The Playground

[T-Max]

03/28/2016
Old field growth in the south east chunk. A little bit of everything in here.

I wish I had more habitat like this. Unfortunately my dad grew up a rancher and therefore he dislikes trees and loves 2-4D... Awesome stuff!

 

[E_308]

I wish I had more habitat like this. Unfortunately my dad grew up a rancher and therefore he dislikes trees and loves 2-4D... Awesome stuff!

I hear you, I come from a whole family of dozer & fescue loving farmers. All of them cuss my "useless" brushy ground. The same guys will blame coyotes for the lack of pheasants knowing they have dozed every brushy fencerow that we shot pheasants out of in high school! The place has its issues (like being overrun with AO and Sercia Les.) but if I could only set in one treestand for the rest of my life it would be on my Playground.

 

[dogghr]

Very nice. I liked the use of the Horn spreader. Never seen one of those, but I've seen old timers spread seed with bag by hand and do better than any of todays spreaders. I always like your thinking on brush and cover.

 

[Weasel]

Looking good E.

 

[E_308]

Decent stand of purple tops coming in from my last throw and mow.



So I try a couple of more over grown plots. Plot #1 last years rye and this years weeds with my custom boom setup.



Plot 2 was my "failed" milo, beans, sunflowers throw and spray plot. There was some of all of that in it, but mostly weeds. Fed deer and birds all summer.


Let the RU marinate over night, sowed wheat and oats in each field then fired up the little Massey. The trail leading back in the timber comes out 30 yards from a ladder stand.



I will be lucky if I don't have too much thatch on this one.



Just so you don't think I have only ugly food plots, I polished up some clover.

 

[E_308]

Burned area



Unfortunately it will also flush a lot of Sercia Lespedeza



I had some Escort XP so I ran two tanks of spray (a little over 20 gallons). Hopefully it works as well as the Pastureguard, it is recommended for use during and after blooming.

And lastly a little tune up to the ATV

 

[lakngolf]

Your clover picture with the flowers bordering is ready for a frame. Good stuff. You get some work out of the finish mower!

 

[Flyfixer]

Clover plot pic is calendar worthy! Sericea is the devil, Escort should do the job. It has worked well for me.

 

[E_308]

It looks to be raining up there this morning with another chance tomorrow. Should get the plots going.

 

[dogdoc]

freshly mowed clover plot is a pretty thing. Love all the flowers in the burned field. Lespedeza--yuk. Have tons of it at my place. Just learned to live with it as I will never rid my place of the stuff.

 

[OkieKubota]

All the Lespediza I sprayed with GLY is stone cold dead! Everytime I spray it it dies. I have killed off some pretty large patches with GLY...

 

[OkieKubota]

Oh yea, congrats on the rain! Put come in an envelope and mail it to me

 

[OkieKubota]

I wish I had more habitat like this. Unfortunately my dad grew up a rancher and therefore he dislikes trees and loves 2-4D... Awesome stuff!

I hear you, I come from a whole family of dozer & fescue loving farmers. All of them cuss my "useless" brushy ground. The same guys will blame coyotes for the lack of pheasants knowing they have dozed every brushy fencerow that we shot pheasants out of in high school! The place has its issues (like being overrun with AO and Sercia Les.) but if I could only set in one treestand for the rest of my life it would be on my Playground.

If my dad had access to a dozer there wouldn't have been a tree left on the entire property I grew up on. He tried and tried to get us boys to cut every tree down we could and my brother and I actually did cut about 10 acres of red oaks before we came to our senses and realized what we were doing

 

[E_308]

All the Lespediza I sprayed with GLY is stone cold dead! Everytime I spray it it dies. I have killed off some pretty large patches with GLY...

I have killed quite a bit with gly myself, the problem is it usually is right back the next year. I am hoping for some residual effect out of the Escort, the pasture guard seems to keep it knocked back for a year or two. The problem is those d@^& seeds last forever!

Oh yea, congrats on the rain! Put come in an envelope and mail it to me

According to weather underground it looks like they have just over an inch so far. Should get some seed going.

 

[E_308]

A couple of winters back we had an otter come through and get pretty hard on the catfish in both ponds. Yesterday my uncle stocked 50 8-10 inch channels in the west pond and 70 in the east. He also put 4 grass carp in the west one, I am holding off on the east pond since a little vegetation is not a bad thing. Both ponds are around 1.75 acres, so depending on the number of catfish left from the original stocking they should have plenty of room to grow. Hopefully the bass don't get too hard on them.

 

[Brushpile]

Was that uncle Fred?

 

[E_308]

Was that uncle Fred?

John and Mike

 

[1yellowdog]

Enjoying the your playground tour. Envious of your bravery to burn. My property is long overdue for a burn. I just haven't been able to bring myself to strike the match. Based on your question about tree tubes, I am guessing you are planning on adding more trees to the playground. What areas are you adding the trees to?

 

[E_308]

Trees are going on the slope down the northeast side of the property. Right now it is blackberry, locust, plum, AO, and a ton of sericia.

 

[E_308]

Took a few days off to finally climb a few trees. Deer movement was slow, couple of small bucks but I couldn't buy a doe within range. I set over my oat and wheat throw and mow plot Monday night. The seeding looks a little more even up close.



Couple of hours in I had a small flock of turkeys come through. Shot her at about 28 yards then she flopped off into the nasty hinge cut area full of thorns. If the rage hypodermics put as big of a hole in a deer I will be happy.



This is the other T&M plot. Even with the slow deer movement it beat being at work!