My Florida Destiny

[bigbendmarine]

Crimson clover is long gone now but was pretty while it lasted.





Believe I've said it before but I really like having a mix across my place here in North Florida. Crimson blooms and peaks relatively quickly, but just as it starts declining arrowleaf kicks in, and about the same time as the arrowleaf peaks ladino starts kicking in. Most of my arrowleaf has now dried up and gone to seed, but a small portion is STILL blooming at the start of July and most of the ladino is doing fine (though have few spots grass is starting to take over).

 

[bigbendmarine]

Darn bug the media is so focused on impacted our business enough I had some spare time on my hands in April... as not to let idle hands do the devil's work, used the time to tackle a few projects.

First up was replacing an ancient swing set literally on its last leg with a new one to ensure my daughter's safety. Ordered some brackets that allow one to use 4" x 4"s and a 4" x 6" to customize a build. This was the end result.



Ordered an EXTRA set of brackets for THIS build as well, and already put it to use three times since! Made it beefy enough to handle any deer and hogs up to hogzilla size, placing hand-crank winches on both sides so working with a friend can clean two deer / two pigs at once in the future if need be.



While I wouldn't wish hogs on anyone, they DO make for some good eating (whole destroying the land and stealing resources from deer aside). Use both a slow cooker and an instant pot to easily prepare several dishes. Here's pulled pork cooked in a crock-pot.



Actually cooked ribs in the instant pot to celebrate Independence Day. Topped the ribs (so tender bones pull right out / removed before took the pic) with chanterelles picked off our place -- made it feel like we were really celebrating "Independence" about as much as possible!







Used my Father's Day gift to toast my Independence as well -- favorite Father's Day gift received to date!

 

[Bill]

Let’s see the next gator hanging from that....

 

[bigbendmarine]

Let’s see the next gator hanging from that....

Bill, God knows I tried to make it happen... targeted one big gator and promise I'm telling the truth when I share that on two different nights, he took me and a couple of buddies on at least 5 separate "sleigh rides" across the pond before managing to get in HEAVY brush cover around the pond so thick we couldn't get to him (even with use of a mud motor one of the evenings).

On a POSITIVE note, sure ended up hanging a PILE OF PIGS from it, though. Had a sounder of 9 running around on the place during the summer and managed to take out all nine by picking off one or two at time when I'd see them in our fields. Introduced a nephew to hunting with one of the pigs, and also had a buddy I served with in the Corps manage to kill two during a fun visit he made during late summer (he got to enjoy several of the gator sleigh rides as well).

The hog and gator experiences were kind of tied together -- used the hog lungs as bait for the gator, and each time he went to them pretty much instantly. In Florida you have to have them on-line before you can shoot them, and even shooting-wise you're supposed to use a bang stick., thus the rides with us fighting him on heavy fishing gear.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Almost two years since I shared any updates, but still alive and kicking.

Above shared, the first half of 2021 about did me in. Not from any sickness, but instead near constant work dealing with feral hogs.

As a reminder, I've got 112 acres but am also blessed (and with the hogs cursed) that my homesite sits against 4,000 uninhabited quail plantation acres. During the fall of 2021 a couple of stands of swamp chestnut white oak trees near the pond on my place dropped acorns THICK. So thick that despite regular feeding on them by deer and hogs the trees still had acorns underneath them going into March of 2022. The result of the very heavy load of acorns was a corresponding steady stream of hogs, hogs, and more hogs visiting from the 4,000 neighboring acres. Trail cams went from lots of deer videos to more and more videos like this...

Compounding the population problem, the hogs had been using the 4,000 acres as a nursery for several years after a new owner bought the land and declared she didn't have a pig problem and halted the efforts of several teams of volunteer hunters who'd kept the numbers suppressed in the past (using some awesome equipment I must add -- a decked out Kawasaki mule with a thermal camera system mounted to the top running to a large screen monitor beside the steering wheel coupled with the use of rifles with thermal scopes to kill every hog spotted).

