Someday Isle - Property tour

[Bill]

Clover is looking good......house looks GREAT!

My thoughts exactly.
Hopefully the rains being shut off are just temporary. I’d hate to see a repeat of last spring/summer

 

[Someday isle]

My thoughts exactly.
Hopefully the rains being shut off are just temporary. I’d hate to see a repeat of last spring/summer

I hear that Bill. I remember you using the term scorched earth here in Missouri last year. Maybe not as bad as 2012 but it was brutal here well into the fall.

 

[Someday isle]

if you’ve been following along you remember two stories from the past. One -I got into a yellow jacket nest a couple years ago and got stung 23 times. I felt sick for about a week. Two - I planted ten pear trees a while back. Two died, three struggled and five did well. So far eight of them are hanging in there. I replaced the two dead trees with two trees from Home Depot. They too died quickly.

So here’s the new story - I decide to remove the two dead trees and their cages and tree tubes. The wasps seemed to have nested in one of the tubes. Long story short - I got stung just above the elbow. I’ve been stung many times in my life. The wasps sting didn’t hurt any more than normal. I left the trees alone for the day and went about the rest of my business. That was Friday morning. Tonight is Sunday night and my arm is swollen from the triceps to the wrist. I’ve nevr had a reaction like that to any sting. The itch is ridiculous. I know I’m well past any concern for a serious problem but I’m thinking maybe all the venom from the yellow jacket incident has made me really sensitive to stings now. My wife has convinced me to follow up with my doctor and see if maybe I’m now allergic to bee/wasp stings. I spend a lot of time out there by myself so maybe making sure I’m safe is a good idea.

Anybody have any experience with this?

Needless to say I’ll wait until after a good hard frost to finish removing that tree tube. On a side note -my other trees are doing great.

 

[Native Hunter]

I’m not sure about the stings but agree that a doctors visit would be in order. Your house and clover are top of the line. Thanks for the update.

 

[Bill]

My sister wasn’t allergic to bees until she was. Now it so bad she carries one of those needles Incase she is stung.

 

[Someday isle]

What a difference a year makes. Last year I planted about this time. We’d had high temps and no rain. Real drought conditions for us. Two weeks later we’d still had no rain. I worried needlessly about whether my cereal grains would come up. Eventually they did and I overseeded a little extra and things worked out just fine. This year I planted on Thursday and Friday. We got heavy rains Friday afternoon and into the evening. Couldn’t have been timed any better. I put down at a per acre rate of 100lbs rye, 50lbs oats, 5lbs radish, and 10lbs medium red clover. On my clover trails I overseeded with just a little rye and ladino clover at a rate of 3lbs per acre. Like most of us I plant when I can and hope for rain. Labor Day weekend is the time everyone recommends but it’s also a long weekend for me so I can get some work done. Had a little help yesterday morning so I took down an old stand that I didn’t really feel comfortable with anymore and replaced it with a new 17’ x-stand. I put new batteries and cards in all of my cameras and double checked all of my stands for safety and shooting lanes. Now we stay out until archery season starts in a couple weeks. Not much on camera the last couple of weeks but I expect that’s because the deer are feeding in the woods right now. I’ve heard talk of early acorn drop and I see some signs of that but don’t know how significant it will be. There’s also lots of talk about CWD and EHD again this year but I haven’t seen any signs of that or have any real knowledge or proof that we have an issue in our area. Sometimes I don’t know what to believe on that with regard to fact vs rumor and speculation. It’s been kind of a strange year for me with selling one house and building a new one. I’m ready to just spend a morning in a stand with my bow and enjoy another season on my little piece of property. I’ve done what I can and won’t worry about things I can’t control.

 

[pnulty66]

Looks beautiful, please post some updates once the seeds start to sprout. I worked my plots earlier this week but headed back to FL early due to Dorian. Nothing planted and I think I should hace cut and raked one of the plots before disking, as I think the grass/weeds re too big to disk under.

Good luck with the deer.

 

[Bill]

Some times things just fall into place. Same thing for me with the brassicas. Last year after putting seed down it seemed like weeks waiting for a rain. This year it rained every few days after planting and things are greening up fast.

 

[Someday isle]

Went out for my first hunt of the year today. I sat for four and a half hours this morning. Saw a couple bucks but no shot opportunities. I pulled a couple camera cards and checked on my food plots too. I was set up over a water hole about fifty yards off of one of my plots. We’ve had so much rain this summer but it’s really dry now. If we don’t get a little rain soon a couple of my plots might be in trouble. The more shaded ones look better.

