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.

 

[KY wild]

I did a few little things today to help the cause...
- Built 3 new blue bird boxes
- Picked up 25 used, empty hydraulic buckets from a logger friend, started draining and cleaning buckets (I will drill 1/8 hole and use to water new apple trees that I planted last November after growing from grafts). Also keeps logger from polluting the Earth
- fed bluegills in a couple of ponds

 

[BIGDHunting]

Spent most of the today in the woods. We had one spot that is all mature maples and very little sunlight hitting the ground. Never mind that it's kind of wide open so the deer steer clear of it. So, I spent a couple of hours in that area dropping trees and then doing some detail work to make some paths and trails to allow them to move through there.
Another spot along our ridge needed some attention. Deer run the ridge but there are some spots they can't get through to come onto our property. Got in there and cleared multiple paths through some of the old treetops, brush and logs. Really hoping it pays off and they start using it to enter towards us instead of just going around.
May or may not work but certainly loved being out there and working.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Making a mess is what I did today! LOL Worked on some FSI .....cutting and treating hedge and locust trees, hinge cutting some of the ok species trees that are never going to amount to anything.

Met with a acquaintance down the road from me yesterday. Going to have use him use his skidsteer with a forestry mulcher head and brush hog attachment to clean up some areas in one of my pastures that is getting overrun with wild blackberry, prickly ash, volunteer cedar, hedge and locust trees, etcc. It is really not feasible to do it by hand in a timely manner so I will fork over some money and let him knock it out quick. I have been cutting the cedars in that portion of the pasture already. Will run a fire through there when he is done. And spray the regrowth this Summer as it tries to reestablish. Want to have him clear about 300 yards of trail for me as well so that I can access some more of my property with the tractor and hopefully get the deer to travel in a more productive manner in terms of hunting.

 

[bigboreblr]

Where you from double creek? February hunt and rut.......

Over here in NY, I cut a few trees around the house for the deer to nibble. They been hitting the downed red cedars.

Been cleaning up the rootmaker pots and getting soil mixed up for the scion / rootstock.

Getting ready to go up to the farmland spot next weekend too. Pruning a few apple trees, moving a treestand or two, cleaning up shooting lanes, and a little coyote n squirrel hunting. A few futile trespassing signs too..... Sometimes I catch a pheasant in the wrong place with my 22.

 

[bigboreblr]

Making a mess is what I did today! LOL Worked on some FSI .....cutting and treating hedge and locust trees, hinge cutting some of the ok species trees that are never going to amount to anything.

Met with a acquaintance down the road from me yesterday. Going to have use him use his skidsteer with a forestry mulcher head and brush hog attachment to clean up some areas in one of my pastures that is getting overrun with wild blackberry, prickly ash, volunteer cedar, hedge and locust trees, etcc. It is really not feasible to do it by hand in a timely manner so I will fork over some money and let him knock it out quick. I have been cutting the cedars in that portion of the pasture already. Will run a fire through there when he is done. And spray the regrowth this Summer as it tries to reestablish. Want to have him clear about 300 yards of trail for me as well so that I can access some more of my property with the tractor and hopefully get the deer to travel in a more productive manner in terms of hunting.

MAke a few turns in that tractor path, they seem more comfortable that way. Or at least make a turn at the end.

 

[Double Creek]

Where you from double creek? February hunt and rut.......

Over here in NY, I cut a few trees around the house for the deer to nibble. They been hitting the downed red cedars.

Been cleaning up the rootmaker pots and getting soil mixed up for the scion / rootstock.

Getting ready to go up to the farmland spot next weekend too. Pruning a few apple trees, moving a treestand or two, cleaning up shooting lanes, and a little coyote n squirrel hunting. A few futile trespassing signs too..... Sometimes I catch a pheasant in the wrong place with my 22.

Alabama Gulf Coast. They really don't start getting serious until very late January. Many years the season goes out during prime rut on February 10th.

 

[Double Creek]

I planted 10 prairie crab and 4 mullberry today. Finished my winter strip disking. Got started on mowing a strip to plant some more plums this spring, but I hit something hard and sheered a bolt on PTO. I called it a day.

It was 70 degrees and muggy. Doesn't feel like deer season.

I really need to do some hack and squirt on sweetgum and privet.

 

[hunts_with_stick]

I pruned some of my trees, hoping to get some horse manure to put around them soon

 

[KY wild]

Cleared trails yesterday with stepson and grand daughter, pretty big job. I had big saws on the side by side but used the battery saw and battery pole saw most of the day. These new version battery saws are very useful and light weight tools, that I would highly recommend.

 

[Westwind]

These new version battery saws are very useful and light weight tools, that I would highly recommend.

I tore up my DeWalt pole saw. It lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. I kinda bought that a few years back as a substitute for a Stihl gas pole saw but now I’m thinking I should maybe stay with battery pole saw again and add a battery saw. I am 90% Milwaukee but still have some DeWalt batteries for some yard equipment.

 

[TonySoprano]

Not much so far , Hunting season just ended Jan 3 . It's been raining or too windy to cut trees. I counted 14 rotted wood posts along my property line that are leaning and need to be replaced. I worked two afternoons for a couple of hours on that , put in 4 or 5 T posts and spliced some areas of barb wire that were broke. It's time consuming remove 4 strands of barb wire, then have to cut & splice to tighten it. Figure start with the easiest stuff first....

Then I need to cut down 3 sawtooths oaks in the yard....messiest trees ever for a yard. Last on the agenda , cut down junk trees around my tree plot before they get too big and block out light to my fruit trees.

AS some have mentioned , I may want to invest in a battery operated saw to cut a few smaller size trees that fell across my trail. That way I dont have to worry about getting my chainsaw in the dirt. Something like this an these blades.