Early in 2022, a local timber conservancy group approached me and my neighbors to ask if we'd accept free help from USDA trappers (via hog eradication grant money) and I jumped at the chance. We put a couple of traps out along the perimeters of my oak stands and then began stacking the hogs up like cordwood. The downside being I work almost around the clock running a business and caring for our land but was also raised by a Father who preached to me not to waste anything and to put ANY animals killed to good use. With the USDA trapper being the decision maker on when to trigger the traps, I couldn't predict my schedule well at all and often found at first light I had 8 to 12 hogs needing to be processed. Got help cleaning a few, and gave a portion away... but dealt with the majority alone and now have 5 freezers full of meat to prove it.






Looking at things on the brighter side, God knew what he was doing when he planted the seed in my head to build my skinning/butchering rack when COVID briefly had our business shut down. Put it to DARN good use cleaning hogs through the spring and early summer. To date in 2022, killed 78 pigs and counting as still have a few stragglers showing up on camera.

 

[bigbendmarine]

This summer brought a surprising find... out harvesting chanterelle mushrooms and saw a flash of bright light in an otherwise VERY shaded spot and thought it was either bleached bones or small floating UFO orbs, lol. Joking aside, the white glint did instantly have me investigating what II had spotted in the woods. Ended up finding several stands of spider lilies. Owned the property for almost 9 years and had never spotted even a single one before this year.

 

[Native Hunter]

Great update. That is insane about all of those hogs, but it looks like you are doing an excellent job in helping to eradicate them. Best wishes.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Late summer and early fall brought on a number of harvests both for me and for the local deer herd.

Squeezed a dozen bottles of muscadine self-fermenting juice. For the bottles I manage to leave alone for a month or two, it ferments just enough to get quite bubbly.



Four fuyu persimmon trees produced several hundred persimmons this year. Began picking them in early October and just picked the last few off our trees this week in early December.



With LOTS of beauty berries around our place, made a decent-sized batch of beauty berry syrup this year and added in a few handfuls of elderberries to the batch for kicks and giggles. Beauty berries aren't especially flavorful raw but sugar magically turns them into something that tastes both unique and delicious.




Another unique offering we made this year was pear salsa. Thankful to have found the recipe as in addition to our Keiifer pear trees, we have a number of friends with what are called sand pear trees down our way and are extremely prodigious.



And at this very moment, we're getting our first decent crop of satsuma oranges. Peel easy and just the right level of sweetness to suit my taste.

 

[bigbendmarine]

As for harvests benefiting the local deer herd, starting to get some production from both sawtooth oaks and chinese chestnuts I planted six years ago as acorns (for the sawtooths) and saplints (chestnuts).

Did a survey on the 50 or so sawtooths I planted and despite a late freeze that really limited our other area oaks for the 2022 fall season, over half the sawtooths had acorns on them this year. With some recent forum debate on plantings drawing deer as well as posts regarding age of trees and production, sharing a few pics for whatever they're worth.

One of my six-year-old acorn-to-tree sawtooths to show size at 6 years and that it has gotten the attention of the deer.



Acorns I found under one tree when doing my survey.



Interestingly, a few of the sawtooths dropped earlier whereas a few others had much smaller green acorns looking to be multiple weeks behind. The acorns I planted were sent to me by a middle-Georgia contact and were from trees he said produced the latest on his place. Vey curious to see if a few do indeed prove to keep producing a bit later than the other trees, as that could make for a hunting plus.

Just as the sawtooths had a 50%+ production rate, so did the Chinese chestnuts I planted. Being the first noticeable crop I'd had, it seemed to take the deer a week or two to figure out the chestnuts were edible.... but once they figured things out, I struggled to find many chestnuts to pick up / had to shake the trees to get any for myself (to plant and also roasted a few).

