Who's working in the woods this weekend?

I planted a few new apples to the camp orchard. This one is a Sundance (Co-op 29) on a P.18 rootstock. It sure does not look like much now, but in 10 years, it should be throwing off bushels of apples from October, all the way through February. Ya gotta start sometime, and today was a good day to get this tree in the ground and growing.
 

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Not in the woods but reroofed the cabin last Saturday. Had 3 buddies come up and help. I provided the meals and refreshments. Sent them all home with a bottle of there favored drink as well. Started at 7:30am, finished up at 5:30pm. 2 of them stayed the night and had a nice campfire. No wolves howling this time...
 
My 125 wild plums from MDC came yesterday. I have 75 of them in now and it just started sleeting sideways. Waiting it out in the truck. Wanted to mention the Bushpro Hiballer that Cavey recommended is working awesome. The biggest plums would prefer the wolverine but I'm leaving it in the truck and stuffing the roots in best I can. Hiballer is slick!

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Slaying trees with the 550XP. Will be helping a buddy burn 66 acres tomorrow. This work from home social distancing is the best thing to happen to my habitat.
 
My 125 wild plums from MDC came yesterday. I have 75 of them in now and it just started sleeting sideways. Waiting it out in the truck. Wanted to mention the Bushpro Hiballer that Cavey recommended is working awesome. The biggest plums would prefer the wolverine but I'm leaving it in the truck and stuffing the roots in best I can. Hiballer is slick!

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Wonder if you just had go through what we did earlier.

Around 10am, had a 30 mile wide system go through at 50 mph, white out blizzard for about 10 min. Sunny and gone now. Tho still windy.
 
My 125 wild plums from MDC came yesterday. I have 75 of them in now and it just started sleeting sideways. Waiting it out in the truck. Wanted to mention the Bushpro Hiballer that Cavey recommended is working awesome. The biggest plums would prefer the wolverine but I'm leaving it in the truck and stuffing the roots in best I can. Hiballer is slick!

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Are you protecting your plums? I'm thinking about cutting some potential bedding areas this Spring and planting next. I wasn't sure if they'd get hammered or not.
 
These will not be protected, blue. The last time I put plums in, 4 yrs ago I think when the herd was prbly slightly smaller, most the other shrubs got whacked but the plums somehow made it. I think they grew the fastest. Got some at 6' during their 1st summer. Will be interesting to see what happens this go-round.
 
Ive got another tree clearing project. 3 acres at $250 an acre. Get to keep the pecans, walnuts, and single oak in there. The rest have to go.
 
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I spent a couple hours this afternoon putting 45 seedlings in the ground. Have 50 more to finish tomorrow. Wasn’t planning to do quite this many (120 this spring), but my original order of 20 persimmon, and 10 each of the Dolgo crabapple, hazelnut, Amer. plum, and pawpaw from the local SWCD was cancelled about a month ago due to the Coronavirus. No problem, I had already ordered 25 Chinese chestnut from Cold Stream and got those in the ground a few weeks ago, and decided on just doing some persimmon. Ordered 25 seedlings from 39th Parallel and 10 more from another farm. Lo and behold, get a call midweek out of the blue from the SWCD saying they were able to fill a couple orders and mine was one of them; come get my seedlings. The more the merrier I suppose! My only worry is not having tubes on hand for the extra seedlings. More tubes are ordered but not due to arrive until mid/late week. Chestnuts, Dolgos, and 15 persimmon got tubed so far. 35 more on the way and planning to use them on some of the persimmon and probably cages for the plums and hazelnuts. Just hoping they don’t become a snack in the week that they’ll be exposed.
 
Slayed a bunch of locust and hedge coming up in my grasslands. Gotta go back to work tomorrow night so may cool it for a few days unless I get a day I cant sleep.
 
went and took a look yesterday, wow was it wet, muddy mess. walked ach plot but good grief, forgot to check on the paw paw and persimmon I planted last time down, lot on the mind.
 
Went out today after a doc appt. Work didn't really know where I was, so I took full advantage of it. planted my 2 acres of alfalfa/chicory mix.

Disced things up a couple times, drug it, broadcast, then drug it again with the shanks on the drag up.

Bring on the rain.
 
Hey again. Got out a few weekends ago and put in a new micro plot on a ridge top in a bedding area. Dug a waterhole using an old cargo carrier LOL. Have to walk in about 20 yards to the stand off the field edge, and the plot is about 50 yards off the field. I got that very confident feeling for the first week of November. The set of ~145” shed antlers we found 30 yards away helped with that feeling a lot! Can’t wait and happy to be done with it. I seeded it with clover and beans.

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We seeded and dragged this bottom between bedding areas and crop fields. Planted this with clover and beans as well.

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This spot is terribly difficult to hunt.


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got out twice this weekend, did some disc work, and checked plots fist day, today I went back and hit the plot with the disc 3 more passes, then seede wih inoculated faba bean seed. bad part was I cracked a bearing on the disc, going to need a re build. might as well do both sides, axles to nuts. switched over to spray setup, adn found something amis in my 120 v transfer pump that I draw water to fill sprayer. shot the day dead right there. got the pump home and got it working, I dropped the rubber shaft end into the pum as I put it back together after clearing a clog. nothing new to buy there. Got fingers crossed for the faba, the next in a long line of new things to try.

if I had the time, and money, I'd be trying to come up with a hybrid between kudzu and soybean, come up with a ploant that grows like wild, but only from the initial cross, so it doens't take over in the wild.
 
I think I was spotted by a tom through the windows of one of my blinds this past season, so this Saturday I installed some curtain rods and burlap in the windows. I think I'm going to try netting on another blind. I sprayed the grass around the fruit trees planted last year as well as some plums and fragrant sumac I planted a few weeks ago. I experimented with spraying diluted glyphosate on multiflora rose, autumn olive, bush honeysuckle, vines and other things along several fences and around "the big" lake (it's 2 acres but there are 13 smaller ponds). Basal bark treatment with Brushtox and diesel works great for autumn olive, multiflora rose, and other smooth barked trees (so long as they aren't too big) but it doesn't do much on honeysuckle. I think I may have identified the first persimmon on my property but I'm hoping to get confirmation. The leaves were so high and the sun was blocking my view but the bark looked like it.

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