Food Plot Frustrations and Copperhead

Food Plot Frustrations

Evening sky just after planting

Plant before the rain right? Yes, but 4.5 inches, not such a good idea.

I decided just day before yesterday that since it looked like rain was imminent in the forecast that I would plant a summer annual food plot. We typically don't do summer plots since our burning program increases the available herbaceous forbs and increases the food supply considerably. But this spring we were not able to get a decent burn in because of the weather.

Not many wildlife managers view the late summer as a major stress on deer. All the luscious and easily digestible plants found in the spring are much less palatable during late summer. As a result, adult bucks and does may have to live on below-average forage. Any late-born fawns must rely on reduced quantity and quality of milk. Consequently, many hunters often plant late-summer food plots to help augment a deer's nutritional deficiencies throughout this stressful period.

Food Plot preparation is very labor intensive and expensive, but its fun and the rewards of watching deer and turkeys feeding on what you have planted are great. 

Following are the proper steps to give an idea of the work involved.

1. Site Selection
2. Remove rocks and small trees if any
3. Spray with Roundup, wait 10 days
4. Bushhog
5. Initial disking
6. spread fertilizer based on soil test
7. disk in fertilizer
8. broadcast seed
9. disk or drag to cover seed
10. cultipack
11. Pray for Rain, just not too much

Tecomate Lablab Plus

Tecomate Lablab Plus ($40 per acre)

40% LabLab, 20% soybeans, 15% Iron & Clay cowpeas, 10% Milo,

10% Ebony Cowpeas

Plot just prior to planting

Plot seeded and culti-packed

Mule, disk and drag

                                                               After 4.5 inches of rain




Problem was I just guessed at the size of the plot and assumed it was about a acre, so seeded @ 22lbs per acre, but AFTER I was done (definition of a dumbass?), I checked on the NRCS soil site and confirmed that I had broadcast probably double the seed (not a good thing since overcrowding will stunt growth) since the actual plot size is only about 1/2 and acre, however since the 4.5 inches of rain probably washed away about 1/2 my seed maybe it will be just right. I applied 200 lbs of Triple 13 so that doubled my fertilizer so thats probably good. 

Trophy Magnet Summer Annual Mix

Trophy Magnet Summer annual plot mix ($22 per acre) comprised of  Cowpeas, Milo, and Millet.

Second plot was  a very long narrow strip just north of fence on Summit Lane. Approx .75 acres. 

Aerial View of  Summit Lane Food Plot

Trophy Magnet Summer annual plot mix ($22 per acre) comprised of  Cowpeas, Milo, and Millet.

 

I tried burning off some of the duff before planting but it was just too damp

Copperhead

Guess getting cut in half by an 600 lb disk and then burned puts an end to this poisonous bad boy.

Plot washed away?

Again, since I didn't measure twice before throwing out my seed, I overseeded by probably 50 % but I suspect I had a lot of seed float away so maybe I'll get lucky.  I didn't disk or drag this plot, just cultipacked since there were some very small millet seeds that should not be deeper than 1/2 inch.

To be captioned

Catclaw

Merritt name this flower please

Bluebird Eggs (3 more)

Ornamental Box Turtle (Is this Dillon?)

Spring Happenings

Bailey swims!!!

Bailey is officially back! This dog hates water. I mean hates water. She will not go outside if it's even lightly sprinkling. She will "hold it" till she busts if ya know what I mean.  This day we went fishing in the pond in the small pontoon boat. Crying and wailing on the shorebank, this whiny baby finally braved the crystal blue to be with us. We were shocked to say the least! Yeah I know it's brown, it gets muddy when it rains.

Hail Producer

Storm Passed

The storms that just missed us! Phew!  This one left softball size hail in Oklahoma city. We were in Dallas for the really big one the week before. Praise God for that. The thought of getting in the dark dungeon Tornado shelter gives me the creeps! Lions and Tigers and Bears oh my! Actually just spiders. 

Our Neighbor's two horses

We let him keep them on our property and he cuts our 5 acres of grass and keeps any eye on the place. Looks to me like we get the better end of this deal!

Fruit Tree's

Our two pear tree's (above) are looking good.  Last year we had a ton of peaches but they were all small and no flavor. Dan's brother Kelly told us to do a major prune and we would get less, but bigger fruit. So I did this on one of the peaches, and left the other as a test. Man was Kelly right! The difference between the two tree's is amazing. Not only is the fruit bigger, but the tree looks healthier as well. I'm going to prune all the fruit tree's this fall. Thanks Kelly!

Man at Work

Dan spraying the fuit tree's for bugs. He was art directing me on this photo. Looks like we do better staying within our own professions. As I am no Photographer and he is no Art Director!

