My property tour

[jlane35]

I got a clover plot in today and really enjoyed using our new cultipacker. It did well in less rocky areas but just bounced over the rockier areas.

 

[jlane35]

I also got 25 chokecherry planted along
with 25 arrowwood. I have another shrub and tree order coming in 2 weeks.

 

[jlane35]

The last 2 years we have had a trapper come in after deer season. The first year he caught 2 coyotes. But this year he really figured it out. He caught 9 coyotes a few raccoons and a bobcat. Unfortunately he caught the bobcat the day after our trapping season closed for them.

 

[jlane35]

I know I haven’t updated in a long time but with 2 young daughters and another on the way I’ve been extremely busy. Last years hunting season was still very successful for my father and I. We each filled all of our tags, 2 doe apiece and a buck. We each harvested our buck before 8 am opening morning. Which gave me plenty of time to run home for my oldest daughter, 3, to spend the day at the cabin.

 

[jlane35]

Another great thing the logging has been able to provide is thick enough cover to bring pockets of rabbits back throughout our place. I’m still in the process of thickening up the old hayfields, with shrubs. But there are a few in the woods.

I will get some pictures of the spruces progression next week when I’m there.

I know they aren’t a native animal but the neighbors released pheasants last year. 5 of them made it through the winter and are hanging around our cabin. It’s really nice hearing them cackle in the mornings while doing some work. I did see one hen hanging out with 2 cockbirds. It would be really cool if she successfully raised some chicks.

 

[jlane35]

I also saw the first waterfowl on our pond last week. I’m sure they have been there before but two days in a row I saw geese and a mallard hanging out. I hope the geese don’t hang around and have their babies at our place. I’m not looking forward to the less they will create.

 

[jlane35]

What a difference a few days makes. Mid sixties last week and the temps dropped off this week. A heavy frost last night and snowing for the last hour or so. I’m sure all of our apple trees, wild and ones we planted won’t be producing this year. On good years we are fortunate to have a decent amount of apples from trees planted long ago by the previous land owner. Most are hidden in the woods and hedge rows. I seem to find a new one every year

 

[Mennoniteman]

When you find an apple tree, do you cut the trees around them to give them some breathing room? An old apple tree will usually start producing better again after a good trimming.

 

[jlane35]

When you find an apple tree, do you cut the trees around them to give them some breathing room? An old apple tree will usually start producing better again after a good trimming.

I have removed trees around the majority of them but not all. Some are in the woods and I think I would do more harm then good dropping a large oak that’s right next to them. Even though our entire property is loaded with oak trees, I feel the chance of an old apple tree offsetting the production of an oak tree isn’t good enough to drop the trees. And also the chance of me dropping a tree to close to the apple tree and destroying it are high too. But in areas on the edge of this field, where I have the long continuous line.

I have thinned that out pretty well. There are more I can still cut but every winter I try to drop the trees I feel I could successfully do so on and not hit the apple trees.

Now for pruning them, no I haven’t touched them. I probable should start with just removing the obvious dead branches on them.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I have removed trees around the majority of them but not all. Some are in the woods and I think I would do more harm then good dropping a large oak that’s right next to them. Even though our entire property is loaded with oak trees, I feel the chance of an old apple tree offsetting the production of an oak tree isn’t good enough to drop the trees. And also the chance of me dropping a tree to close to the apple tree and destroying it are high too. But in areas on the edge of this field, where I have the long continuous line. View attachment 18632

I have thinned that out pretty well. There are more I can still cut but every winter I try to drop the trees I feel I could successfully do so on and not hit the apple trees.

Now for pruning them, no I haven’t touched them. I probable should start with just removing the obvious dead branches on them.

The commercial apple orchard people in our area keep their apple trees the exact same size by trimming hard year after year and their apple production is always impressive. It proves that trimming trees hard works.

 

[jlane35]

The commercial apple orchard people in our area keep their apple trees the exact same size by trimming hard year after year and their apple production is always impressive. It proves that trimming trees hard works.

I’ll have to add that to my list of things to accomplish. I’ve opened up the canopy around most of them but trimming them wouldn’t be a bad thing. I should be there Tuesday. I’ll take some pictures of some of the trees.

It seems like we have been so busy with life, all we are accomplishing this year is catch-up on major projects that caught up to us.

We had 7 large Ash trees die, right around or directly next to our cabin, over the last few years. So that was a few day project of dropping them and cutting/splitting for firewood. We rented a telehandler so I could cut up the 3 trees directly above our cabin into manageable pieces. The other trees I dropped from the hedge row in front of our cabin.

 

[jlane35]

I did a little more work at our place today, along with all of the Covid shutdowns, the rain cancelled the crane job scheduled for me today.

Here are a few pictures the spruce I planted around our cabin to thicken up the cover for rabbits mainly but I know the deer will eventually use them too. Especially if the crabapple trees I have planted in the same area produce.

 

[jlane35]

I finally got around to caging the trees. As you can see the deer nipped 90% of the trees at the top of the tubes. But I hope the trees rebound and eventually produce. Again this area isn’t intended for deer hunting but to provide cover and food for rabbits. As I love running beagles.

In the first picture you can see the hinge cuts I did to create more rabbit cover and I also straightened the tree out in the cage after the picture.

 

[jlane35]

It’s amazing how the deer will destroy every tree I plant but allow apple and crabapple trees to grow naturally. We have a few in this area. I know it’s a little late to be pruning but I only took a little off these trees.

before
After



Crabapple

 

[jlane35]

Here are some larger apple trees we did some work to. For the most part all we did was remove ground competition and dead branches.

 

[jlane35]

Here is another one that I think should see a lot of improvement.

 

[jlane35]

Here is the last one we did today. Again, we removed all underbrush and dead branches but I was afraid to cut the “newer” apple tree which grows through the main tree. I wasn’t sure if it would do more harm then good, however the more I think about it I should cut it down and carefully remove the branches to not harm the tree anymore.

 

[jlane35]

This apple tree grew so tall reaching for sunlight. So all I did was drop 3 trees in hopes it allows more light in.

I also saw a bunch of rabbit droppings in the tree tops and briars.

 

[jlane35]

The road screen is starting to fill in. It’s not the busiest road in the world but in the winter you could see the whole side hill above it.


I wish I kept better records, but I believe these were Black cherry trees I planted.


There are more, but these are doing the best.

 

[jlane35]

I wanted to add more cover to the edge of one of our larger fields. We don’t ever plan on putting a food plot in but I saw potential in it if we allowed it to go fallow and add cover around the edges, especially since the stone wall on the far side is bordering our neighbors property. This is the field where my uncle shot a nice 8 pointer with his crossbow a few years ago and has 4 smaller fields surrounding it.

These spruce are growing slower then the others. The grass overtakes them every summer. But they should eventually overtake the grass.
Here is the view across the field to our enclosed hut. I eventually plan on putting in pockets of late dropping fruit trees for our rifle season.