RANDOM CHAT THREAD - Chat about anything or just hang out - ALL are welcome.

[worldtalker]

I didn't realize seals we're that aggressive.

No...just hungry.

 

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[WannaDig3687]

Good Morning all!

 

[WannaDig3687]

Thanks bill we had fun. We had a large group of friends and family with us. We raided the brewery and distillery for tailgate supplies. We even stole a large islamorada beer co. tent for tailgating. My uncle drove down from deer field and met us there. That's him with the jets hat. That's Capt. Paul behind us too. We sat in the parking lot for an hour after the game eating and drinking. It's great that Capt. paul doesn't drink, he always drives us !!

Tailgating and football games are a lot of fun! Looks like you had a blast! And important to have a DD. I don't think it is stealing the tent. You should get a kick back for the advertising you provided.

 

[WannaDig3687]

You got the money...spend it...new truck to tow that new boat. https://www.factoryfive.com/hot-rod-truck/

I think his heart is set on the Nova. We drove by one yesterday and I pointed it out. He said, "Wrong body. I want one like the black one we seen up at the lake." It's just a matter of time. We drive by this body shop all the time. One day they will have a piece of candy that he just can't resist sitting in the corner of the lot with a "For Sale" sign in the window.

 

[GB1]

Good morning

 

[RTR]

Pretty cool. What does your Cobra have under the hood?

Mustang GT 5.0 302 EFI engine w/a lot of Ford GT-40 high performance race parts .Producing 345-350 HP.Ford T-5 five speed tyranny,Heavy duty Cobra clutch,373 posy rear. Total weight 2,000 pounds

 

[WannaDig3687]

WD,

We had lots of fruit and nut trees on our ranches, every year we would propagate and plant new trees. The bees loved it, they where mostly attracted to the cherry, crab apples, peaches and lavender.

You have forty acres, do you plant a new tree each year, does not take much to grow one. Do you have any bee hives. 40 acres could take a few hives, or you could just have one single hive.

We always had triple raised bed barriers around our hives full of only lavender. Makes them very easy to deal with, very low maintenance and pest do not get to them.

we never used the honey, fruit or nuts for our selves, well not in the amount that we grew. Honey was for the cattle, fruit and nut orchards where wild orchards we planted and we would just allow the fruit and nuts to fall and be eat by what ever ate it.

As for deer, we had more of them than you could shake and damn stick at, damn bushcats and tons of hog. Every 3 years my father would purchase a bunch of elk and release them on the Junction ranch. He said that he had not seen Elk in that area since the 30s. We never shot elk on that ranch, I am sure others around the area certainly did, just not on our ranch. We did not have game fences either at that ranch, so they could go where ever they wanted.

Had one neighbour to the east of us, he used to release pronghorn on his ranch, he owned another ranch up north and would have around 100 brought down back then. First time I saw one of those I did not know what the heck it was. Told one of our workers there about it and he told me.

Nothing wrong with not letting folks hunt on your land WD, seriously 40 acres is about enough land to take care of you and yours but also give back. You would really notice giving back, something as simple as one hive on your property and even your neighbours would notice. Even a few bat houses do wonders, just little ones made for 100 bats each set up in the right places, no more than 1 per ten acres.

We have planted many trees out here. The county has a tree sale every year. The first year we did that, we planted 275 saplings! That was ridiculous! We had a guy stop by and was offering pine trees and they would even plant them. MR WD took them up on 20 or 25 of those. There is a nursery that has an auction every August that we have gotten trees from a couple of times. That didn't turn out as well because they dumped them off and busted the balls, so they aren't doing very well. And my dad sweeps up maple seeds and I scatter them. The sapling sale is what we have committed to.

I wanted to post a picture for you, but I can't find it. We have what I call a peninsula of woods that juts out into the farm fields. It was loaded with ash trees, as was our whole woods. The Emerald Ash borer destroyed all our ash trees. That peninsula is barren now. So, this year I planted there mostly. We also have a problem with the Wild Honeysuckle. We spent several years trying to eradicate them. We just don't have the time or man power.

