My Land Tour...The Big Woods

I let a college kid who was home for the winter break trap on our property this winter. I was hoping he'd get a few yotes - the hay bale blind got some attention, but ultimately didn't produce. Just another way to utilize the property. It's too bad that the market has taken such a nose dive. I feel like we're drowning in predators now.
 
A local guy here caught over 100 coyotes and last I heard had 50 cats.When ice melts we trap beaver.I don't know how many coons he caught but I think he was getting 3-6 dollars each green
 
I let a college kid who was home for the winter break trap on our property this winter. I was hoping he'd get a few yotes - the hay bale blind got some attention, but ultimately didn't produce. Just another way to utilize the property. It's too bad that the market has taken such a nose dive. I feel like we're drowning in predators now.
I am almost thinking that we would be better off trapping rabbits. Take away the food the yotes need to go somewhere else.
 
I am almost thinking that we would be better off trapping rabbits. Take away the food the yotes need to go somewhere else.

I don’t think there is anything a yote won’t eat.

I do love my bunnies, I enjoy hunting them way to much to ever trap them or not want them around. Heck I make brush piles just for them so I have more!
Easy to to clean, taste great and can be cooked any way you cook chicken....one of my favorite things to hunt.
 
A local guy here caught over 100 coyotes and last I heard had 50 cats.When ice melts we trap beaver.I don't know how many coons he caught but I think he was getting 3-6 dollars each green

That guy is doing it right!
I think feral cats are even worse than coyotes, they are environmental terrorist. At least yotes will kill and eat cats.
I’ll shoot a coyote whenever I get the opportunity hunting other game.
Late season we do some calling and get a couple. I’ve never really had much of a problem with them on either of our places don’t see or hear many. Some of the neighbors run them with hounds.
Did have them chew up a deer a few years ago that I arrowed to far back and waited till morning to go after.
 
We went out to the farm Saturday in the balmy 9 degree morning temps and it wasn't too bad without wind. The wife wanted to ice skate on the front pond but after about ten minutes of shoveling I was out.
I did bring the snow shoes along, we had around eighteen inches of snow pack which is very rare in our area. It has probably been at least five years since we have had this much snow on the ground at once.
The wife had never used snow shoes before and kept stepping on the backs when she would try to turn sharp and flop right over in the now, I would help her up and down she would go a few minutes later. She had a good time anyway and I got some laughs...Darcy came out with us and had a nice run without bothering the bunnies much as they ran on top of the snow.

fyRgvID.jpg


zJ1Ea2C.jpg
 
Have spent a lot of time out at the farm the last couple of weeks.

Planted screened&caged more apple/crab trees, pruned all the fruit trees, cleaned out all the wood duck boxes, planted some more ROD along road from cuttings, cleaned up the trash along road in ditch and caged more of the white pines that are being molested by deer. I found a nice big roll of old farm fence while bunny hunting a couple months ago and the landowner I was on let me have it, was able to cage over a dozen more pines with it.
The whole time I've been messing around out there ducks and geese were coming and going from the ponds, in the last two weeks I've seen mallards/wood ducks/gadwalls/blue wing teal/ringnecks/hooded mergansers and canada geese on the pond this spring...lots of ringnecks. Yesterday a small flock of 30-40 snow geese flew down the river tree top high west to east, they were all white phase which was kind of strange.
There also hasn't been one day that I have been out there that I haven't see bald eagles... adult ones, juveniles and dirty headed/tailed younger ones. They are VERY talkative this time of year screeching and making that broken cackled cawing screaming noise, they are so cool to see and hear. There has been a nesting pair about a mile from me along the river for at least the past six or seven years, I have seen them pluck fish out of the front pond a couple times in the summer.
I've usually been out there from a couple hours to half a day and of course Darcy has to go along to worry the bunnies and mice, she is like a pinball bouncing around the brush piles and running rabbits past me. She will point rabbits while we are walking around and I will kick them up for her, the other day she was on point for about ten minutes as I watched her in the spruce along road. I couldn't believe she would hold it that long and got to thinking maybe it was a pheasant, I did see where a hawk killed one within the last two weeks in orchard. I walked over to her and at the flush....it was a bunny!
I'm going to have to start leaving her at home because the ground birds will be nesting soon along with the turkeys and I don't want her catching any baby rabbits.

