The Massey

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Had a hopefully soon productive morning at the Massey. We got a half inch of rain there this morning, which was a nice surprise. Need a lot more, but we’ll take it. There is a decent chance for rain this weekend, so I went ahead and got the brassicas in. Dawna was off today too, so she lent a hand.
First time in a long time I’ve been able to disk without wearing a dust mask, that was very nice!



The “perineal plot” has a little clover and chicory in it, the poor chicory that has actually survived the drought gets hit mercilessly.


The deer aren’t the only ones enjoying the bindweed areas, the dung beetles are having a “ball” as well. Lol

The pumpkins looked to be enjoying the 1/2” rain

As dry as it has gotten lately, we still haven’t seen beans like this in 4 years!! Which is SO nice.

One of Catscratch’s acorns. This tree has just done well to survive the last 3 years. Hopefully a lot of watering work will finally pay off one day. I haven’t had to water it once yet this year.

One last pic before we headed out, will this be our first successful brassica plot since 2020?? I have some hopes for the first time in a while.

 

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Went and mowed what used to be a plot on a permission farm. I plan to spray in about a month and hopefully throw and mow the first of October, if the rain cooperates. This is a little over a third of an acre.

The other half won’t get sprayed or much TLC it will be t&m’d to straight wr. The grand total will be a little under an acre.

Here’s another look at a couple from another permission spot. The wide 10 should be easy to spot for multiple reasons.

Another closeup of him

These two look almost like twins, both are pretty tall and narrow, it took me a while to realize they weren’t the same deer. They are also quite a bit different body sized; you’ll just have to take my word for it on that. Can you see the differences??

 

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Dawna and I got a new toy for each other as an early anniversary present. I think we’re gonna enjoy this! Have a window mount and a phone mount coming too. Hoping to have some much better photos to share from the barn in the future.

 

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This 6, who we know quite well, was about 230 yards out. Dawna has much steadier hands than me and took the pic through the scope. It showed us how much we need the phone mount though, every little movement would throw the phone out of focus again.

 

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If we don’t get anymore out of these “days of significant rain chances”, I’m afraid the brassica plot is doomed. The “perfect storm” of very little rainfall followed by sun and wind. Just wonderful….

 

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Well the rains finally came this morning, we got about an inch. Hallelujah! Should be enough to not only get the brassicas going, but keep them going for a little while. Unfortunately, there are still locals hurting, the rain moved through toward the SE leaving a lot of people high and dry just a few miles east of us. They are still saying one more day of decent rain chances tomorrow I think.

 

[cutman]

Looks like you should get hammered by a storm soon. Good luck!

 

[KSQ2]

Looks like you should get hammered by a storm soon. Good luck!

Thanks!!! The second morning in a row of really nice rain! There won't be much runoff for struggling ponds, BUT this is so refreshing for August and hasn't happened literally in years. SO thankful!!!

 

[George]

Antlers looking good. That one nice 10 has a puss sack on his brisket.

G

 

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Antlers looking good. That one nice 10 has a puss sack on his brisket.

G

Yep, he should be easy to recognize

 

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Got some stands hung today and cleared the back plot. A big oak fell earlier this summer. It’s enough to make you cry to see these old tree fall, buts the cycle of life I guess. There are more growing in their place. Here’s a few pics from the day.


Job finished

It’s amazing how many palatable forbs pop in the rye over the summer

Deer are in the plot like crazy, Fresh and old droppings all over

About half the oaks are loaded

The pear graft continues to explode. If you zoom in you can see my glove, it’s setting at a little over 6; it’s grown at least 12’ this first year.

The knuckle is growing too. Doing my best Native impression…

 

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Forgot to post this yesterday, we finally got a trail cam pic of one of the bucks we’ve been seeing.

