Hello gang, I hope this is the right place that the welcome email told me to say hello to the group. If not I assure you it is not my first mistake :)
I work at a State College here in Central NY where I started as a groundsman then to a campus mover. I wanted more so back to school I went to become an HVAC-R Tech, today I am a Maintenance Supervisor and am in charge of a crew of 14 Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters and HVAC Techs. I am a button buck here but I am no rookie to Habitat Management, yet I still learn something new everyday from awesome people such as yourselves.
I began my Habitat obsession at an early age, while my buddies were out day-drinking my gears were grinding for new ways to become a more successful Deer Hunter. In my early 20's I heard about this thing called grafting and instantly had visions of making pears fall from wild apple trees around my treestands. I didn't own much back then but I knew what direction I wanted to go and knew that enough hard work would get me there. That fire still burns today almost 30 years later. Today I am mortgage free of a beautiful house in the country but only because I bought a fixer-upper that was in terrible shape so I gutted and remodeled it as a fresh start for my family. The house only sits on 8 acres so I didn't have much room (or money) to stretch my wings, I started small with transplanting and grafting with small monetary purchases going into my passion until 4 years ago when I finally bought the 30 Acres next door to my house and my dream came to fruition.
In the last 4 years I have planted nearly 800 trees, woody browse shrubs and berry bushes on the new 30 acres that was not long ago a baren sheep pasture with a small woodlot. It was a literal blank slate that Deer never hung around on because it had no cover or food. Most of the land for miles around looks the same, all the Oaks have been harvested for the almighty $ stripping the land of all food and cover and all that stands today is immature Maple and Poplar stands that are just dense enough to produce a barren forest floor. Like I said, no food and no cover which only makes my goal easier, the only Deer food I have around me are wild apples and farmers fields that alternate from clover to corn, which are good food sources but one thing I know is that deer like diversity and security.
Armed with this knowledge, I shoot for diversity but my overall aim is to feed my food, particularly Whitetails and Turkeys, that will in turn feed my 14 year old daughter and I for many years to come. I do plant some for my rabbits and game birds and a bit for my honeybee hives, I also try and incorporate things we humans can eat in case someday the crap hits the fan and I need a grocery store in the back yard. My goal when I retire in roughly 10 years is, I want to have a diverse but particularly unique year round food source for my area that nobody else around me has. In these last 4 years I've planted soft mass like Crabapple, Pears and Persimmons, I have also dug in and tubed hard mass like several different Chestnuts (including the never mentioned enough Allegheny Chinquapin), Butternut, 4 different Oaks, Heartnut, Hazelnuts etc. down to the smaller woody browse things like Dogwood, 9 Bark, Highbush Cranberry, winterberry etc. One of these days I will pick my grafting knife back up but I need more knowledge and resources before I try again. As of now I am only able to graft wild apple to wild apple but with nearly a 100% success rate on those, I just lack proper advice from experienced people and a really big compatibility chart lol
That was a lot longer than I intended but I dislike incomplete information but now you know who I am. I read a lot of your articles before I decided to make a bio and join this group but I did it because I see a lot of knowledge and experience in this group. I look forward to learning from you all. Lord knows I have made enough mistakes but I do embrace and count each one as a lesson learned.
Dirty Hands = Clean Money