I bought some silky dogwood cuttings from John-W-WI in 2019 to plant for road screen in the real wet spot along road. The other day as I was pushing in some ROD cuttings I almost stepped on one! I looked around and saw another and another. They are suckering great and a few were around 3' and budding/blossoming with kind of purple'ish pink catkins or pods on them...others were really browsed down by the deer but still thriving and suckering.

Spring 2019
i3Gtj0b.jpg


Now
cwbBeMu.jpg
NHyG179.jpg


With some deer luvin
gPLDJZx.jpg


Some of the ROD in shrub strips is pretty bushy now, the deer keep it well pruned...some is 4’ some 2’ depending on how wet the ground and how much the deer bother it.
CJIvrNu.jpg


drmLCeY.jpg


About the same with everything in shrub strips all depends on how wet and how much deer browes and beat on them, pin oaks look like bushes, cranberry looks great but still 3’ tall bushes along with the rest except for the hazelnuts…they look great around 7’ tall and suckering like crazy, we have a nice grove of them going by the back pond along woods.

We just had bud break on the fruit trees in the last two days
x7Ao5yY.jpg


yJwxEUd.jpg


Hopefully the weather doesn’t freeze off most of the blossoms/fruit next month like last year.
 
You sure those are silky dogwood? Looks a lot like some type of willow.
 
You sure those are silky dogwood? Looks a lot like some type of willow.

I think it's what I ordered and I think it is some kind of willow/willow type shrub.
I'm never sure what I have really planted until it gets going good or fruits....but it does kind of look like this;

 
You sure those are silky dogwood? Looks a lot like some type of willow.

I think it's probably Silky Willow...and I just said it wrong. I know I wanted something that grew well in wet area, I can't find any of the info from when I ordered it but found this other site with picks that look like it and match what I'm seeing on it with stamens.
I know the deer here like it...but they seem to nibble EVERYTHING!


Anyway ...I like it!
 
Where I am now we are not allowed to plant dogwoods, so I plant willows in the wet areas. The deer browse on them all year. They also grow fast and are very tolerant of the browse pressure. Definitely a winner in my book.
 
Where I am now we are not allowed to plant dogwoods, so I plant willows in the wet areas. The deer browse on them all year. They also grow fast and are very tolerant of the browse pressure. Definitely a winner in my book.

So far I've tried white pine, white cedar and hemlock in that spot, none of those took. I was glad to see the stuff from John working and that the deer like it. Wife and I planted some ROD cuttings in that low spot last spring and the survivors are slowly taking hold, it's about 40-50 yards long. With the ROD I put in the other day it should look kind of neat in a few years as it matures with the yellow and red mixed growing together with white pines at either end of it completing the road screen.
 
Get a few yellow twig dogwoods for contrast. I'm allowed to plant dogwoods in my home garden, and I have about 4 different colors, from deep merlot red through to chartreuse. They are all tiny still, but I've been to a park where they had different colors growing together and it was pretty cool in winter.
 
They look a lot like the yellow twig dogwoods I got from John.
 
The pear trees are just starting to flower now and apples are pushing leaves, pears always seem a week or two ahead of the apples.

I got all my grafting done a few weeks ago, 30 apples/crabs and 12 pears. Planted them in the nursery box today along with seven pecan spikes a buddy gave me that he had started in pots last summer. I’m not sure exactly what kind of pecan tree he has but it is a huge one in his front yard, thin shelled nuts that were kind of gray with dark stripes that tasted great. Those things have tap roots like an oak!
A couple of the new grafts felt like they had a little wiggle to them so I re-grafted them...hopefully it will be a good year for all of them.
The plan is to add some of the crabs to my shrub strips, plant apples/crabs and pears in new spot at Little Woods and give some to a couple of my buddies if all goes well. I've also got over forty fruit trees ordered for next spring with the bulk going to the LW.
Going to give persimmons a try at this farm next spring too, have a dozen ordered six grafted females and six mixed American.


