Random ramblings

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Was riding around the farm this weekend and was thinking about bs that I sometimes ponder.

The first was how we assign value to animals. We have no problem killing a coon or possum or coyote and throwing them in a ditch. All native species. Yet we do that with a deer or turkey and it’s a big no no. We say it’s for management sake on the varmits but for many of us we need to kill does for management’s sake. Doing something with the meat is often a roadblock to getting numbers where they need to be for the landscape. Yes some of us have the ability to donate which takes some of the burden, but if people are truly hungry (which I don’t buy is much of a case in this country) why are they too good to eat a coon or possum? I know several folks that have eaten them and they are edible…so they say. Also why is a hawk above reproach. Does anyone have a shortage of those bastards? I saw 2 turkeys and zero quail but double digit hawks. If one didn’t know any better I’d say our management structure seems to benefit the predator…For the record I’m not advocating shooting deer and dumping them in a ditch or doing the opposite with a coon but the hypocrisy on taking lives is not lost on me.

Second is water. Everything from construction to development to agriculture to the guy with a deer farm who cares about their roads, works to get it to go where they want it. It’s all funneled, sent downstream for someone else to dick with. How does this not lead to more flooding or even raising of sea levels or sediment deposits shallowing creeks and rivers, raising water temps and completely altering the aquatic life? Water is no longer given the ability to saturate. It’s all about getting it off your property as fast and controlled as possible. It’s wild how we work so hard to control everything. I’m guilty of it, I work all summer on roads and the main issue is how do I get water to go where I want it. The other thing I’ve noticed is when you funnel it, the ditches become formidable. I wonder what these ditches look like in a 100 years. We may have some legit canyons in places.

Just some questions that I think about from time to time. I’ll never answer or fix any issues, I just wonder if others ponder stuff like this

 

[Turkish]

Was riding around the farm this weekend and was thinking about bs that I sometimes ponder.

The first was how we assign value to animals. We have no problem killing a coon or possum or coyote and throwing them in a ditch. All native species. Yet we do that with a deer or turkey and it’s a big no no. We say it’s for management sake on the varmits but for many of us we need to kill does for management’s sake. Doing something with the meat is often a roadblock to getting numbers where they need to be for the landscape. Yes some of us have the ability to donate which takes some of the burden, but if people are truly hungry (which I don’t buy is much of a case in this country) why are they too good to eat a coon or possum? I know several folks that have eaten them and they are edible…so they say. Also why is a hawk above reproach. Does anyone have a shortage of those bastards? I saw 2 turkeys and zero quail but double digit hawks. If one didn’t know any better I’d say our management structure seems to benefit the predator…For the record I’m not advocating shooting deer and dumping them in a ditch or doing the opposite with a coon but the hypocrisy on taking lives is not lost on me.

Second is water. Everything from construction to development to agriculture to the guy with a deer farm who cares about their roads, works to get it to go where they want it. It’s all funneled, sent downstream for someone else to dick with. How does this not lead to more flooding or even raising of sea levels or sediment deposits shallowing creeks and rivers, raising water temps and completely altering the aquatic life? Water is no longer given the ability to saturate. It’s all about getting it off your property as fast and controlled as possible. It’s wild how we work so hard to control everything. I’m guilty of it, I work all summer on roads and the main issue is how do I get water to go where I want it. The other thing I’ve noticed is when you funnel it, the ditches become formidable. I wonder what these ditches look like in a 100 years. We may have some legit canyons in places.

Just some questions that I think about from time to time. I’ll never answer or fix any issues, I just wonder if others ponder stuff like this

Bruh. Water is headed for an enormous problem. Aquifer regeneration is becoming an issue, but there’s about as much research in that space as CWD. I don’t know when, but our speed boating water to the Gulf will not be without major consequences.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Bruh. Water is headed for an enormous problem. Aquifer regeneration is becoming an issue, but there’s about as much research in that space as CWD. I don’t know when, but our speed boating water to the Gulf will not be without major consequences.

So I see you’re a fellow wonderer as well….

 

[Turkish]

So I see you’re a fellow wonderer as well….

If you spend all your free time in the loess hills of SW MS and have an observant eye, you get to see how quickly water can affect a landscape. Big wide beautiful eons-old hardwood bottom with a canyon in the middle. Walk upstream and the canyon turns into a ditch, then peters out to a 2’ waterfall that moves up the holler 100’ a year. Clearly things are changing.

 

[T-Max]

There’s only one cure for that. More field tile!!!

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

There’s only one cure for that. More field tile!!!

