Little River
- Thread starter David
- Start date
David
Active Member
Winter Update....
killed 6 does and 3 hogs. No actual sightings of shooter bucks. Had 2 visit the farm that i spotted on cameras, but not able to connect with them.
This was the biggest hog, 350 lbs, I shot 2 smaller girls just before he came through, he rolled down a ravine to his grave. I nearly killed myself getting him out.
I was very pleased with the results of the controlled burn from last year. The first picture you can see there is no green grass growing any more. The plot in the back ground was a new one this year.
This is a field that will be burned this winter. You can see the carpet of fescue under the thick stuff and out to the right where i already mowed. Hopefully after this year i will simply be able to control all my fields with fire, and put the bush hog away.
a few more small events from the past fall....
my 3rd daughter (i have 4) "killing fire ants"
My daughters catching grass hoppers
My first try with turnips....this was one of the better ones
I rebuilt an old trailer, makes it easy to take the kids on a ride while i work
And finally i am still working on perfecting my smoked beef short ribs...
killed 6 does and 3 hogs. No actual sightings of shooter bucks. Had 2 visit the farm that i spotted on cameras, but not able to connect with them.
This was the biggest hog, 350 lbs, I shot 2 smaller girls just before he came through, he rolled down a ravine to his grave. I nearly killed myself getting him out.
I was very pleased with the results of the controlled burn from last year. The first picture you can see there is no green grass growing any more. The plot in the back ground was a new one this year.
This is a field that will be burned this winter. You can see the carpet of fescue under the thick stuff and out to the right where i already mowed. Hopefully after this year i will simply be able to control all my fields with fire, and put the bush hog away.
a few more small events from the past fall....
my 3rd daughter (i have 4) "killing fire ants"
My daughters catching grass hoppers
My first try with turnips....this was one of the better ones
I rebuilt an old trailer, makes it easy to take the kids on a ride while i work
And finally i am still working on perfecting my smoked beef short ribs...
David
Active Member
Rounding third base on the tractor rebuild. New fly wheel, pto clutch, pumps, valves, etc....my mechanic is an absolute perfectionist. Yesterday he drove over 300 miles chasing down parts.
John deere green has been applied. Next will be the yellow, then finish lights, decals, seat and back to the farm.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
John deere green has been applied. Next will be the yellow, then finish lights, decals, seat and back to the farm.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Triple C
Well-Known Member
David...Love all you are doing at your place and love the tractor rebuild. Looks like one of those things that your grandkids will be talking about. Thanks for taking the time to share. I'm so slammed with work that trips to the farm have become few and far between over the past few months. Taking some time today to catch up on some of these property threads and glad I ran across yours.
David
Active Member
A few updates here.
The tractor is done, and should be back this weekend. Complete overhaul and roughly 90% restored. I stopped short of having the dash replaced and rewired.
Controlled burn: The tractor went down back in December, the PTO clutch was bad. It went down in the middle of mowing a 5 acre field, that i was prepping for a controlled burn to eliminate cool season grasses. This left me with less than ideal conditions to burn. On top of that i was late in spraying the fields and didn't get a complete kill before the fire crew came in. Between the un-mowed area and the green grass, i was nervous we wouldn't get a good complete burn.....i was wrong. Again the SCFS did a great job. Since the tractor was down, i couldn't put in fire breaks, so they brought in a dozer. My camera caught all the action.
The grass is coming right back as planned, and it will soon get an application of herbicide to kill it and allow the summer grasses and forbs to take over.
The tractor is done, and should be back this weekend. Complete overhaul and roughly 90% restored. I stopped short of having the dash replaced and rewired.
Controlled burn: The tractor went down back in December, the PTO clutch was bad. It went down in the middle of mowing a 5 acre field, that i was prepping for a controlled burn to eliminate cool season grasses. This left me with less than ideal conditions to burn. On top of that i was late in spraying the fields and didn't get a complete kill before the fire crew came in. Between the un-mowed area and the green grass, i was nervous we wouldn't get a good complete burn.....i was wrong. Again the SCFS did a great job. Since the tractor was down, i couldn't put in fire breaks, so they brought in a dozer. My camera caught all the action.
The grass is coming right back as planned, and it will soon get an application of herbicide to kill it and allow the summer grasses and forbs to take over.