I’m starting to get a few turkeys on camera and we’ve got our first real bachelor group of bucks this year. I’m sure they’ll split up soon if they haven’t already. I also got a nice picture of a newcomer. Maybe he’s just passing through but it’s be nice if he’d hang around.

We haven’t had near as many does or little bucks on camera this summer. Maybe they’re around but we do seem to have fewer deer in general this year. The bucks we are seeing are bigger though. Lots of coyotes this year too. We’ve always had them but there are more,pictures of them too.

 

[Someday isle]

 

[SWIFFY]

Thats a great looking buck in that plot! Thats got to make you feel good, especially seeing him there in daylight! Is he one thats been on your radar?

 

[Someday isle]

Thats a great looking buck in that plot! Thats got to make you feel good, especially seeing him there in daylight! Is he one thats been on your radar?

Nope - that’s the first picture we’ve had of him. Maybe he’s just passing through but hopefully he sticks around.

 

[Bill]

Nope - that’s the first picture we’ve had of him. Maybe he’s just passing through but hopefully he sticks around.

He’ll be back ;) a good salad bar is hard to find. He’s cool..

 

[Someday isle]

Filled my second antlerless tag of the year today. I started a thread on tracking shot deer after the first one. It was a difficult track after a quartering to shot that only hit one lung. Today was payback in my favor. After a 29 yard broadside shot this deer ran a big circle right in front of me just pumping out blood and ran right towards my truck on the Access trail. It died fifty yards from my truck.
That’s two deer in the freezer. I usually don’t hunt with antlers in mind but I think maybe now I will at least until after the boys hunt during firearms season.

 

[Bill]

Yeah, time to get out the video camera for a while and hold out for that wide freak...

 

[weekender21]

Nothing like a freezer full of fresh venison!

 

[Telemark]

That buck has antlers like a mule deer.

 

[Someday isle]

Realistic goals - when we bought this property we set what we believed were realistic goals. We hoped to harvest a deer or two every year and maybe have a crack at a decent buck every now and then. With two new young adult hunters that seemed like a solid plan. So far things have really worked out well. The boys are at the stage of life where they just don’t have the time to get out much with new careers and social lives. Between building a new house, selling the old one, and the boy’s busy schedules, we didn’t get much habitat work done this year and I planted the food plots and hunted pretty much by myself all year. I filled two antlerless archery permits and also harvested a decent little 7 pointer with my bow. Firearms season came and went. I was hoping to see one of those big deer we had on camera this fall but to no avail. And according to my last camera pull we don’t have any of the big boys still around. Still, three deer with my bow was a personal best and we’ve got some good meat in the freezer. It was one of those years where everything worked out in my favor every time I hunted. I hunted fifteen days, saw at least one deer every time except one and had multiple opportunities. The wind Always seemed to be in my favor and I seemed to be in the right stand on the right days. I pulled my bow back three times and made three good shots. I can’t complain. Two years ago was just the opposite, nothing seemed to work in our favor and we only harvested one deer between the three of us. I’m sure next year will be totally different. We’re all settled in the new house now, one of the boys is getting established in his new job, and hopefully the other one won’t have a friend get married on opening weekend again. Next year maybe they’ll have better opportunities to hunt.

We’ve got some new habitat plans this year already in progress. It’s time to blow the leaves off our logging road food plot trails. I’m going to clean out the stumps a little better in our plots, I want to open a couple trails up to sunlight a little better and there are some trees that need to come down in our larger plot. I’m also going to order a few more pear trees. I’d like to have a few in each plot. So hopefully I can get back to doing some real work again this year. It’s amazing how much I’ve grown to love the habitat work and how much I missed it last year with all the house stuff.

I will add though, that I wonder if my hunting success last year was more a result of three years worth of habitat work coming to fruition or just the result of there being less human presence all spring and summer. Probably a little of both.

Hopefully I’ll have some posts to add in the coming months.

 

[Someday isle]

http://habitat-talk.com/index.php?attachments/599912ac-1aad-459a-8e46-97597320cf33-jpeg.21144/I thought that wide freak, as Bill called him, was a new deer who just showed up this year. I was going through this thread tonight and found this picture from last year. Now I’m wondering if it’s the same deer and he just really blew up this year. Unfortunately we haven’t seen him anymore but maybe he’s just laying low and he’ll reappear next year.

 

[Bill]

I’d love to see someone at your place stick him...