Though I'd go ahead and start my food plot adventures for this season.
Thinking about the up coming season is always on my mind. There are always things I intend to do but never seem to have enough time, even though I've been retired 6 years. I want to dig a small waterhole on our lease. Been thinkin' about that for years. Have the perfect spot, just need to take the tractor over on the hill and get started, probably wouldn't take half a day to complete. Only hunted the lease 1 time last season due to my hip replacement surgery. Miss Joy doesn't like for me to kill any of the does on our place so that is where I can kill a doe or two for the freezer.
Last years "Last Minute Plot" work pretty well and I will try to keep it going through the summer with a summer planting and then plant some rye or oats in October. I failed to get some pictures before I started mowing a few weeks back, but visualize lots of dead dog fennel stems, sprouting fresh green from the roots, other weeds such as curly dock already seeded out, last season's rye stems still standing and to my surprise quite a bit of White Ladino Clover under all this junk!
If it ever dries up enough, we'll disk the "Z" shape where the rye was last fall and then add a summer crop. Will also try to help the clover by mowing the patches each time they seed out.
Mowing also included the dead junk in the planted pines that did not burn when we did the controlled burn several months ago. This mowing is in the planted pines and is strictly for added visibility. The deer seem comfortable in the pines with the short under growth.
Got a few pictures off the game camera by the feeder showing some of the work going on. It may be dry enough to pull the off-set harrow through the Z shaped plot in a few days, if so I'll fluff it up enough to plant something that will grow into the fall. I really need to do it soon as I'm on the verge of having my right shoulder rebuilt and that shuts down everything for a few months as I found out twice last year, first with the knee then the hip.
Treefarmer
Sorry about the pictures not showin' up, I resized them using the "Paint" option that I've been using since last year but I keep getting some message about checking the URL, make sure it's correct? Greek to me, somebody will come by and straighten me out before too long. Last Friday evening the "big dog" IT man from our power company was visiting us, had I known....
Hell ya my favorite thread is back and kicking! Cant wait to see the pics and watch the thread unfold! email me the pics i will post them for ya. fote03@gmail.com
Well here we go again. Not being able to post pictures puts a damper on a food plot tale. I'm hoping everything works this afternoon. Once again my hat's off to sam03, saying thanks for the tutorial he supplied me in my computer ignorance.
One thing or another has prevented any seed going into the ground, the seed bed has been cut with the offset harrow then I went over it last week with the regular disk. I noticed this morning that there are a lot of seeds of some type sprouting in the plot, so it'll have the disk over it again before we put out any seed. I have an almost full 50 pound bag of low germination zipper cream peas that would do the soil good and be easy to cut in and plant a winter patch out in October.
We had some real weather yesterday, had wind up in the 30 mph range for a short time but only 0.9" of rain. At the Panama City Airport they recorded 68 mph winds, news showed a lot of trees down and a few roofs messed up. Add that to earlier rains and we've still got a pretty gummy soil to deal with. Conditions need to be just right to plant this plot. If it's too dry it's hard a asphalt, if it's too wet it gums up a planter or grain drill. It might come to broadcasting the seed and then disking lightly. That works but it works better with a drill or planter.
There is an old doe that has claimed the feeder for her own. Both her fawns are bucks this time. We saw them as spotted fawns a little before the season started last year. They're the ones that learned to lick the spinner plate and get corn to trickle out rather than wait for it to spin with the clock. Once in a while other deer come to the feeder but quite often she and her boys are there and the picture shows other deer standing back. However at least there is another buck that walked by and looked at the feeder, and that's all he did, look from about 10 feet and he moved on. One thing about it, he knows where momma lives! Really don't see bucks of any size going to an automatic feeder on our place. When corn was cheap, when you could pour out a bag every 2 or 3 days in the same spot we would see some antlers from time to time. Of course you had the fattest coons and squirrels in the country.
Hope to get this mess under way in a few days and will try to continue the posts as we have done in the past.
Treefarmer
There is an ol' saying "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions". My intentions were to run a weekly report and add some interesting pictures concerning the "Z" shaped food plot and I failed to follow through :oops . I've got several, what I call good excuses but the one that is probably most valid is I'm gettin' old :crip and having trouble doing what I did just a year or so back. I have a good friend that comes by on Fridays and gives Miss Joy and I a helping hand with some of the heavier chores.
Back in August I was working on the dryer vent and was crawling around on my knees, the next day my right knee just failed me as we were cutting and loading some brush that had gotten out of hand. Had it "scoped" on Sept.2 and I'm getting around pretty well, still with a cane though.
The peas that we planted back in June were utilized by the deer even though we didn't have a real good stand, every plant appeared to have been nipped by deer. It made a few peas which they also enjoyed. On Sept.18, I was able to bush hog the food plot since one tractor was still hooked to the mower and the following day was able to disk in the mowed pea vines and crab grass as the disk was hooked to the other tractor. October 3rd, I disked it again and one final disking on the 8th. Friday the 9th my friend helped me un-hook the disk and hook up the old antique grain drill. We promptly planted the "Z" shaped plot with Wren's Abruzzi Rye. The soil had some moisture but it could use a good shower or two. I'll try and get a picture of the planted plot and then keep going as it develops.
There have been some real interesting pictures the last month or so that I'll try and post. Twin fawns from last year are staying close, one is a spike the other is a tall 4 point, there are a couple of pretty good 8 's that have shown up a few times and there is an old doe that appears to have triplets.
Treefarmer
