The Little Woods

[Bowsnbucks]

Everything looks good H20! Apples & crabs are growing well. Your Dad was a fan of Jack-in-the-pulpits, huh?? My Mom liked those too. She had some in her shaded flower garden for years.

That pic of the barred owl is a good one. Barred owls are my favorite owls. They have such a menu of calls they make. They make some really weird, spooky, quivering and "laughing" calls beside the usual "who cooks for you - who cooks for you-all" variation. Have you ever heard any of the weird calls they make? I had a barred owl land on a limb arm's length away while in a tree stand once. I was in full camo & camo face net in archery season. I never heard it come in. I turned around and it scared the sh*t out of me!! Two big, dark eyes at 3 ft. away! It fluffed up, looked at me for about 10 seconds - then took off with NO sound! Pretty cool birds & great mousers.

Looks like your wife is a morel snooper! Good fun and tasty eating. I'll bet Darcy was at the truck waiting to head out to the woods & fields, too. Good times when outdoors with family and dog(s).

 

[H20fwler]

H2Fowls Zoo and Arboretum! Now open! LOL

Lots of color and life. Great stuff!

Thanks, it seems like a little zoo at times. This is about the only time of year we walk around the woods much, with the cool temps the bugs haven’t been bad at all and the place hasn’t grown into a thorny green jungle yet.

 

[H20fwler]

Everything looks good H20! Apples & crabs are growing well. Your Dad was a fan of Jack-in-the-pulpits, huh?? My Mom liked those too. She had some in her shaded flower garden for years.

That pic of the barred owl is a good one. Barred owls are my favorite owls. They have such a menu of calls they make. They make some really weird, spooky, quivering and "laughing" calls beside the usual "who cooks for you - who cooks for you-all" variation. Have you ever heard any of the weird calls they make? I had a barred owl land on a limb arm's length away while in a tree stand once. I was in full camo & camo face net in archery season. I never heard it come in. I turned around and it scared the sh*t out of me!! Two big, dark eyes at 3 ft. away! It fluffed up, looked at me for about 10 seconds - then took off with NO sound! Pretty cool birds & great mousers.

Looks like your wife is a morel snooper! Good fun and tasty eating. I'll bet Darcy was at the truck waiting to head out to the woods & fields, too. Good times when outdoors with family and dog(s).

Yep he was a big fan of the Jack in the pulpit, I think he favored them more because besides farming he was a Presbyterian minister for thirty one years. It makes me think of him every time I first spot one and remember mushroom picking together when I was a kid.
I like the barred owl calls too, I mostly hear them early in the mornings while duck hunting along the lake. The three most common owls we see and hear are great horned, barred and screech. Every few years we get a great snowy passing though in winter and once in a blue moon we see a barn owl.
The wife is a country girl at heart, she grew up hunting mushrooms with her family as a little girl. She is actually way better at it than me, more patient and walks slower. I’m way to easily distracted by rubs and scrapes!

 

[H20fwler]

Finally put a camera out the other day, got pics of one small buck and a couple of does so far. Hopefully some older bucks will show up on camera in the next few weeks, have standing corn on three sides of the property and that usually keeps bucks in the area good.

Had a little nest of bunnies at the bottom of an apple tree.

The two hives are coming along good, lost both over the winter so started two new NUCS from splits about a month ago.

I approached the lady that owns the field next to the woods about buying another 4-5 acres last week and she seemed very open to the idea so we are currently in negotiations. If it works out our plan is to dig a good sized pond this winter around an acre and a half that is very deep, this pond will just be for swimming and fishing with stone around it and a nice beach. Also plan on putting in a lot of fruit, berry and nut trees.
The wife and I would also more than likely build a house on the new addition within a couple years.

 

[Telemark]

That would be incredible. I've always wanted a gazebo on a lake or pond for relaxing and grilling food while the young'uns fish and splash around in the water.

 

[H20fwler]

That would be incredible. I've always wanted a gazebo on a lake or pond for relaxing and grilling food while the young'uns fish and splash around in the water.

