Working at the Farm - Took a few I-Phone Pics

Native Hunter

Native Hunter

Well-Known Member
Hello friends. I found my way here and decided to register and start my habitat thread back.

For whatever reason, I'm still not in the mood to do a lot of posting since the demise of everything that all of us worked so hard on, but I have not lost my admiration and desire to be with the greatest habitat people on the planet and the greatest group in the history of the planet.

So I'm going to get this thread started, and I'm sure in no time my feelings will change more back to normal and we will be in the groove again.

I'm going to start by posting the aerial of my land again.

Red line is my property boundary on the 100 acres.
Yellow Boot shape is my 12 acre tree planting, with fruit and nuts on the east side and oaks and pines on back.
Blue is streams and ponds.
All fields are native grasses.
Old woods recently logged with many mature oaks left.
White squares - existing stands with center one being tower blind.
Inside Green area food plots existing, but the most northern one is currently fallow.
Orange line can be ignored. I once used it as a road but letting it grow up.

 
Native Hunter,

I like your farm and how you show & tell the story thru the text and photos. I am excited you are getting this thread back in front of us.
Welcome friend.
 
Dang you Native, you knew that barn pic would get me in a good mood and I was so liking my current pissed off mood. Seriously, always like your efforts on your land. The variety and density is just nothing short of amazing. How was the yote harvest after this years hay mowing? Good to see you on here, think I'll just sit back and enjoy everyones ride. Good stuff.
 
Always love your food plot pics but the native wildflowers are just breathtaking. Glad u signed on my friend. Looking forward to the journey.

Todd
 
Thanks so much everyone, and thanks Cutman for getting us here. So happy to see so many good friends.

Dogghr, I coyote hunted very little this year. Dad probably took about 4 out after the hay cutting on the neighbor. This year so far we have seen a significant reduction in coyotes from previous years. I think taking out 5 or 6 females last spring took its toll on them at least for a while. Every fawn I have seen on camera this spring is still alive and well. They are also big enough now that I think they are out of danger for the most part.

I fully understand what you mean about your current "mood." I feel the same way and literally had to force myself to start a thread. I also just wanted to set back and enjoy everyone else's ride for a while. But, we need you back posting. I need those thoughts of yours about nature that inspire me - do it for me!
 
I know how you feel regarding the loss of all that valuable info that people invested so much time and effort to compile. Though the loss of a forum is trivial in many respects by comparison, I can't help but remember how I felt on the evening of April 27, 2011 in Tuscaloosa after the tornado. So much of time, money and effort that had been put in over years and years was forever gone in a matter of about 10 minutes. The street that I lived on, called "home" and drove every day had vanished and been replaced with flipped cars, broken tree trunks, the smell of gas and sparking, fizzing power lines.

I can't help but remember standing there that day wondering "how in the world do you ever replace what was lost here?" Though it might sound crazy, I had a reminder of that "how can the loss of all this ever be replicated, much less replaced" feeling the day that we found out the forum would be closed and its info erased.

Though many of the posters and their info will not be replaced, perhaps the realization of how incredible the forum had been and what a tool it was will spawn a new energy in many in which the fire had waned or dimmed.

For Tuscaloosa, AL, it generated that "rebirth." It is new and different in some respects. The loss of the ancient oaks and other hardwoods is still painfully obvious to me when I drive the road on which I used to live. However, it is also incredibly apparent how much new growth and prosperity that the city is experiencing that is a direct result from the tornado. Many areas that had been neglected and abandoned are now beautiful and thriving. The tornado took from us many things that can't be duplicated or replaced. But, in many ways, that loss should also be credited with the creation of a lot of great things that would've never happened without it.

My hope is that, while some of the knowledge harbored on the old forum and the contributions from people that are gone will die with that forum's demise, new info/ people/ ideas/ relationships will form as a result that might not have without the force of change. It is late and I have no doubt that I rambled incoherently in spots; I am about to turn in after spending the afternoon on the tractor in the 100 degree heat working on my favorite place on earth.

So, I will end it with this: the work I did this afternoon, and the work that you, Native, and everyone else reading this will do tomorrow, next week, next year, or in 20 years will be better because of all the effort put into the info shared on the old forum. It will also serve as a perpetual memorial to those that contributed to that knowledge.

Hopefully, it will also serve as motivation to rebuild that info and camaraderie for those that will one day begin their journey of habitat improvement. And, perhaps the loss will result in a lot of new and good that might not have been generated without it.

