Friday, December 6, 2013

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.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

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!



Saturday, September 14, 2013

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.

Sunday, July 28, 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.


Wednesday, July 10, 2013

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.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

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
SpecieCommon# Planted
Pecan450
Cypress450
Sugarberry450
Willow Oak100
Green Ash100
Cow Oak200
Laurel Oak200
Live Oak200
Nuttall Oak200
Bitter Pecan100
Drummond Maple200
Black Gum200
Total2850
2013
SpecieCommonPlantedSwitchgrass(Dpak)
Cypress650Indian Grass(Dpak)
Southern Catalpa50Eastern Gammagrass (Caddo)(Dpak)
Crabapple50Common Sunflower(1/4 lb)
American Beach50Button Bush(Dpak)
Red Maple50Browntop Millet (50lbs)
Red Mulberry50Standing Cypress(Dpak)
Chinese Chestnut25Rice (50 lbs)
Eastern Red Cedar50
Sycamore30
Nuttal Oak50
Cow Oak50
Water Oak100
Shumard Oak25
Willow Oak100
American Elm20
Water Tupelo100
Green Ash40
Button Bush200
Total1690