Recreating a Deer Woods

[Chainsaw]

Thank you Lak. As you know you there is no end to the treasures to be seen on a property. Negative on the vines;we do not have wisteria or kudzu here. Our only abundant vine are grape vines. They take quite a few years to shade out a tree but eventually the grape vines do kill trees if left unattended to. When we first began cutting grape vines from apple trees the vines were as big around as the barrel part of a baseball bat.

The picture with the service berry tree (post 257) in need of releasing shows a grape vine that had killed one large tree and had then entangled the service berry tree. Then the now dead large tree had fallen and the grape vine between the dead tree and service berry tree is now readily visible.

 

[Elkaddict]

Dave thanks for posting pics of the service berry trees. They're in blossom all over down here. I must confess I didn't know what they are. Nature's beauty never ceases to amaze or uplift me.

 

[Chainsaw]

Dave thanks for posting pics of the service berry trees. They're in blossom all over down here. I must confess I didn't know what they are. Nature's beauty never ceases to amaze or uplift me.

You are very welcome Tom. It is not one of the trees usually talked about for deer but rather for other wildlife. However as you say the beauty of nature is amazing and very uplifting and that describes the thrill of seeing the service berry blossoms along our ponds, hedgerows and hillsides. It's really a major bloom in New York but it's identity is widely unknown here as well. I consider the service berry to be an excellent deer tree. It is hands down the most rubbed tree here especially by the clump rubbers. It is also a very preferred browse tree as well. If cut high it creates a lot of trunk sprouts, even if cut chest high and if cut low, it root sprouts well also. And without cutting it grows a lot of root sprouts and it takes heavy browsing well and keeps on sprouting. So for me here, it is a definite keeper for its deer browse, rubbing trees and its surreal presence in our woods during its bloom season.

If you have time while they are in bloom check out the bark and tree structure on a number of them. You may as we do have different varieties of them. If you don't have time before the bloom ends, we can find some when I come down to tour your property(some here started dropping blooms already). There are at least two varieties here and they are easily distinguishable by their bark.

 

[dogghr]

Our property has been proclaimed by some to be “really a giant deer garden”, both a garden OF and also a garden FOR deer. While I smile inside and out when a visitor SEES that and comes up with the deer garden phrase, I know that really the property falls way short of a true deer garden. The phrase “deer garden” insinuates a perfectly controlled and orderly world, a place where an entire micro-environment lives and works in harmony to synergistic-ally create the perfect world FOR and OF deer. In my recreating a deer woods project, a true deer garden is the ultimate outcome. Perfection though in creating this deer garden is just not humanly possible; the task is simply larger than us. At best if others see the property as a deer garden then a deer garden it must be. As deer gardeners we all know how far from the perfect deer garden our properties really are. Still with each swing of the axe (so to speak) our properties can be brought closer and closer to being true deer gardens.

With it being spring it is time to begin anew, to slooooowwwwww down and see the “flowers” of this wonderful season which grow in our individual deer gardens. This week and next are the weeks of explosive bloom, growth and transition to resetting the stage for yet another great chapter in our deer garden books. Do deer appreciate seeing the blooms? That we don’t know; one thing we do know is that the blooms are one very important step in creating the coming year’s food sources for the deer and other wildlife living in our deer gardens. Also the simple, delicate blooms are a make or break step in creating the next generation of ground cover plants, shrubs and trees. Those blooms better have big shoulders!

One of the joys of living on the property (in the deer garden) is getting to witness each year’s blooms most of which last only a week or less. This is the week of the service berry blooms, maple blooms and pear blooms as well as others here. And there are the transitions of grain fields going from dormant to green as well as the evidence of regeneration to see. And left over from winter there is the evidence of browse left or not that gives us a measure of how our deer gardens are really stacking up to our deer garden goals. Also left over from winter are the deer trails muddied up and as obvious as ever. In fact they look like dirt bike trails! The next two weeks are truly the weeks to really see and enjoy the story the property is ready to share with us.

Today’s special bloom in this deer garden is the service berry tree. Its presence to a perfect deer garden is important. The service berry is a great deer browse plant (creates lots of suckers) and related to the apple, it creates berries that feed a lot of wildlife. It is among the first major blooms of each year providing an early source of pollen. Its flower is very simple.

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But oh put together many thousands or so of these simple flowers and they can be seen a quarter of a mile away as shown in the next picture.