What we have identified so far as to the fruit and nut trees:

A couple different apple trees (have no idea what kind they are. We have tasted a couple)

Crab apples

Walnut

Hickory

Horse Chestnut/Buckeyes

Sugar Maple

Paw Paw - I never knew what a Paw Paw was until 3 years ago when our BFF's harvested some from our property. I love them, Mr Wd hates them. I wasted a year by harvesting them too soon. I didn't get any this year because I had too much on my plate to get to them.

Mulberry

We also have raspberry and blackberries.

Speaking of the BFFs, they own 10 acres along side us and are more of the naturalists. They were looking into the beehives. We will let them lead and see what they do right/wrong and follow accordingly.

They tapped a couple of their Sugar Maples last year and one of ours. Ours turned out to be the wrong tree. So this year we rode around and tied caution tape to several trees so we can get it right this year.

As for bat houses. I believe we need to look into those. We have a huge mosquito population with all the creeks and swampy areas.

Either late winter or early spring of 2017, I woke up one Saturday morning. I looked out the window and noticed all the cedar trees had these beautiful orange-ish red "flowers" on them. They looked like they were decorated for Christmas. I took my grandson out to investigate. The "flowers" were more like a sticky slime conglomerate. I researched and found that it was cedar-apple rust. The suggestion was to eradicate all the cedars to save the apples. Well, the cedars are thick here also, so that was a "no." Just let nature take it's course.

Thanks for all the info, Oddjob! I really appreciate it! I never heard of a pronghorn. I had to look that up.

 

[Blak bart]

my work partner got this one yesterday morning. They get quite a few in S.C., and there freezers are all full as the season winds down there.

 

[Blak bart]

They invite me to hunt all the time, but I really enjoy having them just bring the processed meat. I will get up there to a killer Civil war site to metal detect.

 

[GB1]

They invite me to hunt all the time, but I really enjoy having them just bring the processed meat. I will get up there to a killer Civil war site to metal detect.

i love dear hunting but i wouldn't go up north for dear hunting but metal detecting is different

 

[WannaDig3687]

"Balance" of sex ratio in a deer herd is always going to spark debate.
What an unmolested (by humans ,with weapons including automobiles) herd becomes depends on depredation by other predators , winter severity , and habitat capacity.

Balance of a herd ,nature can deal with.
The bigger concern should be in keeping deer below habitat capacity ,or supplementing tonnage of browse. If you find everything browsed down to pencil sized diameter ,and deer are standing on their hind legs to browse (leaving a high browse line) and deer are eating less desireable things of poor nutrition value ....Then you have a problem.

Your doe are likely homebodies. A mile or two in range.
Your bucks can go fifteen miles if need be during the rut to seek doe.
They hang out in bachelor groups in summer ,usually away from doe.
While doe run off last years fawns and defends new spring time site to drop her new fawns. They (the females and young bucks (if they behave and are not amorous) in the late summer.

Depending on habitat capacity you may or may not have too many deer. Your pics show good weights on them. The one buck I looked over in your pic. did not suffer from much lack of protein or mineral so you look alright from a very small opinion.

We have C.W.D. now in our herd. Quite a game changer , and great debate as to how to manage deer numbers going forward.

I consider the surrounding area here for what deer have for habitat and browse.
They like the security of my land for dodging hunting pressure .
They also have plenty of browse till winter.
Were I to heed some folks and reduce their numbers severely to prevent deer from dispersing and potential C.W.D. spread....I would be affecting about 14 other hunters/landowners directly.
Also would be reducing the deer per square mile more severely than other properties could.

If some one wanted to hunt my land , (and there would be exceptions of certain guests ) , they would be doing habitat improvement ,and general labor year round in exchange for the privilage.

I can control deer numbers on it myself. How to manage those numbers goes beyond what is seen on my property , and concerns the locale's herd as a whole.
If I were going to solicit help ,it would again be disabled hunters and seniors. Friends and family members ? Would depend.....
As old Dad put it ,friendship can turn to hen $@#! .
I owe a couple hunts to others. No problem getting hunters , so there is the luxury of saying No to requests.

