My Central Ky Habitat Addiction

Had a busy but awesome day yesterday cleaning up around the new farm cabin. My mom joined us for the evening and we took the boys fishing and roasted dogs and marshmello's over a camp fire,

Good Day:


Good Night:


Preparing this morning for a big family cookout I have put together. Smoking a couple chickens, cooking about 10 pounds of fish, and for myself I have six dozen chicken wings !!!

Good Morning:



 
My latest update is short. I have been extremely tied up mowing tree plantings, expanding my berry patch , working in greenhouse and other farm maintenance that I haven't done a lot of habitat improvements . I do have 10 Dunstans to plant and a couple acres of NWSG's / Wildflower mixes to sow that needs to be done !!!!!

Blackberry patch expansion , have 100 planted and about 20 more spaces to fill:


Got good ground cover and irrigation put in the high tunnel:


Added a water tank to catch water for my trees, plants, and greenhouse as needed:


And my favorite part, the young'uns out enjoying the farm!!

 
Last but not least, my new favorite addition to not only help with hauling and planting but also for the family to get around!!

I have been wanting a SxS for a few years but was torn between a 4 seater that everyone could fit in but has a humongous chassis or a 2 person with normal wheelbase and a bed . It seemed like nothing fit exactly what I wanted til Honda came out with this. It's a normal bench seat in front with a utility dump bed. When needed two sets pop up out off the bed and give a ton of room for two back passengers. This thing is perfect!!








Bed sides act as a door while seats are up.



 
Finally got a chance to get out turkey hunting. Invited a buddy to go and helped call him one in:



Finally got my water wagon going. Have the option to pump out of my gutter tank and also working on getting my spring cistern usable again. Figured you guys would like this set up.

 
I did manage to get an area sprayed to plant my NWSG's / Wildflowers in and rode around the farm with the family.

Looks like the blackberries are gonna be good this year after a bad year in 2015!





And my pear trees from 2014 are loaded but I guess I will remove a few this week. Isn't that the recommendation on these young trees?

 
Pretty good day @ the farm with the help of my hunting buddy Mike,
Managed to get some of my tree plantings mowed:



Finally found some stakes I liked and got all the rows marked in the rest of my plantings. I have got to get those mowed this week!!
Stakes are 3 ft fiberglass with reflectors





Got all the food plots sprayed and will get them sewn in NWSG / Wildflowers and the others in red clover / alfalfa.

 
Had a good afternoon @ the farm. Finally got all my site prep completed for my NWSG / Wildflower planting around my cabin site. Seed sown & culi-packed in time for the rain on Wednesday!!

Area Planted:


Most diverse looking seed mix I have ever sown.




 
Ended a pretty good week of habitat work with my brother and hunting buddy Mike showing up to throw in a little assistance!!!

I love having a little motivational help but love the company more!!! This was a beautiful site for me!!


In addition to getting my NWSG/Wildflower mix around the cabin site, getting most of my tree planting sites mowed, today we finally got my 10 Dunstans in the ground and got about 3 acres of what was annual plots put in Red Clover & Alfalfa.



Oak plantation on the ridge over looking the shooting house and clover / alfalfa plot:



Another plot site:
 




Gotta get cages on this weekend!!!






Next project..... Gonna try to get 20 hazelnuts & 15 pears around the NWSG plot @ the cabin and 20 more pears along a thicker area I let stay grower up for bedding and small game!!! Gonna try to get holes augered this weekend.
 
Got all my holes drilled for my next planting site. Gonna plant 30 pear trees up this row in an area that lays next to one of my oak plantations and below a Foodplot with clover / alfalfa bordered with Dunstan Chestnuts. It's about a 4 acre area I leave " grown up" in blackberries & "weeds" for small game nesting and bedding/cover for all animals.













And my next project after I get my pears planted and caged:
Transition this pasture lot to habitat. I just sold the last group of feeder steers I'm going to feed. On to wildlife!!!!

 
Thanks for the input on my next project to start planning guys...,

In the mean time it's on to finish all the ones I have going.