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An up close picture of the same service berry trees in full bloom shows it to be as impressive as the more celebrated apple bloom which promises to follow within a week. As I approached closer to the service berry trees, a group of deer feeding in the triticale reluctantly gave up the space; maybe they were there also enjoying the blooms in the deer garden just as I was.

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Service berry trees are easy enough to distinguish from other trees but like wild apple trees they are difficult to SEE in the woods of our deer gardens. So today I flagged several of them which were easily found by their blooms. Like the wild apple trees they will be released someday so they will have a chance to become the most spectacular tree they can be. Without releasing them the service berry trees often stay spindly and weak and not so productive; not released, some service berry trees will even become shaded out and strangled in grape vines and die just as the wild apple trees do. That would be a big loss to our deer gardens.

While the beautiful service berry trees pictured above would benefit from releasing by cutting out that one large cherry tree, they are receiving a good enough share of the sun as they are. However the service berry trees in the next picture are not and are a good example of some that must be released if they are to stay alive and reinforce the deer garden status of this property.

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In recreating a deer woods or trying to reach deer garden status here it is really about capitalizing on the existing ground plant, shrub and tree population already growing rather than a lot of planting new. Both efforts have their place to be sure. However by releasing the service berry trees in this field edge they will likely be healthy and productive trees within about two years versus the twenty it would take to grow new service berry trees to an equivalent size. Thus since I like the location they are in, it just makes sense to take the time to release them rather than lose them.

What a great read and great piece of property. You must have the most spring blooming place outside an orchard in the US. Great stuff. But as we see on many of these threads in differences….I seldom will see browse on serviceberry. One of the few plants that seem to be ignored around here. Yet they will eat my rhododendron in my yard despite plenty of food within a few steps in the woods. Deer are kinda like women, just when you you think you have them figured out, well you know. Thanks for showing.

 

[Chainsaw]

Thank you dogghr. You are absolutely right. What deer do here, they don't necessarily do elsewhere. And remember these are the deer that have walked by apples, mushrooms and alfalfa to eat hickory nuts. Talk about contrary. Also consider though that you likely have a different variety of service berry than the ones we have here. Yes we do have a lot of blooms but as you know living on a property gives one a chance to see more of them. With many blooms lasting a week or less, guys living away could easily miss some blooms for years.

The other two most important blooms besides the service berry this week were the wild pear bloom and the sugar maple bloom.

This pear tree doesn’t get the oversize deer that Geo’s pear tree used to get but it does produce a lot of very sweet pears. Here is the close up of the blossom.



And here is the main pear tree to the right. I think the one to the left may be a pear but I'm not sure. There are only a handful of wild pear trees marked on the property. They enjoy heavy deer traffic early. I really should locate all of them for more early hunting location options.




The maple bloom is important to our deer gardens of course because the deer really love the resultant maple seedlings. Here is a picture of a smallish maple blooming in a hedgerow.



Photographing an individual maple bloom was only partially successful. It was just soooo small. Here is a single maple bloom expanded to a large size to view it.



Here are two single maple blooms with a quarter for a size comparison;



And here are a couple of pictures showing multiple maple blooms and the beginning of leaf out. The multiple maple blooms looked nice in a vase in the barn as did the service berry and pear as well.




The blooms from all of the different trees are each spectacular in their own way. We’ve had great weather all week so good pollination likely occurred. We shall see in a couple of weeks. The big apple bloom will be very visible by tomorrow afternoon; if so all the pollinators are going to be in POLLEN heaven. Acceptable temperatures are forecast at least for the critical next ten days. After that we are usually OK.

 

[Chainsaw]

Spent a few days last week scouring the property for wild pear trees in need of releasing. There were a handful of pear trees I have seen over the years with pears on them so I had those to use as reference in identifying the wild pear trees from the wild apple trees. The known pear trees all had a distinctive bark, very scaley and more coarse than the known wild apple trees. Very few of the known wild apple trees even approached the heavy scaly looking bark of the known wild pear trees though some did somewhat. In walking about 1/3 of the property, 52 additional thought to be wild pear trees were identified and marked for future releasing. All of the found wild pear trees had the same type blossom and that very coarse bark but still I could not be more convinced they were not simply rougher barked apple trees until many known apple trees blossomed. With the apple blossoms now finally beginning to open the two types of blossoms were compared to further help ID the wild pears from the wild apples. Still the final test will be in a few weeks when we hopefully get to see some fruit on the newly marked "pear" trees. This is many more pear trees than I imagined were on the property. Often I would notice the heavy barked trees having no fruit and figured they were likely just resting apple trees or apple trees that needed releasing(the pear trees here are very inconsistent/spotty in their fruiting).