David
Active Member
I collected and planted a bunch of chestnut oak acorns i found in a neighbors yard. The acorns are nearly the size of a chicken egg. I cant imagine this will benefit much at the farm in the future as i have thousands of white oak trees. Its more for a fun project in the winter. The squirrels ate 10 of them on the first day when i wasn't looking!
Killed this gobbler at 8am on the second day of the season, since then i have struck out.
I asked the neighbor if we could get a tour of his farm, i thought it would be a good idea to show my daughters where their food comes from.
view of the field after the burn, it completely consumed the thatch. Those saplings will probably survive, i was unable to mow them after the tractor went down. i am hoping i can clip them soon.
And finally, my best clover field. This is the first year with a plot on this hill, and i was pretty happy. This is also my first attempt with an perennial so i am hoping it does well through the summer. My other plot was the one with the thistle and plantain problem.
Killed this gobbler at 8am on the second day of the season, since then i have struck out.
I asked the neighbor if we could get a tour of his farm, i thought it would be a good idea to show my daughters where their food comes from.
view of the field after the burn, it completely consumed the thatch. Those saplings will probably survive, i was unable to mow them after the tractor went down. i am hoping i can clip them soon.
And finally, my best clover field. This is the first year with a plot on this hill, and i was pretty happy. This is also my first attempt with an perennial so i am hoping it does well through the summer. My other plot was the one with the thistle and plantain problem.
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weekender21
Well-Known Member
Great start to the spring turkey season!
David
Active Member
a few updates....
killed a second turkey back in late april just as the sun was rising
attempted a throw and mow with grain sorghum (in an old plot full of cool season grass). It was a partial success. Glad i did it, but not great results. i didn't take any pictures on my last trip down. There were 2 types of grass, one turned jet black after herbicide. the sorghum grew great in it. I think the ryegrass/fescue portion (light brown) was too tall and created a thatch that was too thick. Not much germinated in it.
On another thread i was asking about some strange soil sample results in one third of a large plot. I intend to put the entire 3 acre plot into an LC rotation. For simplicity sake i plan on using 1 acre for each component. Anyways its in my old bean field, which was decimated last year, and thanks to some of the advice i choose grain sorghum. As always i was over complicating things and reading every plotting book available. I was about to spend a lot of time and money on some pretty complicated summer mixes. The sorghum has been incredible. So i put out 2 acres of sorghum, one in throw and mow mentioned above (mixed results) and one with disking, broadcasting, fertilizer, drag, and cultipacking (love my new cultipacker). The second field is incredible. I really hope to see grain heads mature, and would love to feed some deer and dove in late summer early fall. Its my hope to replace this sorghum with the clover portion of the LC mix.
Sorghum germinating on the left, Oats dying on the right
40 days in.
Some of my plots are a small portion of a large field. I messed around with some Egyptian wheat for screens. there is a one acre plot on the right side of the tilling, and a 5 acre recently burned field on the left.
quest for persimmons: I am not abandoning my efforts to grow orchards, but i am definitely going to focus on native persimmons (thanks for the advice triple C). After losing 100% of my direct grafted persimmons, i made an effort to inventory all my mature females (as many as possible). I don't have many, but the amazing thing is the number of 2 year old juvenile persimmons that i have in my fields. unless i am improperly identifying them, right now i have hundreds of young persimmon trees. So my current idea is to strategically encourage dozens of these to mature. I plan to mark those that are in ideal areas and just let them go. I am learning to go with the flow.
lastly the tractor is back up and running, it had to be hauled in a second time due to an oil leak that drove the mechanic crazy. I am very pleased. when i bought the farm, it came with a dozen implements. The boom pole got its first use. I am constantly cleaning up around the house and this thing was awesome.
killed a second turkey back in late april just as the sun was rising
attempted a throw and mow with grain sorghum (in an old plot full of cool season grass). It was a partial success. Glad i did it, but not great results. i didn't take any pictures on my last trip down. There were 2 types of grass, one turned jet black after herbicide. the sorghum grew great in it. I think the ryegrass/fescue portion (light brown) was too tall and created a thatch that was too thick. Not much germinated in it.
On another thread i was asking about some strange soil sample results in one third of a large plot. I intend to put the entire 3 acre plot into an LC rotation. For simplicity sake i plan on using 1 acre for each component. Anyways its in my old bean field, which was decimated last year, and thanks to some of the advice i choose grain sorghum. As always i was over complicating things and reading every plotting book available. I was about to spend a lot of time and money on some pretty complicated summer mixes. The sorghum has been incredible. So i put out 2 acres of sorghum, one in throw and mow mentioned above (mixed results) and one with disking, broadcasting, fertilizer, drag, and cultipacking (love my new cultipacker). The second field is incredible. I really hope to see grain heads mature, and would love to feed some deer and dove in late summer early fall. Its my hope to replace this sorghum with the clover portion of the LC mix.
