The Farm - Madison County, GA

Another okay 4 x 4.

I love seeing the diversity of habitat and practices this site highlights. As always, thanks for sharing!

Great pics and update, it's exciting seeing the bucks of 2018!

Here's a picture of a bucket of apples I got off one of my "deer apples". Not real sure the variety but looks like some kind of horse apple. Mom is making these into an apple crisp for me. Can't believe it's that time of year already.

Here is a shot of my rebuilt box stand from a distance to see how it fits into the habitat.

Built a new box stand this weekend. Got a series of pictures. Platform done, sides ready.

Front and one side up.

Completed.

This is the view out the front. Plot will be annual clovers and wheat in a few weeks. Plus maybe a big ol' corn pile.

Here's some honey from a couple hives on The Farm. Two different parts of the property. We pulled 4 gallons out of one hive, and it is still honey-bound.

We don't have church on 5th Sundays so I spent the whole weekend at the farm this week. Got box stands cleaned out and ladder stands hung up. Did A LOT of mowing. This is a picture of my durana plot. It was getting some crabgrass and dog fennel in it so I sprayed it two weeks ago with a quart of 41% glyphosate to 25 gallons of water and that took care of the weed problem without hurting the clover. So yesterday I mowed the dead weeds off. Looks like a dang yard (complete with fire ant mounds)!

Happened to check on a chinkapin oak tree I started from an acorn six years ago. I put these trees in tubes but they were slow going the first year or two so I almost forgot about them. This one has acorns this year. Not a ton, but a start. The tube is a 60-incher for comparison. They are planted on upland ground. It gets REALLY dry and is very rocky, but they don't seem to mind.

Here's a close up of one of the acorns. Not quite ripe. There was another one with it, but I picked it to see if they were ripe.

Always great to see fruit on a tree you started from seed. Good job

Place is looking good as always Tommy! Might wanna drop a couple of those apple crisps off by the farm on the way to your place. My grafting capabilities did not measure up to your hands on instruction a couple years ago. Not a single one made it. Thought I did it exactly as you showed me but apparently my thumb ain't green enough. Pulled the tubes off of them yesterday and mourned the loss of all those future apples I had hoped to grow. Good news is that the ones you grafted are doing great!

Triple C said:

Place is looking good as always Tommy! Might wanna drop a couple of those apple crisps off by the farm on the way to your place. My grafting capabilities did not measure up to your hands on instruction a couple years ago. Not a single one made it. Thought I did it exactly as you showed me but apparently my thumb ain't green enough. Pulled the tubes off of them yesterday and mourned the loss of all those future apples I had hoped to grow. Good news is that the ones you grafted are doing great!

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Did the rootstocks survive? If so, tube them back and let them grow and we'll graft them again this winter.

Took a couple random pictures at the farm this past Monday. All our shooter bucks have been shot by neighbors already so there's nothing else to do (the buck in post 221 above hit the dirt this morning across the road). This first one is of some hardwoods. I think the woods are prettiest this time of year. And, yes those are two old scrapes under the holly tree.

This is the view out of my "Fairways" stand. Saw several does in here Monday night. Unfortunately that is all I ever see. In 16 years, I've seen two antlered bucks on this plot.

How often do you hunt this property? I know you mention Nebraska a lot so are you out there while all the bucks get shot in Georgia?

THE LLC said:

This is the view out of my "Fairways" stand. Saw several does in here Monday night. Unfortunately that is all I ever see. In 16 years, I've seen two antlered bucks on this plot.

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LLC I am sorry to hear that all of the decent bucks are all shot out already;that is a real bummer. Regarding not seeing deer in the plots though, that is pretty normal for us. Sure we get a great plot picture now and then but the camera is out there 24/7 and we are not. We probably all agree that shooting deer out of plots is a sure way to keep bucks out of the open plot areas. I'm also becoming convinced that if the general area hunts plots then even those plots like most of ours and likely yours as well that seldom or never see a deer shot in them will not have bucks visiting them during the day or night except for the random love crazed ones during the few seemingly random days of the rut that it happens. As many people have correctly pointed out to me, our properties are not islands especially during the rut. Not only can one group kill lot of deer, their hunting pressure can significantly curtail and change deer behavior even during the rut on surrounding properties as well as their own.

I spent the last two days putting cameras out in areas bucks appear to be using in an effort to better understand how these bucks think and act on this property during the rut; as we all understand they are way different than the does. Following buck tracks in the snow (an advantage to living in this awful winter climate) it becomes quite obvious that the bucks here use every bit of cover and topographical variance to traverse their way thru and around cut over tops, briers, blow downs, swamps and forest openings, small and large. The bucks here don't allow themselves the luxury of stepping thru even a ten yard opening; today and yesterday the bucks I followed walked around the outside edge of such openings just inside the cover. The average viewing distance of any deer I followed today and yesterday was way less than twenty yards with forty yards being the long exception.This is on my property that as far as I can tell has had zero human traffic in those areas since spring.

You know your property better than anyone else but is there any chance at all, any possibility that the neighborhood pressure has turned the bucks into almost ghost like and that one of them monster buck ghosts is still alive and weaving his way thru the thickest stuff possible mostly every minute of his day as they are here? I'm also convinced that if the neighbors here hunt every day that some good bucks have them pretty well figured out and though the bucks seem to be non-existent after a week or two of shooting that some or even one are still there; the bucks simply no longer step out of cover and avoid plots and openings- even small openings, both day and night. Maybe it is the same on your property. I certainly hope so.