 

[bigbendmarine]

One thing I've taken interest in after watching quite a few videos and checking out numerous websites is biochar.

Know it's not all created equal and not saying my method's been ideal, but have used a burn barrel with holes bored near the bottom to burn hardwood from my place and make charcoal, then crush up the charcoal to smaller sized chunks, place them in a 170-gallon stock tank. To "charge" the biochar I've been adding some organics such as grass clippings, peeing in the tank regularly (you know you're a habitat guy when...), and also pouring in many gallons of rich dark soldier fly casting juice that drips down from my compost bin into a plastic oil-can receptacle (never used to hold oil).




Picture of the stock tank shows some of the char looking dry, but I've been keeping at least enough water/compost tea mix in it to keep it wet almost all the time. I've also regularly used a shovel to mix it and somewhat keep chopping up the char into smaller and smaller pieces.

I'm interested in using the biochar to help a few of the chestnuts and sawtooths lagging in size/production behind the others to grow and gain production. The biggest question I have for any in the know is in timing. Guessing maybe at the expected time of our last frost in North Florida / mid-March? Love it if it might help both flowering and growth.

Not sure how many members have played around with biochar to date, but LOVE any feedback from those who have and PROMISE WON'T have my feelings hurt by any constructive criticism of my batch-making efforts.

 

[Troubles Trees]

WOWZER!!! From my perspective those Sawtooths and Chestnuts have phenomenal growth compared to anything I have ever stuck in the ground. Impressive man, very impressive!! Great job with everything, you are doing the right things apparently!

 

[bigbendmarine]

On a hunting note, though our gun season is crazy long (early Nov to late January) and Florida allows 5 bucks per hunter I generally have limited my harvest to no more than 2 bucks each year to keep the itchy trigger finger a bit more patient.

Ended up harvesting one of my two target bucks early in gun season this year. I called him "Double Brow" as he had double brows on both sides... or at least did all through velvet and until he broke one about a week before I harvested him. He was the dominant buck among the bachelor group that spent time on my place in the summer, traveling with another buck I've talked about in another post that I call MiniSplit (has several small splits in one ear). Double Brow and MiniSplit visited salt stumps together a few times and each time Double Brow pushed him off until he got his fill first.

 

[Bill]

you sure do put some big Florida deer on the ground.

 

[bigbendmarine]

And in the spirit of Ron White's routine that included the lines "If you've seen one lady naked... you want to see the rest of them naked", think we all enjoy buck shares whether trophy or not relative to others' photos (appreciate FL deer almost never will be weighing 250 and sporting racks scoring above 140 or so)...

But as our area goes, seeing some interesting bucks both on trail cam and in the stand.

Finally think I may have figured out at least one factor limiting MiniSplit from really improving year to year. Noticed he's had a limp all year due to something going on with his lower left front leg or hoof, and once I spotted it I can see that he's had something slowly developing with the leg at least back to last season. He's starting to limp heavily enough now I'm a bit worried he might draw coyotes though in bursts he's STILL chasing does from time to time. Do love the dark stain he's got on his antlers this year.



Got another buck that has more main beam mass than many others, though his tines are short and the beams are not that long. The color of his antlers is nearly white in comparison to MiniSplit's.



Been letting the one below walk this year, or at least have thus far and very likely will the rest of the season... of course once I gave him one pass, he's made it a habit of staying in the plot posing broadside multiple times for hours testing my resolve.



Mentioned in another post the value trees can serve in drawing bucks even without mast. That tree in the background is a swamp chestnut white oak grown from an acorn I pulled out of the belly of the nicest buck I've harvested to date (few may remember that tale) and later planted in the spot. Though I know it's stealing nutrients from the surrounding soil, almost every buck that goes by it stops to lick lower branches and / or scrape underneath it.



Have had one buck visit I'm pretty sure is 5 years old or older that I can't recall ever seeing before. It has a really wonky rack with one CRAZY tall brow tine, and a sticker point or two. That shared it didn't get old being a dummy... showed up only a time or two between 1 AM and 3 AM thus far.