 

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Wrapped up stand setting on the Massey this morning. After I got done I decided to wade into the 7 acre overgrown hay meadow we normally only enter during shed season. In particular, I wanted to see the burr x english hybrids we planted 9 years ago from Morse Nursery. We planted these just days after we closed on the place. Of the 20 we planted, only 6 remain, that’s my fault, fire got to them. After seeing them today, I wish we had more!!
The jungle…

Another Native impression, but I didn’t get the tree I focus. It’s a good sized tree, I’m guessing 15’?

The motherload off 3 of the trees, I didn’t visit all of them.


The last tree I took this pic of was the smallest, but the acorns were big! I’m touching one of them in this pic.

A nearby native pecan tree that is keeping pace. Didn’t little better job with this pic. Lol

Also some native persimmons popping up, a couple of them are already good candidate for grafting, but I’d like to make sure they are males before I do that, might take a little longer before they bloom.

Though it was tempting to snoop around some more, I figured I’d already laid enough scent in the area. Lots and lots of elms growing too, but the deer are keeping them below eye level. It’s not easy getting through to at mess either. It’s not nearly as pretty as Native’s native prairie, but the deer love it!

 

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The new spotting scope has changed the setup for the barn perch. Full moon has the bigger deer coming out later, so it will be a while before I can upload a pic with the new phone mount.

 

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Went to water seedlings this afternoon, they look better than they did before, that rain a couple weeks ago really helped.
The brassicas are off and running, that is a sight for sore eyes! A beautiful plot of radishes and turnips isn’t a guarantee, but they’re off and running at least.

Looks like we get at least one pumpkin on the edge of the lower barn plot! I’m curious to see what the deer think of them this fall.

The truck said it was 101 in the shade, so I didn’t stay long!

 

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Picked up a pic of the 8 I was seeing about a month ago out of the barn. It wasn’t the nine, there are two bucks with similar frames and leaned out brows. Hopefully at least one of them sticks around this fall.

 

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I managed to mess up the mock scrape licking branch the other day, while checking the camera (customer service said it was throwing an error code and the battery cable had come loose, which it hadn’t), and had to rework it. I tried to bend it down some and it broke. I had nothing with me to fix it, so I had to pull some old barbed wire off a defunct fence and reposition the branch. After that, I decided the branch wasn’t quite positioned right, so I found a longer limb and wired it to the tree as well, and it’s perfect. Then I doped up both branches with orbital scent. In the end it looks MUCH better than it did originally. The first “natural” branch just seemed a little too high.
This is a regular picture we’re getting now, mostly does, but a few little guys are really starting to pay attention to the scrape branch.

 

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Loading up a couple pics specifically to show how resilient plants can be, given the proper circumstances. These brassicas got two days of really good rain about 10 days after they were planted, with a total of about 2.5” in August. Which is almost unheard of around here, even before the multi-year drought. In the 32 days since that rain, not a drop of precipitation has fallen. Not only that, the last 10 days the humidity has dropped dramatically as well, so things are incredibly crispy. In the face of all of this the plot looks pretty doggone good as of a couple days ago.

Also, the soybeans are still quite green, even though they are really struggling on our place to put on pods right now; the guy who farms our place lives over 30 miles away and he always gets down here late, so they’re behind. We REALLY need some rain soon on them, or they’re going to get hurt pretty bad. That being said, the deer are still enjoying them. This is the first year in a long time you can only see the very tips of a fawn’s ears when it’s in the beans. Not quite the days of old when bean plants would come up almost to my chest in wetter parts of the field, but MUCH better than the last 3 years of desert in the crops fields.


Deer are hitting the dwarf essex rape and radishes, and leaving the purple tops alone, just like they’re supposed to.

 

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Tough to water the pumpkins with these right next to them. The cracks are getting more respectable, they aren’t quite the ankle turners of the past few years yet.

 

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The rain missed us unfortunately, but I did manage to get a few pics in the neighborhood. Here’s a couple of the better ones. I’m pretty impressed with the spotter/phone combo, the big nine was over 800 yards away.
Big nine with kicker has shed and still looks pretty impressive.

This guy looks familiar from last year. Big bodied, but I don’t think his rack got much bigger.