Sorghum germinating on the left, Oats dying on the right
40 days in.
Some of my plots are a small portion of a large field. I messed around with some Egyptian wheat for screens. there is a one acre plot on the right side of the tilling, and a 5 acre recently burned field on the left.
quest for persimmons: I am not abandoning my efforts to grow orchards, but i am definitely going to focus on native persimmons (thanks for the advice triple C). After losing 100% of my direct grafted persimmons, i made an effort to inventory all my mature females (as many as possible). I don't have many, but the amazing thing is the number of 2 year old juvenile persimmons that i have in my fields. unless i am improperly identifying them, right now i have hundreds of young persimmon trees. So my current idea is to strategically encourage dozens of these to mature. I plan to mark those that are in ideal areas and just let them go. I am learning to go with the flow.
lastly the tractor is back up and running, it had to be hauled in a second time due to an oil leak that drove the mechanic crazy. I am very pleased. when i bought the farm, it came with a dozen implements. The boom pole got its first use. I am constantly cleaning up around the house and this thing was awesome.
David
Active Member
Thanks dogghr....it's a 1971. It has only been on this farm. Bought 47 years ago by a previous owner. Back then the tractor cost more than 80 acres of land.
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David
Active Member
Updates. I'm gonna try to highlight a few things I've been working on. First is my first attempt at perrinial clover.
Posting this on my cell phone so excuse me if it's not sequential.
First picture is March 1st.....oats and crimson clover are beautiful.
Next 4 pictures are June 30th. The arrowleaf is on its way out as the oats melt away. The weeds are encroaching, but I was patient. June 30th is still early. The deer are hammering it and I'm thrilled. Last year I just put in annuals and it was completely dead by June 30th.
The 5th picture is July 20th after the first mowing.
The last picture is august 24th after the second mowing.
I'm so excited to be able to bridge the gap of late summer stress. This is the coolest summer I remember and it was very wet also. No herbicide was used on this plot.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Posting this on my cell phone so excuse me if it's not sequential.
First picture is March 1st.....oats and crimson clover are beautiful.
Next 4 pictures are June 30th. The arrowleaf is on its way out as the oats melt away. The weeds are encroaching, but I was patient. June 30th is still early. The deer are hammering it and I'm thrilled. Last year I just put in annuals and it was completely dead by June 30th.
The 5th picture is July 20th after the first mowing.
The last picture is august 24th after the second mowing.
I'm so excited to be able to bridge the gap of late summer stress. This is the coolest summer I remember and it was very wet also. No herbicide was used on this plot.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
David
Active Member
Next up: Hogs.
They have been thick this year. I've shot 4 with my pistol.... a .357 magnum doesn't slow them down much. I shot one in the face at 10 yards and she ran a quarter mile. I've really wanted to kill, butcher, and eat one. I usually don't have time to mess with the butchering part. My wife and kids were out of town for a mid week vacation and I cummuted to work each day from the farm. I invited some buddies to join me. My college roommate smoked 2 with the AR.
They were about 80 lbs and 60 lbs each. It took me 2 hours to break it down to rough butcher cuts. Smoked it the next night. It was delicious. Slightly tough, but very good.
Amazing how little meat is on one.
It's not worth trying again on a small one.
This is farm to table.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
They have been thick this year. I've shot 4 with my pistol.... a .357 magnum doesn't slow them down much. I shot one in the face at 10 yards and she ran a quarter mile. I've really wanted to kill, butcher, and eat one. I usually don't have time to mess with the butchering part. My wife and kids were out of town for a mid week vacation and I cummuted to work each day from the farm. I invited some buddies to join me. My college roommate smoked 2 with the AR.
They were about 80 lbs and 60 lbs each. It took me 2 hours to break it down to rough butcher cuts. Smoked it the next night. It was delicious. Slightly tough, but very good.
Amazing how little meat is on one.
It's not worth trying again on a small one.
This is farm to table.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
David
Active Member
Lastly the new plots......
After my success with the ladino clover I have considered doing everything in perrinial clover. But it was my plan to work LC's mixes in. There is more wisdom in his threads than I am capable of appreciating.
