Peaceful waters .......

Moonrise on the small pond (late November) after a tooth rattling bone jarring day of riding the tractor preparing the prairie plots. Chilly and quiet except the haunting calls of a couple of Great Horned Owls in the nearby woods.

Rounds two and three of prairie prep....

Have completed two more rounds of herbicide treatment and disking the plots in the hopes that the native coastal prairie seed which I should be picking up from Marc Pastorek will grow unfettered  by invasives or noxious weeds. Only time will tell at this point, the challenge now will be finding a weather window conducive to the last dirt work/ seeding.

First few passes with the disk on the left, on the right the carpet of Rice-Field Sedge and mixed Sesbania. Nearly all other species seem to have been killed off by herbicide and disk treatments...this is all thats left.

First plot all disked up again....I'll hit it with roundup one more time before seeding if weather permits.

Second plot after two treatments before third disk.

Getting started on third round of disking.

Slow going! Takes me three passes to turn the ground sufficiently.

Some hours later....second plot half done.

On another note, I'm excited to see the cool weather and looking forward to upping my bird list for the property. Last I checked it was at 92.....I guess that count officially started two years ago and should be quite a bit higher. There are lots I have heard but not positively identified, most of the 91 thus far I  photographed so there is no question. I'm really learning as I go. I got two Great Horned Owls this evening as was walking to my truck (Nov 16, 2013)! Whew hooo!

Prairie Plots Prep Time !! Round one !!! Done !!

Finished the first round of preparation on the three prairie restoration plots (see Prairie page), which consisted of about two months of bush hogging, then waiting several weeks, then spraying a RoundUp/ 2-4-D treatment, then waiting several weeks, then disking each tract, then waiting a few weeks and disking them a second time. I will repeat the process (minus the bush hogging) once more and then sow the prairie seeds sometime hopefully in mid November.  The goal is to get rid of the noxious and invasives so the natives we'll plant will have better survivability.

Eastern portion of pipeline Right Of Way...soon to be prairie plot. 14 September 2013.

Any reason to get in the pond......

July 28 2013....
       A couple of weeks ago I felled a couple of tallow trees (poisoned the stumps) cut the bottoms to as sharp of a point as I could with a chain saw, and pruned the tops back to be used as bird perches out in the middle of the big pond. A weekend later I hopped in the pond and dragged one out to the middle and stood it up and tried my best to get it to stick upright in the mud.....not even close....... the bottom of the pond is just too firm. So I hauled it back to the bank and left it....until today. Today I brought a post hole digger!!! I drove to the property and sprayed my first herbicide application on the three soon to be prairie plots. By the time I was done spraying I was dying to hop into the cool waters of the pond. I pulled the post hole digger out and waded out to the middle of the pond and commenced diggin a hole......under the water ........not the easiest task but at least every time I hit redline and thought I was gonna overheat all I had to do was take a seat and cool off. Well, in no time I had two holes about four feet deep  so I stood up the two trees and low and behold, they stood up and stayed up...pretty sturdy too.
I'm gonna try to add at least two every time I go until it gets cold to make a nice little rookery spot.

Freshwater Treat!

So I have been trying to get the SAVs (Submerged Aquatic Vegetation) going in the ponds for a while without much luck. I would go out and collect a  bit from here or there (mostly coontail or widgeon grass) and get in the pond and stuff it into the soft mud......but have not seen much evidence that it was taking. Then a few weeks ago I noticed several large blue crabs (which I have documented in the ponds since shortly after they were built) and each would have a short piece of coontail or widgeon grass in its claws chewing away. Hmmm, the pond is bare bottom except the few fistfulls of SAVs I would stuff in there......they are mowing down whatever I put in there....right? Ok lets do a new sort of experiment. So Thursday July 4th I drive out to the property and set three crab traps in the pond. Saturday July 6  I called up Judge Edwards who had previously and graciously offered to let me collect some widgeon grass from a pond  he manages. So we head down to Pecan Island area and collect a good amount of it and I haul it home. Next day on the 7th  I head to the property and hop into the pond and spend a good two hours stuffing it all in the mud again (in the pouring rain, but it did not matter I was in the pond anyway). Then I went to the traps I had thrown in a few days before and pulled them out..........

Dinner plans for the day were quickly re-arranged! There was about a dozen large (all male) blue crabs in two of the three traps. No small or mediums ...just large....nice. So I'm gonna bait and set traps the next few weeks to even the odds for my SAV's and slow down the crabs. This way I get a nice fresh seafood dinner and the SAV's have a fighting chance!

