Habitat projects for the weekend?

Today I had to drive to Southern MN, about a 8 hour round trip, then when I got back home, I buried the insulated pex lined for my outdoor wood boiler, made cages and weed mats for my white cedars which I will plant tomorrow while my wife is out to eat with the kids. Then I just have 50 BHS to plant.
I hope you used the closed cell foam insulated pex pipe and not the bubble wrapped stuff.
 
Today I had to drive to Southern MN, about a 8 hour round trip, then when I got back home, I buried the insulated pex lined for my outdoor wood boiler, made cages and weed mats for my white cedars which I will plant tomorrow while my wife is out to eat with the kids. Then I just have 50 BHS to plant.

I made the same trip to celebrate Mother’s Day. It is nice to be home, but unlike you, I did little when I got back.


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I hope you used the closed cell foam insulated pex pipe and not the bubble wrapped stuff.


I bought a Central Boiler, and they make, and push the Thermopex brand. I think it is as good as it gets for insulation, but flexibility and ease of installation kinda sucks. It doesn’t bend very easy, and really has memory to want to recoil, but it’s installed, and it wasn’t to bad. B1A6A85A-E218-4BB6-9AEE-D1477991ED98.png
 
I bought a Central Boiler, and they make, and push the Thermopex brand. I think it is as good as it gets for insulation, but flexibility and ease of installation kinda sucks. It doesn’t bend very easy, and really has memory to want to recoil, but it’s installed, and it wasn’t to bad. View attachment 42865
That’s the good stuff
 
Well found a big project I'm going to have to take care of really soon. Anybody that is already infested with this crap I feel for you. Mile a minute, grows up to a foot a day. I sprayed a bunch last year but I guess I missed some because it's coming up everywhere in two of my plots. I was hoping to not have to spray this year but I want to hit this before it gets started.

Mile a minute.jpg
 
Planted some spruce, oaks, and red pines, put in docks, got the kubota switched from snowblowin mode to food plottin mode up at the parents place last weekend. Then realized I'm booked on family commitments the next two weekends..

Liming, brush mowing, spraying, screen planting, and tree matting/mulching/caging on my place is probably going to take some late weeknights. Jumped in the deep end and bit off a little more than i can chew.
 
Planted some spruce, oaks, and red pines, put in docks, got the kubota switched from snowblowin mode to food plottin mode up at the parents place last weekend. Then realized I'm booked on family commitments the next two weekends..

Liming, brush mowing, spraying, screen planting, and tree matting/mulching/caging on my place is probably going to take some late weeknights. Jumped in the deep end and bit off a little more than i can chew.
I'm right there with you. It's been a busy spring with all these projects and spring planting coming together at the same time. Finally able to get the tree auger off my tractor tonight and get ready to put some corn and beans in hopefully this weekend.
I figure the mulch and cages can wait a few weeks until the timely plantings have been completed.
 
Planted some spruce, oaks, and red pines, put in docks, got the kubota switched from snowblowin mode to food plottin mode up at the parents place last weekend. Then realized I'm booked on family commitments the next two weekends..

Liming, brush mowing, spraying, screen planting, and tree matting/mulching/caging on my place is probably going to take some late weeknights. Jumped in the deep end and bit off a little more than i can chew.

I have done that and keep cutting back as I get older. I do less and less on foodplots and did not plant any conifers this spring.

I planted/ moved 8-10 crab apples but am running out of room to plant.


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Sprayed 200 gallons of Remedy Ultra today killing blackberries, multi floral rose and hedge sprouts. Noticed a culvert I put in last fall has washed out pretty badly I’ll have to get a load of 6” rock delivered in there when things dry up some.
 
300 gallons more spray today I maybe winding down on the blackberry and multi floral rose at least for this year. I think I’ve made it down about 5 miles of fencing in the last two days and a 3 acre blackberry patch.
 
Busy day yesterday we cleared several tree pockets growing up in a 60 acre native grass hay meadow. I’ve decided the reason those tree pockets started to begin with is those areas are slightly lower and hold just a bit of water longer than the rest of the hay meadow. I pushed out the trees in yellow and then carried fill from the red area to build up those areas before discing yesterday. The ones in purple we did last fall. Still have a few of the bigger ones left but I think I’m going to just leave those alone. I have one other one that doesn’t have any trees growing in it that my 86 year old mother in law said they always called the buffalo wallows. Could be that is what caused it. I’ve seen elk wallows before hunting in Colorado ours is just quite a bit bigger than the elk ones I’ve seen but so are buffalo.
 