Because not all wild apple tree varieties have the same bark nor do they have the same tree shape it is hard to look at a tree that is obviously a fruit tree and determine it is absolutely not an apple unless it has fruit hanging. The pear trees found are more consistent in their shape and bark texture and the overall woodiness look of the tree but that is just one indicator. I took a picture of an apple and pear blossom side by side to use as a second indicator for differentiating the two species of trees.



The pear blossom on the right is eight days old while the apple blossom on the left is only three days old. This could account for the different shape of the stamen filament(daylily term for the stem that holds the anther/pollen). Still, it is pretty hard to confuse the two. Note that the pear blossoms looked at had 5 to 7 petals and the apple blossoms looked at had 5 petals. Other varieties or even trees here or elsewhere could be different.

 

[Chainsaw]

A SLIGHT CHANGE IN PLANS

This property has a hidden interior fallow field known as “Dave’s Field” so named by a hard working middle aged gentleman from Connecticut that traveled five hours here to re-shingle the roof of one of our cottages. Dave’s Field has been fallow for about 35 years or more. Dave’s Field covering about six acres contains a few small, well rubbed poplar stands and a handful of red pines as well as a couple of white pines and a few struggling over browsed and also well rubbed cedars. A small stand of mature white pine, a couple of hundred mature poplar and twenty-five to thirty wild apple trees surround the gently rolling south facing slope of Dave’s Field. Except for a small throw and mow clover patch Dave's Field has remained a fallow field. Originally, it was planned to convert Dave’s Field fully into a food plot to tie into the existing 2200 ft. long plot on its east side (Coyote Field plot). An 1100 ft. cut-in deer trail coming from a food plot to the west named Clover Field provides a well used deer sneak trail thru a cut over dotted with groupings of mature wild apples and hickory trees which enters the top of Dave’s Field in its northwest corner (remember this is the place where the deer love hickory nuts).

The plan has been changed to take advantage of recent natural re-growth so that now only half of the 300 ft. width of Dave’s Field will be a food plot. Natural re-growth in Dave’s Field had generated red pine seedlings every year for at least twenty-five plus years. Every winter since until three years ago, with the onset of January’s heavy snows, the deer ate each year’s growth of young pine seedlings to the ground and each year the mother red pines in Dave’s Field kept cranking out more seeds. The seemingly futile cycle continued over and over until finally a single generation of the little pine seedlings finally got a break. This past winter marked the third consecutive winter that the deer mostly ignored the pine seedlings in Dave’s Field which are now approaching waist high(Note: Pine seedlings in other parts of the property did not fare so well). Further a few overly mature poplars were bulldozed two years ago in Dave’s Field and significant root sprouting resulted in a nice poplar re-growth area as well. The natural re-growth of poplar and pine is adding thermal cover and browse to the field area. Our plans changed immediately to accommodate the pine and Poplar re-growth windfall.

Here are pictures of the poplar and pine re-growth (picture taken around the middle of April).
This poplar regrowth was not expected as we had bulldozed the mother plants versus simply cutting them.



And here are some of the young pines in the forefront with the mother trees in the back ground. It took over twenty-five years of annual new seedling growth before a crop of pine seedlings were finally passed by the deer.




And here is a pic of one of three poplar “food banks” located along the edge of Dave’s Field. Some poplars are being cut from them each February to provide late winter browse tops to the deer which they have readily eaten.


The food plot portion of the field will now wind its way from north to south for 500 feet, running parallel along the west side of the poplar/pine re-growth area that has recently developed ITSELF. Once past the re-growth the 150 ft. wide Dave’s Field food plot strip will then turn east and run 300 ft. along the north end of the re-growth area at the bottom of the fields’ slope and stop about 150 feet from the Coyote Field plot. Between where the new Dave's Field plot ends and the Coyote Field plot is a brook and 100 ft. of mixed brush which also contains twenty or so released mature wild apple trees. So the Dave’s Field food plot will still tie into the Coyote Field Food plot and the trail coming from Clover Field Food plot as planned; Dave’s Field food plot will just be 50% narrower than the previously planned 300 ft. width.