Thanks.
The boys are already starting to talk about what kind of structure to put in the pond for fish along with a good sized dock/deck. The wife has started making a few sketches how she would like a house, we are even looking into the shed/house style. The stress of building I am not looking forward to but I would love to get out of town with the privacy of having no close neighbors and to stop paying all the city taxes that we do now. If it all works out the next few years should be interesting.

 

[Telemark]

As far as an architectural style, I think Arts and Crafts is a great choice for your region.

Planning a pond is fun. The structure should depend largely on the species you will have. I think one feature a lot of people ignore is abrupt depth changes.

 

[H20fwler]

As far as an architectural style, I think Arts and Crafts is a great choice for your region.

Planning a pond is fun. The structure should depend largely on the species you will have. I think one feature a lot of people ignore is abrupt depth changes.

I've got to get the expansion bought first, but the dreaming and planning has definitely already begun...it's hard not to.
I do like the big overhanging eves on the Arts Crafts style, but if we do build for most of the house I think I'm just going to stay out of the wife’s way. Now for an outbuilding pole barn/garage with a man cave...that will be all me!
With the pond hopefully we can go deep 20'-25', we are going to look at a few different ponds and talk to some people that have built similar. One of our friends put in a big two and a half acre with a nice beach at one end of theirs and started it with white sand going down from dry land to 6' then pea gravel and finally in deeper water a layer of large stone.
There are a bunch of cool fish structure that we can build ourselves out of PVC/buckets and quick Crete along with some cinder block and concrete tile creations, I don't want anything that will break down or rot so that it will last a long time.
The planning stage for everything should be really fun and I want to get input from the whole family because one day after the wife and I are gone it will be theirs for a weekend retreat or mini vacation spot.

 

[Telemark]

I have made some structures based on arches that were great for pike. Also stones and cinderblocks make great bass nesting spots. I'm a bit too far north for sunfish, but I have seen some rather extensive systems of vertical cover work well for them. Personally, I would probably plant a bunch of water lilies or reeds to serve as natural cover as well.

 

[H20fwler]

Well we got the additional land bought!
Little more pricey than I was hoping but it’s full steam ahead now. Next couple of years is going to be busy.

Getting the whole family involved in the planning, first will be planting a whole lot more fruit and shrub trees. And we will hopefully be digging the pond late winter or early spring.
Lots of things to think about now, the dreaming about what we would like to do stage is turning real fast!

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

Nice work getting more land. How much land did you buy and is it near your other properties?

 

[H20fwler]

Nice work getting more land. How much land did you buy and is it near your other properties?

It’s almost five acres and it connects right to the property in this thread.
So we will end up living at the Little Woods, I will be posting up a lot of improvements/changes/projects and plantings that will be happening at it as we go along. The woods will be a couple hundred yards right out my back door.
This property is exactly five miles as the crow flies from our other farm.
I am still stoked that this is really happening!

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

That's awesome, I somehow missed that description of the new property but now I see it!

I would recommend thinking about how you will get from the future house to the woods without spooking any deer. A nice multi-row wind break could serve as winter cover for roosters and rabbits while also allowing you to slip to the woods undetected. That will be nice to hunt right out the back door in the future-

 

[Telemark]

Congratulations! That's great news.

 

[Telemark]

That's awesome, I somehow missed that description of the new property but now I see it!

I would recommend thinking about how you will get from the future house to the woods without spooking any deer. A nice multi-row wind break could serve as winter cover for roosters and rabbits while also allowing you to slip to the woods undetected. That will be nice to hunt right out the back door in the future-

My uncle has something like that. He's in a wheelchair unfortunately. But when I go hunting there it's really convenient to hunt around the house.

 

[H20fwler]

That's awesome, I somehow missed that description of the new property but now I see it!

I would recommend thinking about how you will get from the future house to the woods without spooking any deer. A nice multi-row wind break could serve as winter cover for roosters and rabbits while also allowing you to slip to the woods undetected. That will be nice to hunt right out the back door in the future-

I’ve been giving that some thought, thinking about some MG and conifers. The land owners on both sides of me are great so I can loop out around through their fields too.

 

[H20fwler]

Closed on the new addition and got the deed filed, have been getting estimates on getting the pond dug hopefully will have that done by early spring or sooner.