Meanwhile the property owner on one side tells me to take good care of her fawns....She does not mean kill them.

releventchair, thank you so much for all of this information! I'll not deny, I have had to read it a couple of times to let it sink in a little. glass half full mentioned Chronic Waste Disease in my post on MDSS. I put it on the back burner until I read your post. Then I looked it up. Definitely something to keep our eyes out for on those cameras and I should research further.

There is plenty for them to browse. I do not know what is nutritional for them to eat, but we are surrounded by farm land. There are lots of cornfields and soybean fields to glean from. And I listed all the fruits we have on the farm in my reply to Oddjob.

The bucks do cause damage to a lot of our trees with their scrapes. But we just call them s and laugh about it.

The ticks were horrendous out here when we first got the property. The first summer we found them crawling on our house and in our garage. One apparently fell off the house and landed on my head and proceeded to feed. That was the only place I had been when I got up and went to work that morning. So it had to be from the house. I had them real bad in the cemetery, too. Keeping the grass mowed has helped quite a bit.

This farm has been over hunted and over farmed for many years, until we bought it. So, after a couple years of eye witnessing the over farming, we fired the farmer and hired a new one who we trust. He has had us add potash and some selective tree pruning and other stuff, and our yields have improved. Supplying more browse also. Man those deer love the soybeans! So funny to watch them. Buggers.

I am not a hunter. I am not opposed to those who do hunt, but I would prefer to have a sanctuary. I am with your neighbor.

I really appreciate your feed back. I kind of expected it in my thread. I am pleasantly surprised to find it here!

 

[WannaDig3687]

WD,

Just a nod to the blonds on the thread....

 

[WannaDig3687]

And I should have noted W.D.'s evidence of a yearling(last years fawn) being near it's mother (?) when she dropped a new fawn.
While some doe will drive last years young completely out of the area , I have studied a couple that establish a 50-70 yard no go zone , and tolerate last years young being near during fawning time , to a point.

Generally though , given room the doe will discourage other deer from being around during early fawning. Bucks seem to prefer different habitat that time of year anyways (in general and never say never). Avoiding a cranky doe then is seldom an issue. A buck is not aggresive then and is less in amperage in the whole social hierarchy for a while.

There is a dominance/pecking order among matriarchal groups than usually means less dominant doe end up in less desirable places to drop their own fawns when claims get established.
In a case where we had too many (?) coyotes ,with average birthing times having the most new fawns on the ground at one time ; the most experienced doe was the one getting fawns through to the point they could avoid predation better...
Doe fawns come into estrous a month or so after older doe. That and doe that did not take in breeding earlier. They face risks from predators due to less numbers of new borns at times. But diverse nature allows that ,and it has a benefit in Northern regions due to occasional late spring. Probably other areas too ,just to not have all eggs in one basket...

Well, I'll tell ya. I now know who to ask directly if I have any questions! You have taught me a lot in just a couple posts!

worltalker told me once that I was going to be "countryfied" (I am a suburbanite transplanted to this farm). He was not kidding!!

 

[WannaDig3687]

The outhouse of the home next to Paul Revere's home is being excavated. Paul's cousin owned the house at one time and he, along with his twelve children, no doubt visited there and used the privy.
I suppose if they find some fossilized poop and prove it belonged to Paul Revere, there might be an interesting museum display in Boston's future
https://m.phys.org/news/2017-09-sea-outhouse-tied-paul-revere.html

I seen that last year. There could be a lot of historical finds hidden in all that fossilized poop! Most desirably (IMO) BOTTLES!

 

[GB1]

 

[WannaDig3687]

WHERE YOU AT WD

Your missing some good information here mate.

Sorry, Life interuptus.

 

[Hillbilly Prince]

Mustang GT 5.0 302 EFI engine w/a lot of Ford GT-40 high performance race parts .Producing 345-350 HP.Ford T-5 five speed tyranny,Heavy duty Cobra clutch,373 posy rear. Total weight 2,000 pounds

Bet that baby hauls! Did you post a pic of it when you were posting those Cobras?
We had a stock 302 in a little Ford. Loved driving it.

 

[GB1]

 

[GB1]

 

[GB1]

Well time to go tackle the day