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Busy day yesterday we cleared several tree pockets growing up in a 60 acre native grass hay meadow. I’ve decided the reason those tree pockets started to begin with is those areas are slightly lower and hold just a bit of water longer than the rest of the hay meadow. I pushed out the trees in yellow and then carried fill from the red area to build up those areas before discing yesterday. The ones in purple we did last fall. Still have a few of the bigger ones left but I think I’m going to just leave those alone. I have one other one that doesn’t have any trees growing in it that my 86 year old mother in law said they always called the buffalo wallows. Could be that is what caused it. I’ve seen elk wallows before hunting in Colorado ours is just quite a bit bigger than the elk ones I’ve seen but so are buffalo.

Didn’t the tree pockets offer worthwhile diversity?


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Didn’t the tree pockets offer worthwhile diversity?


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They have wildlife value no doubt but for farmers it’s often a balancing act. Our properties also have to make $$$ farming so in this case I choose to remove most of the tree pockets to make bailing hay much easier in that warm season native grass hay meadow. If I didn’t care at all about diversity I would convert that 60 acres to row crop at double the rent price of hay meadow but loosing a native grass hay meadow hurts my soul a bit.
 
They have wildlife value no doubt but for farmers it’s often a balancing act. Our properties also have to make $$$ farming so in this case I choose to remove most of the tree pockets to make bailing hay much easier in that warm season native grass hay meadow. If I didn’t care at all about diversity I would convert that 60 acres to row crop at double the rent price of hay meadow but loosing a native grass hay meadow hurts my soul a bit.

Thank you for the explanation. Almost half of my place is rental ag acres and I understand the need for cash flow.


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Had some high winds and needed to re-stake my dunstan's/tubes that I direct seeded a few years ago. I used some lighter stakes when I did it and they did not hold up. Got that done yesterday and took a few pics of the apple and pear trees. You can see the dunstans in the background in a couple pics.

Here are a few from the smaller orchard.






From the larger orchard.


 
Planting 15ish acres of CRP style mixes, switchgrass, and pollinators this weekend. The tractor is on loan from a farmer and the drill is rented from the county. Should be finished up by tonight.61388.jpeg61386.jpeg
 
Did some lime and fertilizer spreadin and spraying yesterday. Going to tow the new drill up to the land (wish me luck going 60 miles @ 30 mph towing the drill behind the pickup..) and try to get my sorghum screen planted today. Supposed to be high 90s so I’m going to be wishin I had a cab on the tractor!

Edit: little breeze this afternoon made it not feel so bad. 50F48F80-7549-4B82-BEF4-D908F14BA9E8.jpeg4C2835AA-7E3B-436F-ABE8-A256162F7E08.jpeg5A97B176-0FD0-4D92-95A7-85FAE3EAC0BF.jpeg3994202C-231C-46EB-A59F-DB6FDF036C03.jpeg
 
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I’m not sure how I feel about drilling through the sprayed RCG sod instead of discing it first. I can set things to go a little deeper to make sure I get through and and probably still be ok with the sorghum seeds + i sprayed simazine in the screen that I hope helps minimize competition. Can’t do the same with brassicas, clover, and chicory. I might disc half of my plots for a little experiment between drilling through the sod and discing prior to drilling.
 
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I’m not sure how I feel about drilling through the sprayed RCG sod instead of discing it first. I can set things to go a little deeper to make sure I get through and and probably still be ok with the sorghum seeds + i sprayed simazine in the screen that I hope helps minimize competition. Can’t do the same with brassicas, clover, and chicory. I might disc half of my plots for a little experiment between drilling through the sod and discing prior to tilling.
This no-till thing is a leap of faith......no? grin.
 
I was cleaning up those tree pockets some Saturday and my hydraulic pump quit me on my Cat 951 have to rebuild it when I get to it. After that I removed both tilt rams off my JD 4700 they been leaking so time to rebuild them. Then I swung by my mother in-laws and remembered her Scag mower was giving her fits so I trouble shot it for a few minutes and decided the electronic fuel pump gave up on her so i removed it. Got the ram seal kits today and rebuilt both cylinders this evening. Ordered the fuel pump for the Scag turf tiger. Also found a half pallet of high tensile barbed wire at a ok price today online and ordered it before the price jumped up. 22 rolls at $109 each we had been running Red Brand wire but I’ve not been overly impressed with it so I started using premium high tensile time will be the ultimate judge of if it’s worth it. 40 year rust proofing they claim I guess my kids will find out. Sunday my oldest boy and I drilled and welded a 2” receiver pipe to an old 3 point rake I had laying around so I could pull the water buffalo with the tractor. Then in the evening my middle boy and I filled the 400 gallon buffalo and watered trees. The tractor and buffalo is the cats meow compared to using the truck and poly tank in the bed last year.
 
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