Mortenson

Mortenson

5 year old buck +
Here's a thread to show habitat projects and hunting experiences on the family property. We're going at our own pace, but usually try to get a few things accomplished each year. I only acted on the concept of improving a hunting property about five years ago. It has made for a nice element to the hunt. I'd say half the fun now is in the plotting, scheming, and deciding what to do and where to do it. I've definitely barely scratched the surface, and don't have the knowledge that most the posters here have. I know my kids and dad will enjoy tagging along. This will probably be more picture showing than storytelling.

Around here anyway, farms are usually "named" after the previous owner. So when my grandpa bought this farm in the 60's, it became the Mortenson farm. It was the right purchase for him because it really had all that he needed, even though it was 15 miles from his home. He had transitioned from exclusively running a sawmill into farming. This farm had a good mixture of hardwoods, pasture, a couple barns, and water, (and good, deep tillable acres on the west side of the road). This thread will focus on the east side of the road, what has become our recreational property. The final cattle were sold in '95 and it's pretty much been a hunting farm since then.
 
A look at the farm. For Christmas last year, I got my dad a wall map. This is the image in digital format. We were recently able to buy around 12 acres that adjoins us, making up that SW little corner with the irregular border following the creek. That took the acreage to around 200. The two tillable fields are 27 and 15 acres. We call this pretty much a doe farm, but that means things can heat up come fall. I think bucks mostly bed to the north and the south, in those bigger woodlots. We're part of small creek system. For all intents and purposes, the creek bottom is a little over 2 miles long, taking in maybe a couple thousand acres tops. We can't really draw deer from many directions. To west and south it turns into prairie. To the north and east, a few deer may travel around. There's state parks and some old quarry ground in those directions.

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Glad you started a land thread. Drawing deer from lots of different directions is exciting!
 
Nice looking place. Lots of mixed open and cover. And pinch points.
 
Looking forward to watching this thread!
 
Checked on a couple plots yesterday. With good chances of rain several days in a row, I wanted to see if they needed seed or fertilizer added. Ended up only adding some cereal rye at the rate of 2 bu/ac, both on brassica plots. One of the plots, which my dad uses to crossbow hunt on, also has some chicory in it (our first time planting that). It looks nice in pockets. That little plot has a few bur oaks surrounding it that were raining down the tootsie rolls while I was there. They're still loaded, and the ones I tugged on were solidly attached yet. .85" on the rye so far.

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^^^^ Signs of " the sickness " in that truck bed pic !!!

Aerial pic and surrounding land look like good deer hunting territory. Your greens look really good. Acorns = candy.
 
Real nice place.

I hate to tell you this......Your infected! No known cure either.....regardless of how much dirt you turn, seed you plant, trees you cut and plant (and trust me your friends and family will ask you to justify doing both) you will always be looking for the next project. What do I plant next year? Where to put the next stand? How to I enhance that area? All while hunting and doing the work for this year! Your a sick, sick, man....just enjoy the time you have with loved ones as there is no cure! I can't say how long you have.....but Habitat Disease is incurable. WELCOME TO THE CLUB!:emoji_grin:
 
Awesome looking place! I look forward to following your thread/posts!
 
Hi guys, thanks for the comments. My oldest child, Chris, and I were able to sneak out and check some trail cams in the rain today. Bucks have started to show up, and it appears for now anyway, that we were lucky to escape EHD this year. That's always a sigh of relief. We walked past one of our two young orchards. Here are pics of 2nd year Enterprise and Querina Florina, followed by pics of the backyard nursery, trees that'll soon be moved to the farm. In the pic with Chris, from left are a Wickson, 30-06, Enterprise, & Columbia. With Bethany is the rockstar of my intro grafting season, a Liberty that's grown above the 6' fence. Just like with the deer I shoot, I've learned to position my kids with my trees to make them look really big.

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Trees are looking good and the crew looks great!
 
I was able to start a habitat project today. I've mentioned it a few times, but in the center of our farm is a 15 acre chunk that was designated as a hardwood plantation. I got yanked from school to help plant them in the early 90's. The black walnut have done pretty well where they got placed in the more damp spots. The ash were doing well, but we all know how that's turning out. The oaks never got established. Too slow growing, and the deer wiped them out. So bare spots have been growing weeds for a number of years now. A few years ago we planted several varieties of 1,200 shrubs. Wild plums have been the only survivors on a decent level. Therefore, bare spots still remain. Which brings me to today. I sprayed gly/blue-dye/oust circles in roughly a 9'x9' spacing (I think much of it is more like 7' or 8') on sections of the ground totaling about 2 acres. Next spring I plan to hand plant Miscanthus Giganteus rhizomes. We've been wanting to create some pockets of bedding. I think this finally might be the ticket, as the initial experimentation with 100 rhizomes this year went pretty well. This project, along with getting more fruit trees in the ground, will be our only jobs for '19.

Here are a few of the walnut last winter, again with my human measuring stick. That'll be a recurring theme. They're not all perfectly straight, but we've tried to keep the lower limbs pruned off them through the years. A major thinning is overdue.

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Walnuts on the outside next to the fence have enjoyed the space and fertilizer. My hands (or "henks" as my soon to be 4 year old daughter still thinks they're called) are bigger than Rubio's but probably smaller than Trump's.

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Today I snapped a few pics of what the 4 year old wild plums look like. Deer are hard on them, but they seem to bounce back and kinda shrub out.

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That plum thicket turned out good.
 
For those who like maps, here's the yield map pulled after this year's corn crop went out. Coons were especially damaging this year. This ground is fertilized for around 160 bushel corn. The monitor is dialed in close, and as the legend shows 39% of the ground averaged over 202. There's some Drummer (IL's state soil) in the north field, but probably 80% of this ground is white timber soil. It averaged 170 bu/ac, showing how much the zeros and edges drag an average down.

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Not a whole lot of habitat or successful hunting updates. Turkey season was a bust for me. The past few years it seems the birds just aren't around much. I think the population is probably down a little, and they also seem to move around more than before. Perhaps my habitat projects are stressing them a little. Deer season was fun. Had it's ups and downs, as they all seem to. No monster bucks in the back of the truck, but we did get a couple nice eaters. He got a doe and I held out for a button buck. I wanted to save the life of a doe knowing that the DNR sharpshooters start killing the day after our season ends. My dad and I both passed up some nice bucks, hoping they're able to put on growth, and that we see them again.

My MG rhizomes came last week. We've been getting pounded by rain this year. I finally had a window to plant 400 of them Monday afternoon. The ground was a little more soggy than I prefer, but hopefully most of them can find daylight. Rain fell both days since, and I haven't been able to get the remaining 350 in yet. I checked on some of the MG I planted last year that grew well, and sadly haven't seen any sign of life yet. Guessing they succumbed to the hard winter, but don't really know for sure.

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Don’t give up on the MG. I’ve had some lay dormant for a long time.
 
Wild plums are something I added this spring, I'm very interested to see how they turn out. Planning on adding more to next spring's order also only bigger. Yours look awesome, hopefully mine take off like that.
 
Thanks guys. Yes, I'm happy with those plums. Will probably add a few more someday. Hoping to have lots and lots of edges in that spot.

I finally got a chance to get into the farm with the batwing mower and clean up some roads and plots. Growing season here finally got throttled up a little with a heat wave. I put down some fresh clover plots and the cereal rye nursed it along well. Hope the animals like it.

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