Prepping the extremely rocky ground for the new food plot along the re-growth in Dave’s Field will be the main summer habitat activity this year and depending on the volume of rocks uncovered it could take even longer than this summer. The total plot area will be almost three acres; The effort will be huge for the plots’ small size just as the driveway food plot done a couple of years ago was. The location of Dave’s Field though coupled with its gentle southern slope and bordering poplar/pine re-growth and many wild apple trees flanking its edges will make for the perfect meandering food plot to connect up the Coyote Food plot with the Clover Food plot trail when completed.

Tiny steps make for slow gains towards recreating this deer woods but the pace is enjoyable and the results will be so NOT ordinary. Improving on the beauty and serenity of Dave’s Field is a tall order; it is hoped that Dave’s Field can be improved from the deer’s perspective without diminishing countless future magical moments as enjoyed by every visitor so far standing at the top of the field soaking in just one beautiful detail after another of sky, land and plant diversity. The visiting gentleman mentioned earlier in this post summed up the magic of Dave’s Field best. From the moment we exited the bulldozed trail that blue sky Sunday morning and stepped into the then unnamed fallow field, silence prevailed. Standing in awe literally inhaling the world before us, the natural sights, sounds, smells and feelings of the moment were surreal, larger than both of us combined.

After a lot of minutes the gentleman broke the silence;

“When I’ze come home at night from working all day and the electricity is turned off because my girlfriend spent the money I had given her to pay the electric bill on one of her bad habits yet again, and her non-working daughter that lives with us with her two children is pregnant again from yet another guy, and the girlfriend is fighting about it with her daughter, I’ze gonna close my eyes, take a deep breath and visit Daaaaavvvve’s Field and All WILL BE RIGHT WITH THE WORLD”.

And thus the fallow field behind the barn became known as Dave’s Field. HOW LUCKY WE ALL ARE, yes we have all no doubt worked very hard for what we have but we are also very lucky and blessed to have had people around us that helped push us up the hill rather than people that dragged us down at every turn. I hope that gentleman from Connecticut gets his own Dave’s Field someday; admittedly the odds are stacked against him—just dumb bad luck but with his extreme work ethic he has an excellent chance at obtaining his own Dave's Field some day. Though he was from a different environment than I, he was just like me and you all; he totally got the appreciation of the land.

Back to hunting, Dave’s Field is truly a place like “where the deer and the antelope play” and I hope to preserve its special uniqueness and even to enhance it for the deer with the addition of the new narrow winding interior food plot.

 

[dogghr]

What a great read, Chain. Just awesome. And yes many of us are more lucky than we deserve.. Look forward to the tweaking of Daves field, very aptly named. Thanks, you just made my day.

 

[Weasel]

Thanks for the reminder Chain. I try to always be thankful everyday and appreciate and not take much for granted. Inevitably though, there are times when we do forget. I am so grateful that I had two loving parents who pushed me up the hill...

 

[shedder]

Yes the one that looks like a larch (black line) looks like an apple with the "yellow" branch. it is a strange apple growth form. The birch is south of it so it may have been competing for light and grew high. I will cut the birch.

Well, definitely an apple.

Bear claw marks on the birch next to it climbing for the apples.

The birch looms over it from the south. I cut around the apple but this leaner looked too dangerous to cut. I just looked up cutting leaners and hopefully can cut it without killing myself.

The apples started to blossom last week and I found a few more I didn't know were around.

 

[Chainsaw]

I'm glad you are finding more apple trees shedder; each one saved is a big deal for sure.On those iffy trees it doesn't hurt to at least wait until wind conditions are still and the tree and ground are dry and of course cleaned up around the bottom with a couple of escape routes. Also if it is safer to let the tree fall right into the apple, I let it happen and then winch it away with the tractor. Yes it may damage the apple tree a little but with the newly created sun and space it will receive it can bounce back quickly.

I miss using the chainsaw and will for a few more weeks. Hurt my thumb on the table saw(operator error) and it needs a few more weeks of healing at least. Cut a few saplings today using the hand saw; was opening up a shooting lane and trying to redirect a second trail into the first one. It was slow going but it did get done.

Stay safe Shedder; it is very, very slow going with a hand saw while injured.

 

[lakngolf]

Take care of yourself, chainsaw. We depend on you to show us the way!

 

[Chainsaw]

Take care of yourself, chainsaw. We depend on you to show us the way!

That's really funny lak. With me thinking safety all the time and getting whacked in my own house shop making a simple cut I may have shown A way, but it wasn't the right way.