And finally one that showed up over Thanksgiving while I was in South Carolina visiting family. Never fails when I can't hunt in the day or two around Thanksgiving, a new nice buck waltzes around without a care in the world in broad daylight, sometimes never to be seen again. Doesn't look that old but dang nice rack for our area, so not sure I'll be able to control the itchy finger if he puts me to the test.





And for those who haven't heard the Ron White routine on naked ladies, it's good for a laugh or two though warning in advance language is PG-13 in spots. Relevant portion of the clip is from about the 2 minute to the 3 minute mark.

 

[swat1018]

No issues with citrus greening disease? (I believe that's the right name..) I lost all of my citrus at my place in south Florida, as did the rest of the area. I remember my first trips there in the early 90s and how everyone had a yard full of citrus. I have one remaining, and it needs to go...

 

[bigbendmarine]

No issues with citrus greening disease? (I believe that's the right name..) I lost all of my citrus at my place in south Florida, as did the rest of the area. I remember my first trips there in the early 90s and how everyone had a yard full of citrus. I have one remaining, and it needs to go...

No serious issue with citrus greening yet, swat1018, though wouldn't surprise me if it turns out to be a problem in the near future as last year it was found in a residential tree in Tallahassee/Leon County which is actually a bit east of my place.

Our trees have had numerous curled leaves since we planted them, but haven't yellowed and trees have put on decent growth. Satsumas turned completely orange and are really sweet right now as well. On the earlier note I posted about biochar, in at least a few studies it has been shown to help reduce/slow issues caused by greening by improving the root systems, though not actually eliminating it. Love to at least get some additional years out of my trees as I planted them a few years ago and this year gave us our first real crop.

 

[bigbendmarine]

And regarding my North Florida location, found out forum member Hilltopper fished the pond on my place and rented a spot next door from my neighbor about 20 years before I ever even saw the place. Crazy small world sometimes.

 

[Telemark]

One thing I've taken interest in after watching quite a few videos and checking out numerous websites is biochar.

Know it's not all created equal and not saying my method's been ideal, but have used a burn barrel with holes bored near the bottom to burn hardwood from my place and make charcoal, then crush up the charcoal to smaller sized chunks, place them in a 170-gallon stock tank. To "charge" the biochar I've been adding some organics such as grass clippings, peeing in the tank regularly (you know you're a habitat guy when...), and also pouring in many gallons of rich dark soldier fly casting juice that drips down from my compost bin into a plastic oil-can receptacle (never used to hold oil).

View attachment 47872
View attachment 47873

Picture of the stock tank shows some of the char looking dry, but I've been keeping at least enough water/compost tea mix in it to keep it wet almost all the time. I've also regularly used a shovel to mix it and somewhat keep chopping up the char into smaller and smaller pieces.

I'm interested in using the biochar to help a few of the chestnuts and sawtooths lagging in size/production behind the others to grow and gain production. The biggest question I have for any in the know is in timing. Guessing maybe at the expected time of our last frost in North Florida / mid-March? Love it if it might help both flowering and growth.

Not sure how many members have played around with biochar to date, but LOVE any feedback from those who have and PROMISE WON'T have my feelings hurt by any constructive criticism of my batch-making efforts.

I use biochar extensively. You seem to be doing it right, in my opinion, but there are a few things I think you should do to improve results:

1. Try to crush the charcoal into very small particles. Ideally it will be so small that it can pass through an earthworm's digestive tract and be incorporated and redistributed throughout the soil.

2. Try to keep the biochar aerobic. I think the soldier fly frass is a great addition, in terms of nutrients as well as biology, but the whole mixture will go anaerobic if it is submerged in water. Think of your biochar as soil, since it will become a part of the soil. I mix mine with compost and keep it in the shade to charge it before i put it in my garden. I think you would get better results by layering the charcoal with the grass clippings, etc. but in a container that can drain. And then spray it as necessary. Also, you might want to keep a cover on it to keep the temperature and light level low to encourage colonization by the types of organisms that live in soil.

