"Top of the Hill"
- Thread starter Chummer
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Chummer
Active Member
Got stuck in a monsoon so only got a couple pics. Powered through and got my plantings done for this year. I still have some pines to plant but I won't be up for a couple weeks and they will probably be dead before I get them in.
This is the new Dolgo Apple thicket. I was going to plant some shrubs here but all the green you see is some type of briar. I have not seen any like these before. They are spider like and I am not sure they will grow up. They appear to be a ground cover. Regardless the deer are hammering them. It almost looks like I ran a mower over them and there is crap everywhere.
2.5 years later and I am still getting good stump sprouts that the deer are loving.
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This is the new Dolgo Apple thicket. I was going to plant some shrubs here but all the green you see is some type of briar. I have not seen any like these before. They are spider like and I am not sure they will grow up. They appear to be a ground cover. Regardless the deer are hammering them. It almost looks like I ran a mower over them and there is crap everywhere.
2.5 years later and I am still getting good stump sprouts that the deer are loving.
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Chummer
Active Member
Life got busy this year. I haven't been to camp much at all. Just trying to keep apple trees alive and plots mowed have been about it. I have not thought much about the season and the cameras are not showing much besides a gaggle of bears which have seemed to set up permanent residence. Then to my surprise my oldest wants to spend the weekend with dad hanging a new stand. We appropriately called it Mady's stand and the excitement for the season rapidly came back. After being lost for a bit we found the spot I have wanted a stand for years(my how the woods are different with the leaves on). I have shot a few bucks from a stand 150 yards down the hill. The deer always cross where put this stand. The stand backs up to a steep camels hump so nothing should cross behind it. With the slope of the land we only had to hang it at 10' to be 18' above where the deer will be. She was pretty impressed with our work and that dad could still swing like a monkey in a tree.
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Chummer
Active Member
Took last year off from projects looking to get back into it. Did some chainsaw work today. Looking to connect my orchard plot to 4 more apple trees I released a couple years ago. It will add a plot about 70 yards long by 15 yards across. Where the 4 apple trees are will be about a 30 yard diameter circle. I started cutting today but still have 2’ of snow in some spots. I will go back when the snow is gone and cut everything flush to the ground so I can push it off with the tractor.
Chummer
Active Member
I thought I could get 9 trees planted and do some more chainsaw work on my orchard expansion. Not so fast. Still a bunch of snow. I got 6 of the 9 in and broke out the pole saw to go after some hawthorns that have been bothering me for years. They are the nastiest tree and I hate removing them. The pole saw let me do it from a distance and I only got stabbed a couple if times. No fun when you are using snow as mulch.
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Chummer
Active Member
I am standing in the center of the orchard plot. What started out as releasing some old native apple trees has turned into about 2.5 acres. I ended up with 19 native trees. I have about 30 grafted trees caged, another 20 root stocks to be grafted. The perimeter is planted in crab apple shrubs, ninebark, and dogwood. Once global warming kicks in the buffet will be open for business.
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Chummer
Active Member
Should be a good one. One thing I did notice is the wet area behind my plot has filled in with dogwood and elder berry. I cut all the big trees down about three years ago. Those two really stood out against the snow back drop. The dogwoods had heavy signs of browsing.
Chainsaw
Well-Known Member
And to think in our earlier years or at least in mine we used to brush hog to mow that stuff down so the"fine" grasses and native clover would grow;now we plan to spray the dogwood patches with Cleth to reduce the grass competition(not fully tested yet). The dogwoods are a very hardy plant that takes a lot of browsing and keeps on spreading while others get over browsed and have less and less of a presence.
Chainsaw
Well-Known Member
Try again.
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Great looking sign Jeremy! Your timing matched up with the SNIRT run perfectly. I haven't seen any printed results yet from this weekends' SNIRT but judging from all of the local activity and chatter early Saturday morning it was attended well. ATV's and UTV's were seemingly everywhere here in town filling up with fuel and supplies and heading for the HILL. With possibly over ten thousand machines going by, your new sign must have turned more than a few heads.
Were you there on site?
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Chummer
Active Member
Yes I was and there were no happy campers going by the sign. DEC had a road block a few hundred yards up the trail from me. I talked to an officer and he said that trail was off limits and they were writing tickets for everyone that came by. My one bordering neighbor called me already and is interested. He owns a couple hundred acres and this would give him ownership of the entire right side of the road and a bit on the main road.
Chainsaw
Well-Known Member
Bummer on the temporary trail closing. I can understand a neighbor wanting that piece; it is a prime location. He would have a very competitive bidder if I was still in the dollar making stage of life. One could make money off it to help pay for it without affecting the hunting possibilities much. Does the neighbor live there or is he a weekend resident?
Chummer
Active Member
He is weekends. He is subdividing all his road frontage up and building camps. He sold his first one three years ago to a guy from NJ. He just finished his second one that he stays in. He will build a third and sell the second. He is a great neighbor to me for now because he doesn’t allow hunting and doesn’t hunt either. I would like to get out before he gives me more neighbors. I am open to ideas, what would you do as a money maker?
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