What Habitat Work Did You Do Today?

[Westwind]

I do very few things that I think are worthy of a thread. I feel like maintaining my ground is more of a daily grind of getting the little things done that add up over time. The little things that don’t warrant a mention in a Land Tours thread.

Everyone’s situation is a little different! I want to hear about it, big and small. Just a few lines or write it up. Whether you live and work on your property or are working on the trailer that hauls your habitat equipment to your property an hour away. Being a habitat person isn’t easy, it is a lot of work. Tell us what you are up to and why the timing is right to do it now.

We are getting spectacular weather in my little corner of NW Illinois. The ground is frozen hard. I can run my tractor anywhere and not tear things up. There is no snow. Yesterday my wife and I began working on a south facing hillside that used to be junk warm season grasses and more recently has sprouted woody invasive and small trees. The weapons of war were the chainsaw, brush cutter with a blade and tractor with 3 point rotary cutter. We put trees on the ground, trimmed overhanging branches and shredded thorny blackberry is and multi flora with the tractor.

I’m drinking some coffee now. I’m about to go out to the shed and put the grapple on my tractor and get after the cleanup. All those trees are going to a big hole that was the foundation of a house built in the 1800’s, maybe one of the first houses built in this area. I don’t have a good place to build a brush pile there on the hillside so it’s gotta go.

This hillside is going to be switchgrass. I have the top half pretty well transitioning but the bottom half is too brushy and that’s going to get sprayed and seeded in about June. This section joins up with a pretty nice patch of big/little bluestem with various forbes.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

I'd like to add some pics as I think they help. But for now I'll just add this....as a teacher I had the last 12 days or so off. I tagged out in Mass. back in November so was unable to hunt the last season muzzeloader like I always do over Christmas break. So I've been doing habitat work. Like you Westwind the ground here is frozen solid, and we have about 3" of snow. So when I am not scouting or skiing or mtn. biking I've got my chainsaw and pruners in hand am out on the land doing some TSI. Projects right now include....

1) I am dropping and dragging all trees around a small stand of about 7 or 8 mature poplars. The poplars are about 75 years old. I clearcut all trees around them...get the slash into brush piles for burning...buck up anything that's good firewood or wood for the evaporator. I will then go in in late winter or early spring and drop the poplars and let them lay. The trees making great drumming logs for grouse, the tops good bedding cover for deer, and within a year or two I will get an explosion of new poplar growth that both deer and grouse love. I do about one of these little aspen regen cuts every other year or so so I have different age classes of aspen regen coming up on the property.

2) I am also dropping some mature maples on the edges of my small food plots to get more sunlight on the ground and to feather the edges. Left the tops but dragged out the logs yesterday to a field in my backyard where I will eventually buck it up, split, and stack it for next year's firewood.

3) Dropping all my dead and/or dying ash that I identified last summer. It's only 5 trees....but they're big. I got them on the ground and I dragged them out yesterday as well.

4) Lastly, I am clearing a small little stand of what was mostly mature speckled alder that had outlived its usefulness. Tiny area of maybe 400 sq. ft., but it sits on the edge of one of my food plots in between my stand and the plot. I've got wild apples growing all around. I left the apples, sapling oaks, and hawthorns.

I'll attach some pictures later.

 

[Westwind]

Well as usual I got side tracked. Instead of getting my tree cleanup done I went out and hung cameras that I pulled for maintenance and updating. I’m bad at that, I head out the door to do one thing and end up doing something else.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Here's a video I just uploaded of me skidding logs on my JD 990 yesterday. I shot it for a friend of mine who was out skiing and enjoying the slopes and he asked me what I was out doing.

 

[Double Creek]

I’ve backed off some lately as our rut is just starting to heat up and our season goes through February 10th. I have planted and tubed 105 oaks, 72 Chickasaw plum and 5 southern crab this winter. I have 10 prairie crab and 5 mulberry coming this week. I’ve also done some winter strip disking of about 10 acres of old field. I have quite a bit of TSI to do but not sure I will get to it this year as I have another 100 Chickasaw seedlings coming in March and I have 50 ozark chinquapin stratifying in the fridge that I will have to deal with soon.