I like to add biochar to trees in autumn. I dibble a hole with a shovel and pour in some biochar and stamp the hole closed with my boot. I do about 4 of these per tree. I also have some biochar I have pulverized in a blender and keep in a bucket with urine. I try to throw a couple cups of this on the ground around the tree before I mulch. I think this timing is best in general as it gives a good amount of time for the biochar to integrate into the soil biome before the growing season, and reduces potential shock to the system. Don't be afraid to make a huge pile of biochar and let it sit around for a year or two until you get around to using it.

It is a good idea to temper your expectations with biochar. It is a very long-term soil amendment. It will likely take years to properly incorporate into the soil, and the effects are limited by the type of soil you have. Biochar works best in soils that are low in nutrients and organic matter. Where I live we get about 90 inches of rain per year, and the soils are generally acidic and low in nutrients, sometimes borderline peat. I try to add sand and clay in these areas as well as biochar. Some areas have sandy soil, so in addition to biochar, i add clay, compost, and rotting wood chips.

Lately I have been giving my trees an "ocean milkshake" as well. I basically take the leftover bones and other bits from when i fillet fish and grind it up in a blender with some seaweed. Then I dibble a hole near a tree or shrub and pour the mix in the hole and mush down the hole with my boot. I live near the sea, so I collect seaweed by the trash bag full. I rinse it with the garden hose and leave it out in the sun to dry. When it's all dry and crispy, i crush it down and consolidate it into a single bag that i keep in my garage. Then I throw some into my compost and ocean milkshakes as i see fit.

 

[bigbendmarine]

I use biochar extensively. You seem to be doing it right, in my opinion, but there are a few things I think you should do to improve results:...

MUCH appreciate the useful info, Telemark!

On the size issue, I'll plead guilty to knowing that the smaller the particles the better but I need to come up with a better process for crushing with the time I have available. I basically have been using the end of a flat shovel to "cut" big chunks into smaller chunks as quickly as possible before putting the biochar into the stock tank. Did use the end of a 4 x 4 to crush some chuncks into much smaller particles but couldn't find time to do it with all I've cooked.

I'll definitely act on your advice to drain the stock tank and layer in more compost. Thankfully the tank has a removable plug at the bottom of the tank so I can easily remedy not keeping the biochar submerged.

Also definitely not rushing to use it before giving it time to age/absorb as much nutrient load as possible. Most of the char pictured was cooked this summer / about 4 or 5 months ago. The issue of timing / getting the biochar "charged" is actually what drew my attention in the first place. Living in the country we burn paper / burnable trash / tree branches regularly at our property and before ever hearing about biochar I noticed if I moved burn pile locations that the spot I used to burn would NOT grow much of anything for about a year, and then all of a sudden one day I'd look and the spots would be much greener and have better plant growth than surrounding soils. The biochar reading and videos I watched helped me understand that the char left behind was sucking up nutrients initially / robbing them from the soils until "charged".

As for my soils, while they're not quite as sandy as most of Florida they're quite acidic and nutrient-poor enough to benefit from the char. I've already been using much smaller amounts of char for use with potted saplings, container gardens, etc mixing in about 10% char to 90% of soils from my place and it's helped / definitely not hurt growth (used unamended soil with some saplings just to be able to compare results).

 

[bigbendmarine]

Shared in the "How Many Years Since Killing Your Last Deer?" that with 5 freezers full of fish, hog, and deer meat I purposefully didn't harvest a buck this past season. Instead, I "shot' them with my camera.

Just this past week, was able to record this footage of a bachelor group pretty solidly formed back up, even if doing some light sparring to cement hierarchy standing.

Thought a few forum members might enjoy the footage.