**Thanks, cutman and others, who have taken the initiative to begin that process of rebuilding, and I have no doubt that we can build this place into something special.**
 
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Old barns and flowering chicory...man, what a tale to tell! Having been privileged enough to walk those grounds, I can tell you that it's every bit as impressive, in person, as it looks, in pictures. Perhaps one of the reasons why is Native Hunter chose to start with a massive and diverse tree planting, many years ago. He only recently got into food plots in a significant way. Most of us tend to start out doing the exact opposite and wind up looking back, wishing we'd planting trees the very first year.

Glad to see this thread here, NH. My greatest fears were that we would lose both knowledge and a sense of community. Threads like this one can help ensure the persistence of both.
 
Wow so glad to see this thread up and running and so many from the old forum over here. I never was a poster on the old forum but lurked there daily for years. Instead of waking up and having a cup of coffee, I was up and on that forum for my daily dose of inspiration. The land tours have always been some of my favorites and yours was one of them. Been addicted to habitat management for years, planting trees and plots and manipulating the forest with my chainsaw. I enjoy it as much if not more than the actual hunting these days. Glad your here, was worried where I was going to get my fix.
 
Thanks everyone. All of your comments mean the world to me. There may be some new folks want to follow this thread so I will give a little history.

Facts about my Farm:

Until around 2010 my place was a cattle farm. My family has owned it for several generations, and I inherited it from my grandparents. I grew up here, but now live a few minutes away now. I cannot describe in words my connection to this land. In recent years, I’ve basically given up most hobbies and now spend my spare time working my land and improving it. I still work a job full time but looking at either retiring or going part time in the near future.
  • My dad and I continue to farm it until the above mentioned date. I did start the 12 acre tree planting a few years earlier, and it was fenced off from the rest of the place. It took several years for the trees to even make any difference and the effort to promote the oaks, pines, fruit trees, etc. while fighting the sweet gums and other undesirables has been a challenge. But, the battle is getting easier and being won as time goes on. Now I have amazing fruit and nut production for such a young orchard.

  • All fields were fescue.

  • Around 2010 was when I started transforming the place significantly. All 60 acres of fescue were converted to native grasses and forbs. I also started managing the old woods by logging and TSI, but left a significant number of mature mast bearing trees. I also started working in other areas of the farm to promote what I wanted growing.

  • I have only seriously been hunting here for the last 4-5 years. Before that time we had almost no deer on the place. But when the cover and food appeared and the cows disappeared, things changed quickly. For the last 4 years I have either harvested or passed a shot at harvesting a mature buck, and I’ve had years that as many as 3 mature bucks were living on the place.

  • My first food plots were established in 2012. Before that time I had never planted a food plot, but my farming experience helped me. I also had the valuable help of many of you guys on this forum now. I’ve also had a lifelong zeal for fruit trees and got into knowledge of native plant many years ago, so all that experience helped with plots and field establishment. I’ve known for years what I wanted to do, but had to wait for the right time in my life to start it.

  • I’ve now extended the fruit and nut planting to the area in the center of the place near the barn and branch near the plots there. Those trees will also be producing by next year, God willing.

  • My job now is maintaining more than building, but I do try to still make a few new improvements each year. I run lots of trail cameras and this is just a part of the overall experience. We also hunt coyotes extremely hard to save fawns. I have a soft spot in my heart for fawns, and this year was my first year to see triplets. To me, this was a crowning achievement.

  • Perhaps my greatest limitation is that I am surrounded by lots of cattle farming land, not many crops and not any large wilderness areas – lots of civilization. It’s a challenge having significant deer numbers and getting bucks to maturity. But, it also means that my habitat is very desirable to the deer that are around, and my hunting is really better than I thought it could be.

  • My hunting goals are to harvest or pass a shot at one mature buck per year. So far that has been attainable. I also want my son to harvest any deer that makes him happy. He will also be hunting mature bucks in the early part of the season but may decide to take another deer later in the season since he loves to eat them. Two deer are about perfect for us to eat in a year, so when we both harvest one it works out great.

  • My habitat goals are to always move forward and never move backwards in terms of improvements to the land.

I thought I would share a few pictures from the past.


This is a pic of the stream that runs through my place. It heads up on my farm and is fed by a tremendous spring.

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Trail to the stream through the NWSGs and forbs.

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This is another trail through the NWSG Jungle from my gate to the Tower Blind.


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This is a distant view of the tower blind from the food plot near the branch.


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Here are some recent miscellaneous fruit and nut pictures. I maintain my tree planting early in the spring and only keep a path mowed along the edge until about September. After that I only go in to check a few cameras from time to time.





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]


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]


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