A thousand acre row crop field complete with drain tiles might as well be a data center

 

[SD51555]

Was riding around the farm this weekend and was thinking about bs that I sometimes ponder.

The first was how we assign value to animals. We have no problem killing a coon or possum or coyote and throwing them in a ditch. All native species. Yet we do that with a deer or turkey and it’s a big no no. We say it’s for management sake on the varmits but for many of us we need to kill does for management’s sake. Doing something with the meat is often a roadblock to getting numbers where they need to be for the landscape. Yes some of us have the ability to donate which takes some of the burden, but if people are truly hungry (which I don’t buy is much of a case in this country) why are they too good to eat a coon or possum? I know several folks that have eaten them and they are edible…so they say. Also why is a hawk above reproach. Does anyone have a shortage of those bastards? I saw 2 turkeys and zero quail but double digit hawks. If one didn’t know any better I’d say our management structure seems to benefit the predator…For the record I’m not advocating shooting deer and dumping them in a ditch or doing the opposite with a coon but the hypocrisy on taking lives is not lost on me.

Second is water. Everything from construction to development to agriculture to the guy with a deer farm who cares about their roads, works to get it to go where they want it. It’s all funneled, sent downstream for someone else to dick with. How does this not lead to more flooding or even raising of sea levels or sediment deposits shallowing creeks and rivers, raising water temps and completely altering the aquatic life? Water is no longer given the ability to saturate. It’s all about getting it off your property as fast and controlled as possible. It’s wild how we work so hard to control everything. I’m guilty of it, I work all summer on roads and the main issue is how do I get water to go where I want it. The other thing I’ve noticed is when you funnel it, the ditches become formidable. I wonder what these ditches look like in a 100 years. We may have some legit canyons in places.

Just some questions that I think about from time to time. I’ll never answer or fix any issues, I just wonder if others ponder stuff like this

I make small water holes all over my property to try to keep water. If you’ve got massive erosion troubles, make your ditches and then pack them full of big firewood to slow down the water and hold the sediment.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Turkish]

I make small water holes all over my property to try to keep water. If you’ve got massive erosion troubles, make your ditches and then pack them full of big firewood to slow down the water and hold the sediment.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I like Wilson and I make some of his beaver dam analogs. But it’s pissing in the wind in this dirt.

 

[356]

Thanks for sharing your rumnations. Great food for thought.

Just as carp is considered a trash fish in America and a delicacy in Asia, so too is the value we place on various critters. Crows used to be prime game birds--but times changed after the "kill a crow, feed a soldier" campaign during WWI (and to some degree, WWII). Eighty years later, crows are just now starting to become popular.

It helps me to remember that these critters don't just "go to sleep and die of old age." Those that are not harvested by hunters (hopefully in an ethical way--see my reference to this in another thread where a landowners wanted me to shot hogs in the gut), will die by disease, predation (being eaten alive does not sound fun), cars, freezing, starvation or thirst.

 

[Double Creek]

Thanks for sharing your rumnations. Great food for thought.

Just as carp is considered a trash fish in America and a delicacy in Asia, so too is the value we place on various critters. Crows used to be prime game birds--but times changed after the "kill a crow, feed a soldier" campaign during WWI (and to some degree, WWII). Eighty years later, crows are just now starting to become popular.

It helps me to remember that these critters don't just "go to sleep and die of old age." Those that are not harvested by hunters (hopefully in an ethical way--see my reference to this in another thread where a landowners wanted me to shot hogs in the gut), will die by disease, predation (being eaten alive does not sound fun), cars, freezing, starvation or thirst.

The older I get, the harder I find it to kill anything, even when I probably should to help promote species that I'm more interested in. I guess I'm just getting soft in my old age

I do draw the line at hogs. I'm heartless. If legal, I would happily poison them and really wouldn't care about their fate. That is a scourge that needs to be removed from the landscape.

 

[hillrunner]

The older I get, the harder I find it to kill anything, even when I probably should to help promote species that I'm more interested in. I guess I'm just getting soft in my old age

I do draw the line at hogs. I'm heartless. If legal, I would happily poison them and really wouldn't care about their fate. That is a scourge that needs to be removed from the landscape.

My instant reaction to your 2nd paragraph is a negative one. Then I remember I buy mouse poison by the gallon to place around outbuildings. How is that any different? I guess it probably isn't but it feels different to me.
Kind of like how growing up on the farm we would kill pigeons, starlings, and sparrows to our hearts content but would never dare shoot a barn swallow or song bird.