Class of 2021

Q6DJ5W9.jpg


q3i6fk1.jpg
 
Pears are in full bloom now

MA7czMt.jpg


ZmJd8iD.jpg


One of the cherry trees front left is just about over with its bloom but pears are showy
2CHu21I.jpg


Moonglow on left Keiffer on right
Nc8WFwS.jpg


Ms Lanene
ZglL67I.jpg


Gilmer Christmas
MStkMev.jpg


Gate
7ClVAXD.jpg
 
Cont;

The shrub strips are very easy to see this time of year as they start to green up in the dead grass. The strips are on three sides of the fifteen acre pasture four rows each side and around five yards apart. One day I hope they will grow together and get nice and thick like an old school fencerow surrounding the pasture. They are planted with ROD/cranberry/elderberry/plum/hazelnut/chokecherry/winterberry/indian current/ninebark/snowberry/pin oak/nannyberry/purple osier and silky dogwood.

It has been a very long slow process getting them started with all the deer browsing, voles and wet ground but I think they are finally over the hump and should be able to stay ahead of the deer and voles now. There are places where they are spotty and have twenty to fifty yards of missing sections in strips here and there.
This is really about the only time of year I can walk the strips and evaluate them to see how they are doing overall and what I might want to ad or fill in down the road. So here is what they looked like yesterday, I wanted to show them good.

8uikEHB.jpg


OolD421.jpg


some pin oaks in the foreground, they havent started breaking bud just yet
3d40AbS.jpg


Yz575L8.jpg


Ay8TiFN.jpg


J2FI64j.jpg


O0DtKXa.jpg


cZdkMmk.jpg


saRYCgd.jpg


z6tH1Pb.jpg


kZnk8s8.jpg


mc7lg43.jpg


ImK2LBz.jpg


Some plums
BDzXJqc.jpg

wcch2c6.jpg


I think ninebark?
fDkkBOa.jpg


We have lots of ROD
miz0YXQ.jpg


Heavy deer browes but I think it has good enough roots to bounce back
G0w7pYG.jpg
 
Last edited:
Cont;

The hazelnut grove along woods is doing great!
NdzX9Z7.jpg


FRDGzEv.jpg


Small white pine plantings in pasture that we fenced that hopefully one day will provide thermal cover for deer and be great for birds
fPoGYH9.jpg


0amkVdp.jpg


peL801E.jpg


patch the youngest boy put in twenty yards from front pond for natural duck blind some day
dmvHKZD.jpg


white pine that was protected from the start
e5pcH6u.jpg


slowly getting all the white pines along the road caged too.

constant ducks and geese on ponds
6Y4JBhd.jpg


WNewQjX.jpg


saw one pair of bluebirds most of the ten bird houses have tree swallows on them
R2251hv.jpg


A few of the apples, most are just starting to bloom,
a Golden Hornet in bloom, it is on G222 I've grafted a few to M111 since I planted this tree
hdBQPOM.jpg


The first apple tree I ever grafted, Golden Russett
3nyUC3k.jpg


Gala
N8wjG01.jpg


Fuji
sUqvkvm.jpg


Granny Smith just starting
10xXAwf.jpg


Crazy bent crab from last spring is still thriving
SXF8wHY.jpg


Daffodils along the woods where I found all the flagstones I used for our fire ring...the wife calls them buttercups
0jpOtCe.jpg


One of fifteen Dunstans I put in five years ago just popping buds...eight are left, seven are iffy one is OK but not impressive. I do get nuts off a few, they just don't like my clay and having wet feet for to long. My buddy planted some in a sand spit along his river property and they are doing great...they grow for him like my pears do for me.
LioRf5M.jpg


Showing how I've still got Big Bluestem standing OK after all winter with crazy wind and more snow than we have had in years. I think it is because I have a good blend of Big and Little Blue/Indain and Switch with lots of coneflower stems mixed all together holding it up all winter?
This pic is from yesterday
NAdmUuJ.jpg



and Darcy had a hoot, pointed a few bunnies
VASCqkX.jpg
 
Last edited:
Looking good. May be one of those rare years for me where fruit trees actually bloom and don't get zapped by frost or freeze. Cross your fingers!
 
How is your Miscanthus doing? Any updated pics?
 
Top