The doctor asked me what i did for a living; I just said retired. I figured he wouldn't have any idea what i was talking about if I told him what I did for fun was more important. So I just told him to try and make the thumb straight enough so I could run my chainsaw when the thumb healed,

 

[Native Hunter]

Great update Dave. I love the pines coming up in the field. You have a lot of possibilities there. I can envision the pines being spaced out with a little room between them and some native forbs filling in the space. And just a nice pine thicket would be great too.

 

[Chummer]

Sorry to hear about your thumb. Hope it heals fast. I have not done much work at all this year. Unfortunately we hit the age where the kids would rather not go to camp. I thought I had a couple more years. I found a new apple tree that I am going to release this weekend. No idea how I missed it all these years but it was loaded with blossoms last weekend!

 

[Triple C]

Just catching up on your thread Dave. Always a great read! I imagine what it will be like in retirement spending most days piddling on the farm trying to improve it for wildlife and diversity. Right now it seems far away but time sure waits on no one. Don't want to ever wish time away. But...I do enjoy reading about the day-to-day activities of guys that are now enjoying retirement working on their land. Retirement is probably not the right word as I'm sure your days are filled with activity from dawn to dusk.

 

[Chainsaw]

Great update Dave. I love the pines coming up in the field. You have a lot of possibilities there. I can envision the pines being spaced out with a little room between them and some native forbs filling in the space. And just a nice pine thicket would be great too.

Thanks Native; i am pretty excited to have the pines growing and will protect them from the wintering deer by early fall. The field has a significant cut over bordering the west and south side where native plants are popping up every day. The pines will be thick but with openings meandering thru them. It will be a pain to plant those openings so they will be planted in a clover/winter rye/chicory mix. That clover will be mowed annually and chicory will be spread before mowing and/ or in late winter. In the past here with mowing we have gotten five years out of clover patches so those openings won't be too bad to maintain.

The more open half of the field will be planted in the traditional; LC mix groupings. There will be a tower stand located on the higher side of the field but Dave's Field will very seldom be hunted. It will be a place that the deer want to go to, complete with fruit trees bordering it and even a small pond.

Did three hours of digging out some of the more obvious larger stones today with the backhoe on the tractor. There were no giant stones but they were larger than a plow would have turned over.

 

[Chainsaw]

Sorry to hear about your thumb. Hope it heals fast. I have not done much work at all this year. Unfortunately we hit the age where the kids would rather not go to camp. I thought I had a couple more years. I found a new apple tree that I am going to release this weekend. No idea how I missed it all these years but it was loaded with blossoms last weekend!

Thank Jeremy. Saw the doctor yesterday;he tells me I likely will be OK to use the chainsaw in about six more weeks. Today was the first day I used the left hand to run the backhoe tractor implement. It worked well but got pretty tired after only three hours.

Glad you found yet another apple tree;that's wonderful. I know what you mean about missing them. I am still discovering new ones regularly.

With the kids the time does come that other interests compete with camp and that's OK. Its part of them discovering the rest of the world. All we can do is keep camp a fun place for them to be with projects that they might enjoy like tree houses, kayaking and fishing and family bonfires and picnics, nature projects and such so when they are ready they will want to return.

 

[Chainsaw]

Just catching up on your thread Dave. Always a great read! I imagine what it will be like in retirement spending most days piddling on the farm trying to improve it for wildlife and diversity. Right now it seems far away but time sure waits on no one. Don't want to ever wish time away. But...I do enjoy reading about the day-to-day activities of guys that are now enjoying retirement working on their land. Retirement is probably not the right word as I'm sure your days are filled with activity from dawn to dusk.

You are mostly correct 3C. Dawn to dusk activity for sure but it is not all productive and that is A-OK. I think that a successful transition to retirement includes not getting lazy but realizing that we do this for fun and projects are only as important as either the enjoyment we get out of them or the enjoyment others will get out of them. It has taken me a while to come to this conclusion. Being self-employed most of my life, a day was not successful unless lots was accomplished; it was difficult to realize that accomplishments are still great but not required every minute of every day anymore. And you are 1000% correct, while being retired(actually I'm only mostly retired as I still rent cottages out) it is wonderful but the time flies faster and faster and even the worst working days were still good and should be enjoyed rather than just endured while waiting to retire.

 

[shedder]

Well, definitely an apple.

Bear claw marks on the birch next to it climbing for the apples.

The birch looms over it from the south. I cut around the apple but this leaner looked too dangerous to cut. I just looked up cutting leaners and hopefully can cut it without killing myself.

The apples started to blossom last week and I found a few more I didn't know were around.

I dropped the birch.

Now we will see how much diff it makes.