I also bush hogged the prairie plots in preparation for the chemical treatment and disking that I will have to start soon.....also in the pouring rain.

Also after a talk with Billy Finny decided it would be a good Idea to cut some tall tallow trees (25-30' tall) and prune some branches and move those pruned  trees (snags) into the pond and stand them up for bird perches/ rookery space. So I chain-sawed  a couple...pruned them...sharpened the bottom of the cut tree and left them on the outside edge of the pond to dry and lighten up a little...this weekend I'll stand them up out in the middle of the pond and see if the birds like. I'll probably keep doing this until I have a nice little patch of em out in the middle. (Oh did I mention it was pouring down the whole time!) Great weekend...good to be out there in it.

Restoration thus far:

The map above shows the areas that have either been planted with native trees, native grasses or have had some sort of invasive specie control method implemented. The yellow areas are the three prairie restoration plots which will be seeded this fall. Also this winter I will be working my way south into the flooded woods adding more native trees and doing some selective tallow control.

Planting crew I hired  (Templin Forestry) last year to help get a jump start on tree planting. Seen here busting open various bags of native bare root seedlings and mixing them into their carrying sacks.

Same crew as above planting the areas around the ponds.



Part of the four acre area where I hand cleared the tallows and poisoned all the stumps...There was maybe  one native tree to every twenty tallow trees (but I left all natives standing). On the map above this area is outlined in orange on the eastern border of the property. That was two years ago....it is now an impenetrable briar thicket with only the few natives I left behind towering out of the briars....next photo.

Same area as above two years later....natives are tall , and you can't tell in the photo but there is a good eight foot wall of briars, saltbush, and undergrowth....mean country... but the rabbits like it! Ps..very little tallow re-growth (I used Garlon), but felling the tallow and leaving them on the ground almost guarantees a briar thicket the following year.

Photo below is same area in July 2013...

Sapling from last year leafing out near pond.

Cypress leafing out around rim of pond (I planted 200 cypress around the inside rim of the large pond). One tree every seven feet or so. And so far they all look good ..I don't think one has died (or been eaten yet).

Transplanted pickerel weed.. quite a few clumps around the pond, also note the cypress peeking out behind it..one of the 200 around the pond.

2012
	Specie	Common	# Planted
		Pecan	450
		Cypress	450
		Sugarberry	450
		Willow Oak	100
		Green Ash	100
		Cow Oak	200
		Laurel Oak	200
		Live Oak	200
		Nuttall Oak	200
		Bitter Pecan	100
		Drummond Maple	200
		Black Gum	200
	Total		2850
2013
	Specie	Common	Planted				Switchgrass(Dpak)
		Cypress	650				Indian Grass(Dpak)
		Southern Catalpa	50				Eastern Gammagrass (Caddo)(Dpak)
		Crabapple	50				Common Sunflower(1/4 lb)
		American Beach	50				Button Bush(Dpak)
		Red Maple	50				Browntop Millet (50lbs)
		Red Mulberry	50				Standing Cypress(Dpak)
		Chinese Chestnut	25				Rice (50 lbs)
		Eastern Red Cedar	50
		Sycamore	30
		Nuttal Oak	50
		Cow Oak	50
		Water Oak	100
		Shumard Oak	25
		Willow Oak	100
		American Elm	20
		Water Tupelo	100
		Green Ash	40
		Button Bush	200
	Total		1690

2012

Specie

Common

# Planted

Pecan

450

Cypress

450

Sugarberry

450

Willow Oak

100

Green Ash

100

Cow Oak

200

Laurel Oak

200

Live Oak

200

Nuttall Oak

200

Bitter Pecan

100

Drummond Maple

200

Black Gum

200

Total

2850

2013

Specie

Common

Planted

Switchgrass(Dpak)

Cypress

650

Indian Grass(Dpak)

Southern Catalpa

50

Eastern Gammagrass (Caddo)(Dpak)

Crabapple

50

Common Sunflower(1/4 lb)

American Beach

50

Button Bush(Dpak)

Red Maple

50

Browntop Millet (50lbs)

Red Mulberry

50

Standing Cypress(Dpak)

Chinese Chestnut

25

Rice (50 lbs)

Eastern Red Cedar

50

Sycamore

30

Nuttal Oak

50

Cow Oak

50

Water Oak

100

Shumard Oak

25

Willow Oak

100

American Elm

20

Water Tupelo

100

Green Ash

40

Button Bush

200

Total

1690