So I will keep one .8 acre in ladino. I will overseed with rye in a few weeks. I am thinking of adding a little of the crimson/arrowleaf/ladino mix from last year.
One half acre plot was in the same mix. I hit it with 24db -200 in May. The plantain was monster last year and I wanted to get ahead of it. It didn't work great. Not only did some of the plantain survive, the herbicide stunted the clover varieties. The ladino was still there in august, but was only about 40% of the plot and measly. So I killed the plot and i planted it into grains and an annual clover. I am going to nuke it hard next spring, try grain sorghum as a summer cover crop amd roll it into perrinial clover next fall.
My "bean field" is called the bean field for the same reason as Triple C. No beans anymore but it's still the "bean field".
It's 3 acres and getting the three mixes. One acre for each. Brassicas went in 12 days ago and are already attracting venison.
The clover and grains will go in the next few weeks after it cools and hopefully timed with rain. I have learned to prep the field as far as possible so that planting is quicker. I have sprayed and disked the fields. All that's left is fert, large seed, drag, cultipack, small seed, cultipack.....that's 7 total passes on each plot. More if I have to disk 2-3 times, however I love it.
Pictures:
#1,2,3..... had the hoses replaced on this 1960 JD model #2 disc. It's half the width of my 3 point disc and twice the weight. It cuts like a disc is supposed to cut. Love the overhaul of the old 3020. It's been a work horse.
#4,5....I have to draw a map and write down the amounts of seed, lime (I'm stilling trying to get a truck out there to spread, but for now I use pellets ), fert. It helps in ordering and then it helps a ton when planting. I haul the seed/fert/etc to each plot in my pick up, drop it in front of the plot, then go hook up the spreader. I still spread all seed by hand spreader. It's too expensive to risk losing too much with the tractor spreader. I also measure acerage with Google earth. If I had a planter I would plant in strips, but I don't rust myself trying to hand spread small strips.
#6,7....we had a great summer. Spent several weeks at the beach. The highlight was the sharks teeth. We found over 500. Even my 5 year old would found at least 20.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
After my success with the ladino clover I have considered doing everything in perrinial clover. But it was my plan to work LC's mixes in. There is more wisdom in his threads than I am capable of appreciating.
So I will keep one .8 acre in ladino. I will overseed with rye in a few weeks. I am thinking of adding a little of the crimson/arrowleaf/ladino mix from last year.
One half acre plot was in the same mix. I hit it with 24db -200 in May. The plantain was monster last year and I wanted to get ahead of it. It didn't work great. Not only did some of the plantain survive, the herbicide stunted the clover varieties. The ladino was still there in august, but was only about 40% of the plot and measly. So I killed the plot and i planted it into grains and an annual clover. I am going to nuke it hard next spring, try grain sorghum as a summer cover crop amd roll it into perrinial clover next fall.
My "bean field" is called the bean field for the same reason as Triple C. No beans anymore but it's still the "bean field".
It's 3 acres and getting the three mixes. One acre for each. Brassicas went in 12 days ago and are already attracting venison.
The clover and grains will go in the next few weeks after it cools and hopefully timed with rain. I have learned to prep the field as far as possible so that planting is quicker. I have sprayed and disked the fields. All that's left is fert, large seed, drag, cultipack, small seed, cultipack.....that's 7 total passes on each plot. More if I have to disk 2-3 times, however I love it.
Pictures:
#1,2,3..... had the hoses replaced on this 1960 JD model #2 disc. It's half the width of my 3 point disc and twice the weight. It cuts like a disc is supposed to cut. Love the overhaul of the old 3020. It's been a work horse.
#4,5....I have to draw a map and write down the amounts of seed, lime (I'm stilling trying to get a truck out there to spread, but for now I use pellets ), fert. It helps in ordering and then it helps a ton when planting. I haul the seed/fert/etc to each plot in my pick up, drop it in front of the plot, then go hook up the spreader. I still spread all seed by hand spreader. It's too expensive to risk losing too much with the tractor spreader. I also measure acerage with Google earth. If I had a planter I would plant in strips, but I don't rust myself trying to hand spread small strips.
#6,7....we had a great summer. Spent several weeks at the beach. The highlight was the sharks teeth. We found over 500. Even my 5 year old would found at least 20.
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David
Active Member
Being a dentist I'm trying to talk my accountant into letting me write the trip off as an expense.
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