Scott's projects

Made it out today and burned up a tank in the saw and frost seeded some switch, it was in the mid 40's and finally no rain.

I've been working on this area for the last 3 years it's between the switch field and the property line so it's a bedding area and a visual screen for the neighbors. Found that they have been using this for bedding which fired me up.







Did a tank full of hinging here today, I'll go back in later and clean up some of the branches and make some ins and outs for them.

Looking from the hinged area into the switch.







This is what I hinged today, the woods in the background is the neighbors.





This is the plots and I've been trying to funnel them down towards the tree tubes in the back but something happened this year and they moved about 50yds north so I blocked it back up today.







They were still using the southern entrance to the plots.



I mowed and hit this with gly late last summer but couldn't get back there to hit it again so I broadcast switch in this and plan on hitting it with gly when things green up this spring and before the warm seasons take off.



One of my experiments, planting MG rhizomes into established switch with no prep. These have been planted for 2 years and seem to be doing ok.



I found some MI switch called "southlow" from Ernst seed and tried about an acre of it 3 years ago, I couldn't find out much info on it as far as the height etc. Most of the acre is about 3'tall so the plan is this spring mow it and later this summer add some N and see if I can get some height on it.





Lastly I wanted to clean up all the dead Ash around this stand and do a throw and mow micro plot this summer, sired up the saw and started to cut and ran out of gas so I'll finish this up tomorrow, forgot gas can at the house.



 
Great weather here in MI this weekend and I took advantage of it today, dropped a couple trees around one of our stands and cleaned it up for a micro plot, just something to make them stop and maybe get a shot on the way to the bigger plots.

Before pic.



After, no I did't leave that tree hung up in the second pic I just filled the saw with gas and snapped a few pics.





Looking to the east of the this stand is an old apple orchard .



I swung up through the area I hinged a month ago and went looking for my hammer I left up there, found it. Here's a couple pics of some red cedars I planted in some bare spots on the edge of a switch field. Maybe in a couple years they'll create some more bedding.





I started with 51 chinese chestnuts from wbpdeer and ended up with 39 seedlings that are doing great.



 
Looks great Scott! Gotta love seeing where the deer are bedding down on your place. I'll send spring your way soon, it's just got here.

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Merle Hawggard said:
Looks great Scott! Gotta love seeing where the deer are bedding down on your place. I'll send spring your way soon, it's just got here.

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Click to expand...
It felt like it was here today and yesterday mid 50's, mid 50's until next thurs. and then back in the 30's.
 
Scott44 said:
It felt like it was here today and yesterday mid 50's, mid 50's until next thurs. and then back in the 30's.
Click to expand...
It early even here. We had an early spring like this in 06 or 07 maybe, but April brought 3 straight days with lows in the low 20's. Ruined that years acorn crop and killed tomatoes in my garden that I kept covered up. Don't want to see a repeat.

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Checked the plots today when I was back and they still seem to be feeding them.

The brassicas are eaten down to the dirt as usual around here.





These brassicas fed a lot of mouths earlier in the winter. Some reason it seemed like all the deer around were here for a month or so after our rifle season, it's back to normal now.



Cereal rye is starting green up with warm temp here that last little bit.



Not much left of the sorghum plot but they are still checking it out, there is a lot of matter there to do a throw and mow plot there this year, I upped the seeding rate this year and I think it worked so I shouldn't have to till it this year.





 
Last edited:
Brushpile said:
Holy Deer!!!
Click to expand...
Yea for the month of Dec and early Jan it was nothing to see 50-60 deer back there, the only thing I can think of is we only hunted the first couple days of our rifle season so after Nov 17 there was no human presence and they found it safe and stayed.
 
That many deer can do some damage to woody plants. Many years ago there a famous bow hunt on a refuge in WI. Deer were pushed onto the refuge during gun season and then the refuge was open to bow hunting to scatter the deer back out. I believe that over 200 deer were harvested with a bow in one morning, and that was with recurve and long bows!
 
I received some of my trees late last week, apple trees from Turkey Creek and conifers from NCR. I thought I had them all coming at the same time but not so my MDC order will be here later this week.

Planted 5 apple trees from Turkey Creek.





Thought I learned my lesson by not protecting them with screen when I first planted fruit trees and had all of the girdled, missed one last year but got lucky.



View from orchard over the back of our place,



I got 100 black spruce, 50 white and 50 norway plugs from NCR.



Chinese chestnuts are doing good, I had some bur and bur/gambel oaks in pots from last year in the garage that I brought in and woke up.







More plantings this coming weekend some I'll try and get some pics.
 
Finished up planting this orchard, 13 apple trees and 2 pears, I think I can fit another 4-5 trees in there if I wanted too.



Started another orchard.



Finished up my plug planting and had to modify a broom handle for my smaller plugs, I have a plug planting tool for the larger plugs but I ordered some 6's this year it didn't quite work, broom handle with a 6" carriage bolt, not sure how long this will last but it made it through my 150 plugs so it lasted long enough.



Had to make a trip and get some tube stakes.



Planted some red cedars in this switch grass field and dogwoods and ninebark in and around these oaks.







 
Finished up my tree planting and MG planting on Sat.

I tried planting MG rhizome clusters along with single rhizomes this year. I continued the existing MG screen in the second pic along with hybrid willows for screening all the way to the quad in the 3rd pic.











Fertilized the MG.



Planted 25 swamp/bur oaks and hazelnuts that were 3-4'



Some of the orchard is waking up.

Kieffer pear



Liberty





Took a walk in where all the ash trees are and it looks like a tornado went through there with all the downed trees



 
Last weekend I planted a sunn hemp plot and a sorghum plot, both were planted in last years sorghum plot. I hit it with one pass with the disk and then cultipcked it in, stuck a camera up and it didn't take them long to find it, date and time are off on the camera it was last Sat. night.







They seem to be liking the throw and mow cereal grain mix from last year, clover has came up pretty good.





I planted 100 hybrid willows and they most all have taken off.



Some of our older apple trees are loaded.





First fawn and antler pics, not real good fawn pics just a little dark dot behind the doe.







 
I planted some MG in and around some hinge cuts this spring, the hinges have a bunch of new growth and the MG seems to have taken off good.







MG screens are doing ok, I fertilizes with some triple 19 earlier this spring and went back and hit some of the shorter spots with urea, second pic. and it's almost as tall as it was last year already.





I might see some acorns in my life time if these trees keep up the growth.







A few antler pics





 
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