Starting my journey...Locust Hill Farms in the Piedmont of Northern VA

John Paul

Well-Known Member
So I'm finally going to do this online journal thing since I see how it would be a nice reminder to come back and look at the progress you make throughout all the projects we are going to do. Where to start???

When I moved from South Texas to Northern Virginia 13 years ago I was blown away by the genetic potential our family farm had for growing good deer in VA. Growing up in Texas everything is suppose to be bigger and better right? To say that I was a pig that landed in a big pile of happiness was an understatement.

I would consider myself your typical "green" land stewards the past 8-10 years on our farm. We started by putting in food plots, putting in more food plots, getting better at putting in more food plots. etc. We always felt that our deer suffered a nutritional deficiency late winter early spring so we felt that if we could just put in enough acres of food plots we could solve all the problems we felt we had. We ignored the 800 plus acres of pine cutovers that become a vast wasteland when they canopied and shaded out all the understory. We ignored the 100s of acres of close canopy forest we had and scratched our heads when we saw another century old white oak fall dead to the forest floor. I wondered why we had so many autumn olives, bush honeysuckle and cedars taking over parts of our farm that used to have more diversity and animal sightings when I first started hunting in Virginia around 2004.

To say I've seen the light is a HUGE understatement. When the "old site" was still up and running I could get lost for days reading about food plotting advice from Lickcreek or other gentleman that had been doing what i wanted to do before I was even born. I never read too much into the habitat section of the old sight because I knew we just needed to put in food plots and the rest would take care of itself, not exactly!

For some reason I have this appetite inside me now insisting I leave this land to my children or next owner better than it was when given to me and my wife. I always knew you were suppose to do that but now I have to practice that conviction.

And I have swallowed the Kool-aid on habitat/wildlife management but my next problem was my paralysis by analysis. Just what part of the 1000 pound gorilla do you bite off first? That is what lead me to contacting a habitat consultant after a lackluster Fall hunting season. After getting some suggestions from members on this site and listening to some Podcasts from prospective consultants I had Matt Dye with Land and Legacy come out to the farm for a 3 day powwow last month. What resonated with me from Adam and Matt was their emphasis on incorporating habitat work around living on a working cattle farms. To say the journey for our farm is just beginning is again a severe understatement. There is a LOT of work to get done but this is definitely going to be the start of many years of work that should be fun to bring to this forum. Please feel free to ask any and all questions. I'll leave this first post with the maps of the 4 different quadrants we broke the farm up into so we can attack little projects within each quadrant. It's a breakdown of the type of work L&L is proposing we want to do over the next 5 years.

Preserve and Mountain Tract:
 
Could someone please move this to the Property Tour folder? I started in the wrong one my fault!
 
Preserve and Mountain Tract:

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Exciting stuff and I'll look forward to following your journey. Thats beautiful country up there and will be interesting to compare to your Duvall county roots. My sister, BIL live have a farm in Madison county and I'm moved with the beauty and potential of that area.

Looks like you have your hands full launching deep into new projects. As a comparative I just attended a soil health academy in Alabama on BDA Farms and the folks at Understanding Ag. All based on regenerative agriculture principles using cattle, sheep, multi specie no till ag and intensive mob grazing to create the most spectacular habitat I have ever seen . And profitable beyond most farmer expectations with no go t. subsidies. If you get bored take a look at the Understanding Ag website.You might find it interesting. The partners are well known including Gabe Brown, Ray Archeleto [ sp ] Will Harris etc.

Best of look and excited to tag along
 
Exciting stuff and I'll look forward to following your journey. Thats beautiful country up there and will be interesting to compare to your Duvall county roots. My sister, BIL live have a farm in Madison county and I'm moved with the beauty and potential of that area.

Looks like you have your hands full launching deep into new projects. As a comparative I just attended a soil health academy in Alabama on BDA Farms and the folks at Understanding Ag. All based on regenerative agriculture principles using cattle, sheep, multi specie no till ag and intensive mob grazing to create the most spectacular habitat I have ever seen . And profitable beyond most farmer expectations with no go t. subsidies. If you get bored take a look at the Understanding Ag website.You might find it interesting. The partners are well known including Gabe Brown, Ray Archeleto [ sp ] Will Harris etc.

Best of look and excited to tag along

Thank you Baker! Yes it’s a lot to digest and I’m still unsure how I’m going to get it all done but I’ll have fun trying.

I’ve been reading some Jim Gerrish books about MIG and cell grazing. He’s the ranching for profit inventor and I’m definitely trying to figure out a hybrid grazing setup on our place because I’m not a big fan of making or feeding hay. My goal would be to feed for less than 60 days each winter and based on grazing through January with most of our herds this past winter it’s doable. I’m not going to be a move twice a day guy like Joel Salatin but I’m trying to set up 20-25 pastures per herd, combined some herds to get a mob graze effect and rotate ever 2-4 days depending on conditions.

Im very interested in grazing NWSG on our place with the dual benefit for wildlife in the fall/winter for thermal cover.
 
This looks awesome!! I've spent a decent amount of time right in that area so I am really excited to see what comes out of your labor! Talking about managing for wildlife on a cattle operation reminds me of a lecture I listened to from a PHD in Virginia Tech's Extension office. It was all about "Agroforestry". Basically doing the same thing. They might have some resources you'd be interested in
 
Test run on the new Esch NT drill. Calibrating to get some buckwheat seed in the ground this evening after cutting some hay.
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Meeting with Matt Dye and a forester tomorrow for the day to see what project we are going to attack first.
 
Started our first project on the farm yesterday based on the recommendation of our land visit recently. We are concentrating on this cedar/poplar thicket (couple of HUGE cherry trees) that's pretty much a void for wildlife. Starting taking down small cedars and some tiny poplars. Slow going, probably took down 200 trees in a couple of hours but it doesn't look like much yet. We would mulch but since this part is going back to an ag field we need the stumps gone.

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Thought this was a cool photo snapped out of the cab of the tractor. I missed this turkey nest the other day cutting hay and came back by it recently and the eggs hatched and there were a few poults running around.

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Can’t wait to see how it turns out. You got trail cams running yet?

Hopefully I’m still alive before we get all the work done!

I have not deployed the trail cams this season so far. I’m kind of a July through end deer season kind of guy these days.
 
Finishing up a destination plot in the middle of the farm we call the preserve. Already have 3 acres of corn looking good. Planted 4 acres of beans just now. Putting in another 4 acres of a summer mix we will terminate and put into greens this fall. And lastly drilling some buckwheat on 10 acres in hopes of putting into a Fall planting of Alfalfa this Fall.

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