In the last three weeks I have hunted over at the little woods a few times, there is still corn up on the west side and it has been a deer magnet. It's a little hard to hunt because I need a south wind or south wind variant to hunt it right. I will get a stand put up on the north or east side of the woods to take care of that issue.
The other morning I was up a tree on the corner of the woods and ended up seeing 15-20 deer in a little over an hour, some sure could have been repeats? One was a really nice buck I would say 140 or better he came out of the neighbors woods after a doe a few hundred yards away and I could see the rack easy without binos. He bred the doe a couple times and then she headed my way down the CRP strip with him in pursuit. I slowly stood up and got my release hooked up and was ready with my heart pounding in my chest , she got to about 120 yards and angled back to the neighbors woods with the buck following. About ten minutes after that a nice buck I would say 120's came from the south with his nose to the ground went into the woods they were in and then came running out like he was on fire heading back south.
The whole time I had does and fawns all around me going in and out of our woods and the standing corn. A button buck tried to mount a doe three times. Almost all of the deer close to me stopped and knelt down and drank out of the koi pond. It was the best morning I had in a stand all month.

 

[H20fwler]

Got all the fruit trees pruned and fertilized this past week, also planted twenty apple and pear grafted last year from their spot in the garden half went to the other farm and half out to the new orchard on the north side of the woods.

The start of the new orchard;

I'm planning on grafting 30-40 more new trees onto M111/OH97 in a couple weeks that will go out to the new orchard next spring, trying some new varieties and saved a bunch of scions from some of our favorite fruit trees.

The new orchard will be between the woods and the pond we are putting in. I met with the pond guy yesterday to go over our ideas/plans drew it out and that all went great. It will be one acre kind of shaped like a peanut and 18'-20' deep. He said he could also dig a few ledges in it for structure for fish, we have looked into some cool stuff we can make with five gallon buckets and pieces of 1" conduit along with some clay/concrete tile cinder blocks and flagstone to make interesting structure. The pond will be going in this July and will have stone all the way around and a beach.
Putting dirt from the pond along west end of new property to help with wind, along road for privacy screen and the rest will be leveled out where we plan to put barn and house to raise the ground level.

New orchard north side of woods;
Spring 2021

Apples;
1-Enterprise
1-Briar Lane
1-DropTine
1-Dolgo
1-Firecracker crab
1-Odysso Redlove
1- Era Redlove
1-Red Cascade

Spring 2022

1-Redfield
1-Bruguier Redflesh
1-Mountain Rose
1-Pink Pearl
1-Pink Lady
1-Almata
1-Geneva Crab
1-Arkansas Black
1-Wickenson Crab
2-Yates
1-King David
1-Coxs Orange Pippin
1-Ashmeads Kernel
1-Sweet Sixteen
1-Virginia Crab
1-Galarina
1-Winesap
1-Big Lou Crab
1-Trailman Crab
2-Roadkill Crab
1-White Cloud
1-Sweet November
1-30-06 Crab
1-Violis
1-Prime Time Crab
1-Grams Gift Crab
1-Lock Down Crab
1-Son of Cal Crab
2-Turning Point Crab
1-Cobbler Crab
1-Candy Crab

Spring 2023

2-Roberts Crab
1-Oregon Rd
1-Roths Special
1-Golden Hornet Crab

Pears;
Spring 2021

1- Gate
1-Becton

Spring 2022

1-Rifle Deer Pear
1-Ayers
1-Hosui
1-Shinko
1-Hawaii

Spring 2023

2-Korean Giant
1-Gate
1-Chojuro

Spring 2024

2-Gilmer Christmas
1-Keiffer
1-Orient

Persimmons
Spring 2022

1-Full Draw
3-American


Other
Spring 2022

20 Hazelnuts
20 American Plums

Spring 2023

20-Sandill Plums
3-Pecans

 

[Mortenson]

Retiring some farmland! Looks great H2O. Always love the updates. Sounds like some good ones in the future.

 

[H20fwler]

Hit the Little woods this morning with wife and daughter looking for some shrooms.

Baby girl with her first of the year.


She tried out one of the tree stands to see what all the fuss was about.



We ended up having a really good morning finding a nice mix of yellows, grays, spikes and pheasant back.