What Habitat Work Did You Do Today?

[Telemark]

Menards sells 5/16" marker rods for around $1.89 regular price. I've never paid that. They occasionally put them on sale free after rebate (limit 20) or $0.50 after rebate, and I load up then.

Can you let us know when those are on sale again?

 

[Tangler]

planted 25 red spruce & cut up a fallen pine that was blocking a trail

 

[sandbur]

I went for a walk but then came home and my my clipper as I found I needed to prune more apple trees. Ended up also releasing some young spruce.

I also found a rub line of at least 5 rubs.

 

[Tangler]

put cages on 25 trees.

 

[Double Creek]

Between last weekend and this weekend I got 40 ozark chinquapin seeds planted, mats and tubes. The 20 from last weekend are all out of the ground. I really just need some regular rainfall now to give them a chance.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Got another 150 gallon water tank installed today. This is my new hidey hole/ kill plot/ micro plot just 100 yards from my main plot but at the end of the trail that I just had cut in across the top of one of my hills. Deer are using the trail already so that makes me feel good on spending the money to have it put in. Put in some pears and transplanted some older Sycamores yesterday. Hoping the Sycarmores will be good turkey roost trees down the road. Tried to strategically plant them where I hope turkeys will like to roost. Sycamores here tend to have a lot of good horizontal branches and grow decently fast. We will see if I live long enough for them to get used.

 

[Telemark]

Put in some pears and transplanted some older Sycamores yesterday. Hoping the Sycarmores will be good turkey roost trees down the road. Tried to strategically plant them where I hope turkeys will like to roost. Sycamores here tend to have a lot of good horizontal branches and grow decently fast. We will see if I live long enough for them to get used.

Make sure to water them relentlessly. The only sycamores I've seen in Ohio live along rivers, creeks, and ditches where the water table is high and the roots have plenty of moisture.

And watch for hollows as they mature. The raccoons love to live inside hollow sycamores.

 

[sandbur]

Make sure to water them relentlessly. The only sycamores I've seen in Ohio live along rivers, creeks, and ditches where the water table is high and the roots have plenty of moisture.

And watch for hollows as they mature. The raccoons love to live inside hollow sycamores.

That’s about the only place we find wild apples and crabs in this bit of former prairie where I live.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Make sure to water them relentlessly. The only sycamores I've seen in Ohio live along rivers, creeks, and ditches where the water table is high and the roots have plenty of moisture.

And watch for hollows as they mature. The raccoons love to live inside hollow sycamores.

I have mature ones growing on my place already. Just wanted to strategically place a few. They are pretty adaptable around here. I see them growing on a lot of upland sites that I would not have guessed they would grow well in as you are right they do favor wetter locations in general.

 

[Westwind]

Wife and I are tearing out fence and clearing brush. I am using my tractor with grapple to pile the brush in a hole that once was the foundation of a house so I can burn it safely. The fence we are taking out is four strands of barbed wire with woven, all wood posts, I am pretty sure the posts are hedge. The woven has been there so long the bottom is buried. There is evidence of a couple three versions of electric fence- ceramic insulators, plastic insulators and wire deals that can be thrown over a post to put the hot wire about 16 inches inside the main fence.

As I was rolling up barbed wire, I told my wife “I’d like to know how long it’s been since this was rolled up.” That thought has been bouncing around my head for awhile. I had no way to know so in desperation I tried taking a picture of it and uploaded to ChatGPT. ChatGPT asked for more info but estimated its vintage as between 1875 and 1920.

Wasn’t real confident about that. Called my neighbor across the road who is mid 70’s and has lived here his entire life on the same farm his dad lived on his entire life who knows all the history. Told him I had been thinking about all the farmers, sons and farm hands who had patched that fence in the heat and the snow and that I could see evidence of those repairs. Asked him how long that fence had been there. He says “E.J. Ewers probably built that fence, and I have a plat book with his name in it from the year he arrived here in 1870. I would guess that it was built shortly after barb wire came out. Like all farmers, he probably waited a year or two until he saw someone else use this new thing before he tried it out. Right there where you are piling the brush to burn was where he built his house. My dad and Bill __________ (name redacted to protect the guilty lol) got their asses whipped when they were kids for throwing hedge balls through the windows of that house after it was abandoned.”

