Dugout

[Familytradition]

I was pretty new to the old site and not famous like some of our great members, but I would like to continue what I started over there. My farm is smaller than most and I would like to show what you can do with smaller tracts. I'm still learning and love doing the habitat improvements.

 

[Familytradition]

The Dugout is a 33 acre farm that my parents and I bought in September 2015 in Orange County Indiana. Orange County is in southern Indiana and is heavily timbered with lots of public land. When we bought the place it had a polebarn in good shape and basement house in terrible shape. It has 2 creeks, 3 springs, 2 quarter acre ponds, 2 power line cuts, a small opening near the barn, about 5 acres of planted trees around 20 years old(a section each of black birch, white oak, and black walnut), and the rest is in various stages of mixed natural hardwoods. A few white pines separate the back pond from the barn.

 

[Familytradition]

We have spent the last year taking the house from this:

to this....

 

[Familytradition]

This is our latest project showing off the outside.

 

[dogdoc]

Glad you joined up!

What a transformation on the house---looks awesome.

todd

 

[outdoorstom]

I can't believe you didn't keep that ceiling fan.....it was unique. Property sounds beautiful, looking forward to the pics.

 

[wbpdeer]

FamilyTradition

The before and after photo on the house interior is jaw-dropping for sure. We will like riding along with your thread. Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

 

[Triple C]

I'll b following along FT. Nice work on the cabin.

 

[Familytradition]

Despite the work, we still manage a little fun.

 

[Familytradition]

 

[Familytradition]

Legend:
Blue = water. Dotted lines are year around springs
Black square = Dugout
Red square = Barn
Purple lines = power lines
Green stripes = planted trees. Black birch mostly right of purple near barn, white oaks between creeks, and walnuts in the center of property.
Black triangle = old log landing or cattle paddock. Full of cedars and dogwoods.
Yellow square = mature beech flat.
Solid green = openings planted into food plots and orchards.

 

[Familytradition]

My habitat goals for 2016 are:
Using the chainsaw to make trails, get some light through, and removal of unwanted trees.
Get turkeys using it more.
Start some fruit trees.
Chestnuts.
Food plots.

 

[Familytradition]

The top power line was bush hogged and disked in early spring. The clearance isle provided a mixture of various clovers, rye grass, oats, radishes, and brassicas. This is just an attempt to use the flat openings that we already have to get some plots in, suppress weeds, and start building the soil. I am not a huge fan of this plot due to the proximity to the road, but the road gets very little traffic, is hard to view along most of the road, and we have a friendly neighbor near the northern property line.

 

[Familytradition]

The walnut grove occupies the largest flat area on the farm with the best soil. We do not want the walnuts, but realize that cutting potentially valuable trees early is not in our best interest. This area is about 2 acres. I went about researching what would feed the deer under the walnuts. White clover was the answer that I kept getting. The clover is juglone resistant and does not require deep tillage that might damage the tree roots. The bush hogging and light disking did cost us a few trees, but so far the results have been good. I have also planted a few oaks in grow tubes in select openings.

 

[Familytradition]

The green circles are planted in brassicas and I have started several pear, apple, dunstan chestnuts, and persimmon trees around the edges.

 

[Familytradition]

The southern power line is in a low area that was recently planted in turnips. This will hopefully provide a little late season kill plot for the kids and my 80 year old grandfather to hunt.

 

[Familytradition]

We worked a little this winter at cutting the dogwoods out of the black triangle on the east side. We hinged around the edges and I hope to create a place that the does will bed near the plots on this ridge. I will use tall annuals or something else to screen from the road once the plot is finished. The turkeys already love this area. Turkeys are everywhere in the nieghborhood, but the nieghbors reported very little use the last several years. We have already changed that. The deer don't seem to care for the changes here yet.

 

[dtabor]

I think I said this on the other site too but Im happy to see another smaller property owner to follow! I have 30 acres myself but also live on it so not 30 to actually work with.

 

[Familytradition]

The yellow area to south is about 1.5 acres. It is a completely mature closed canopy beech woods. Only one of the trees in this 1.5 acres is not beech. It is very scenic and over looks one of the springs that drops into a 10 foot waterfall. It wood be a great place for a house. At this point we do not care to clear cut these giants, but I would like to thin the hollow and ugly ones. Get a little light through, with a staging plot for hunting southern wind days, and some tree diversity. If a wind storm were to rip out all of the beech tomorrow; I would love to replace them with oaks.

 

[Familytradition]

This is the pond in the middle.