebellum bubble as if the Civil War were yet to come.In this politically correct era, when the Walt Disney Company buries its 1946 "Song of the South" because of racist overtones, the town - and this group of Natchez faithfuls - are anachronisms in antique...

The owner of the towboat whose barge collapsed the Interstate 40 bridge near Webbers Falls has asked a federal court to limit its liability. The injured and the families of the 14 people killed in the May 26 bridge collapse would be unable to receive more than a combined total of about $1.2 million for their losses if a judge approves the petition filed Monday by Magnolia Marine Transport Co. If the petition succeeds, that total also would apply in case the state and federal governments seek monetary damages for the bridge. "We filed a petition for exoneration and/or...