He then started going through the history of the ground and even who rented it as pasture, how one guy had a bull for a few years so he didn’t even go near the fence and how that guy always had a few stragglers that they couldn’t get loaded in the trailer and that he hired a cowboy to round them up out in the timber. Said that was quite a sight in the neighborhood lol.

I think we actually bought the ground from a grand daughter (I think) of EJ Ewers. I need to ask him about that. May have been his daughter, she was in her 80’s at the time I think.

I guess EJ Ewers grave is in a cemetery up the road. Next time me and the wife are out walking I’m going to hunt his headstone up.

 

[sandbur]

Wife and I are tearing out fence and clearing brush. I am using my tractor with grapple to pile the brush in a hole that once was the foundation of a house so I can burn it safely. The fence we are taking out is four strands of barbed wire with woven, all wood posts, I am pretty sure the posts are hedge. The woven has been there so long the bottom is buried. There is evidence of a couple three versions of electric fence- ceramic insulators, plastic insulators and wire deals that can be thrown over a post to put the hot wire about 16 inches inside the main fence.

As I was rolling up barbed wire, I told my wife “I’d like to know how long it’s been since this was rolled up.” That thought has been bouncing around my head for awhile. I had no way to know so in desperation I tried taking a picture of it and uploaded to ChatGPT. ChatGPT asked for more info but estimated its vintage as between 1875 and 1920.

Wasn’t real confident about that. Called my neighbor across the road who is mid 70’s and has lived here his entire life on the same farm his dad lived on his entire life who knows all the history. Told him I had been thinking about all the farmers, sons and farm hands who had patched that fence in the heat and the snow and that I could see evidence of those repairs. Asked him how long that fence had been there. He says “E.J. Ewers probably built that fence, and I have a plat book with his name in it from the year he arrived here in 1870. I would guess that it was built shortly after barb wire came out. Like all farmers, he probably waited a year or two until he saw someone else use this new thing before he tried it out. Right there where you are piling the brush to burn was where he built his house. My dad and Bill __________ (name redacted to protect the guilty lol) got their asses whipped when they were kids for throwing hedge balls through the windows of that house after it was abandoned.”

He then started going through the history of the ground and even who rented it as pasture, how one guy had a bull for a few years so he didn’t even go near the fence and how that guy always had a few stragglers that they couldn’t get loaded in the trailer and that he hired a cowboy to round them up out in the timber. Said that was quite a sight in the neighborhood lol.

I think we actually bought the ground from a grand daughter (I think) of EJ Ewers. I need to ask him about that. May have been his daughter, she was in her 80’s at the time I think.

I guess EJ Ewers grave is in a cemetery up the road. Next time me and the wife are out walking I’m going to hunt his headstone up.

I like hearing that old history from old timers. I am near that age myself.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

That stuffs always so interesting to me. Not to hijack this thread but I sometimes let me mind wander about stuff on my farm as well. I have at least 4 different home places I can easily identify. One has the structure but the others I can always tell cause the vegetation is different and daffodils…they are a dead giveaway. The crazy thing is none are near a current road. So historic travel corridors weren’t the same back then which is interesting too. Maybe in another life we can see all these things we will never get an answer to in this life.

 

[Westwind]

I think threads that are allowed to wander a little end up being the best!

 

[Westwind]

I like hearing that old history from old timers. I am near that age myself.

I took notes this time. This old boy loves to talk and knows the history by heart, I need to write it all down.

 

[crappieman2380]

Took a walk today and found some acorns that are splitting open and look like they may be viable to plant. Grabbed 20, but I could have had as many as I wanted to carry. Never tried to plant any oaks, but brought them home and threw them in the ground. Figured im out nothing but a little time if they don't sprout.