Got 20 Hazelnuts and 2 lonely Mulberry's finally planted along the NWSG site





And got 20 young Pears in the ground in an area laying between my hardwood tree plantations and right below one of our bigger food plots.

This on butts right up to the food plot, Dunstans in the background....



All these run down the hill, will be 30 when completed ....



Got the caged ready to go on Friday after I get fabric around them.

All these pears are Bartletts that I started, any input on other varieties to mix in with them?? I left a few holes open.

 
Been out of town for 7 days!!! Been about to kill me not getting on the farm to check on everything. Drove 11 hours home today and made it down this evening and things were looking good. Had a few small rains so food plots continue to green up , with temps in the upper 90's I was afraid they may have gotten cooked!!

Will be getting the water wagon hooked up in morning to water all my tree plantings.

Did manage to get the latest tree plantings caged before I left. 35 Pears & 20 Hazelnuts .



The old Pears @ the cabin site look great.


Enjoyed an awesome sunset with my wife and kiddo's as we rounded out the quick trip:



Lastly, came home to the next project. 5 Air Layering Pots inspired by you guys!!
Hi ho , hi ho, it's off to clone I go!!!



Few questions I am needing guidance on:

1: NWSG is coming up good I think. What am I Looking for?? Do I need to mow eventually to knock weeds back??

2: I have found watering trees with weed fabric to be a little challenging , a lot of water runs off. Thought I would make a PVC attachment to poke under the fabric for a more direct water application . My " water wagon" is rigged do I can drive the 4-wheeler and not get off. Any ideas you guys do??
 
Finally got patio & sidewalks on the farm cabin, really happy about this!!





My first attemp @ Alfalfa & Red Clover is doing decent. Planted late and didn't even get to disk it in due to a quick rain. Plot is in a small field that lays between two nice oak ridges . It's a hot area during the rut!! Notice Shooting house in middle right.



 
My " Weed Plot" is getting a little attention. Was originally for small game but loaded with good deer food & bedding .







Few Young Black Oaks:

 
Lastly for my quick afternoon tour was to check on the blackberries . This year was the best bloom I had ever seen. Berries are the same, very thick. These are the smaller " wild ones" . The larger " tame hybrids" are just as thick but a few weeks behind:



 
Spent some time today cleaning up and checking on some tree plantation sites.
Was pretty happy to jump a good group of half grown quail !!



Few young Black Oaks looking good . It's been a great year so far for my young trees. Had lots of rain at good times!!





Picked up some steel tubing and built me a flag pole. Been wanting to do this for a while and figured it was a good time!!

 
Deer activity continues to get better year after year.

A few years ago when we bought the old cattle farm decent young bucks like this were harder to find. But now seeing quality young deer @ every check. Can't wait to continue growing on this trend.





And this has become a welcomed familiar thing every time I'm coming & going no matter what the weather conditions . Usually always see Atleast a single doe and often some small bachelor groups of yearling bucks.





I have no doubt the things I have learned here are paying off and will continue to do so.
 
Decided to gravel all my tree rows today, it looks great!!



That's actually a joke. Creeks got up this week and pushed a bunch of gravel into the field so I'm trying to smooth it out. Does look good though.

Little snack between projects





These guys are coming up good in some of my " weed " patches, who knows what they are??? ( I don't )

 
Thanks for the gracious welcome guys. Having a little trouble getting in the groove over here but I will settle in soon and catch up on all your threads.

Have seen a few discussions on topo maps here so thought I would dig mine out and post. I know nothing about interpreting these maps at this point but will learn eventually.

Topo Map:


Soil Map:




And this has been a little bit of my work the last two years. Have implemented or completed three out of the four plans I have started. First was my High Tunnel , 2nd my TSI & invasive species eradication , 3rd was planting 5000 trees across 8 acres, and the 4th will be a post harvest TSI on a Seperate property I own.



I am currently working with the forestry , USDA, & NRCS to possibly convert 10-15 acres of crop ground into tree.
 
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