Saturday Happenings

                        Little Miss Emma with her first Catfish

Merritt lands a lunker

                                 Sunset at Merritts Pond

Morning Stroll: Turtles, Snakes, Bluebird Nest & wildflowers

Blue Bird Eggs in Fuse Panel

Some big snake that was rattling its tail at me. Merritt told me I was stupid to get so close to a Rattlesnake but I noticed it did not have an actual rattle on its tail, nor a triangular head. Researched on the internet that Black Racers also rattle to intimidate predators. Case closed.

This is a male 3 toed box turtle which is considered endangered due to habitat loss, fragmentation, harvesting for pet sale, and being hit by automobiles crossing roads. It lives mainly in heavily wooded areas and we have been seeing quite a few in sections we burn. Their average life span is 70 to 100 years. They reproduce at a very low rate, and have about 2 to 4 eggs per nest. With a high mortality rate in the first years leading up to reproductive maturity of about 7.

Wild Bergamot
Seems each week we have a new flower blooming. It has really been fun watching all the different varieties show themselves each week!

Indian Moon Moth

Found this Indian Moon Moth in the front yard tonight.
Also fireflies are starting to show up.

Merritts become quite the fisherwoman

We caught 20 bass and 2 catfish in 1.5 hours at the Big Muddy last night.

Transferred 15 of the bass to Merritts Pond.

She caught this one the wood duck pond.

Still nursing Bailey back to health, she is still not back to normal by a long shot

Beavers Bad

So I've been keeping an eye out for my Beavers on the front pond so I can dispatch them if I get a chance so I don't have to hire a professional trapper to do so. Night before last I sneaked down to the waters edge and caught 2 of them chewing on my willow trees and was able to take care of one of the with my .243.
The other got away but I will be after him as well.
We do really hate to have to kill these animals but they can do serious damage to a pond environment not the least of which is cutting down up to 300 trees per year each. So I'd like to get rid of them before they create a whole community of rodents.

UPDATE: 5/25/2010.

Looks like the shot I made on the second beaver proofed accurate, because about 3 days later he/she came floating to the surface and is being scavaged on by turtles at this point

Turkey Hunting

 Chris trying to sound like a female turkey

Chris and Garrett came out today to try and harvest a spring gobbler, but with no luck. Saw one hen and heard several distant gobbles thats about it, but of course last week had a big gobbler just about on my front porch. See earlier post.

Critters

Saw couple of water snakes down by the beaver dam, no triangular head so don't think its a cottonmouth.

                                                           BEAVER HOUSE
Looks like we have unwanted, unwelcome company in our front pond. My neighbor Gary has been seeing a beaver swimming around and I went to the back side and found a fresh beaver den. The pond has been very muddy lately, I thought due to all the rain we have had, but all the other ponds have cleared so it just dawned on me today its probably that darn beaver that is stirring up the water. I'll have to encourage him to find a new home somehow.

Bailey

Our 14 year old Beagle/golden mix almost died last week, so we are very happy to report she is doing much better and we feel pretty sure she will be with us a while longer. She was having internal bleeding, not able to walk or eat. Couple of very sad days thinking she was on her way to doggy heaven.

Fishing

We have been trying our hand at fishing this last week or so and being do so-so. I actually got Merritt out of bed really early this am, (her idea if you can believe that one) and we walked down to Merritts pond a caught a few bream. We caught some in the wood duck pond last week, fried them up and they were very tasty. This lucky catfish was going to be the first to die for the cause but we decided he wasn't big enough and let him go.

It was a beautiful morning at Merritts pond even if we didn't tear em up.

On our way to Merritts pond (note the old deer stand steps on the tree to the far left)

Wildflowers

We have been seeing a variety of wild flowers this spring. Here is a sampling:

Silver leaf nightshade

Rose Verbena 

Indian Paintbrush Flowers

Blue Stem Native Grass

Trying to Catch Up with Sericea Lezpedeza

The main reason I started this blog was to basically keep track of the going ons at the Ghost Buck Ranch and simple record keeping. What has happened as of late is that I have  very little free time since I have been working on photo stuff and have been reluctant to post stuff without video or pictures.
Problem is video editing take a lot more time than just posting a simple pic, so although I have quite a bit of new material I haven't had the time to put it together well enough to post on the blog, so consequently nothing has been happening on it.
So I've decided to at least make a journal or blog entry whether or not it is boring or wether I have visuals for it or  not at this point, because I'm way behind and need to start keeping a better record of events before they become even more of a blur....so here goes.

Today I started spraying for Seriecia Lespedza, an invasive plant that was originally introduced for erosion control in the late 19th century but is good for absoblutely nothing and very hard to get rid of. I sprayed 100 gallons of Pastureguard this am and that will barely put a dent in it.

Long Time No See, Lets Catch up

Thankfully since there aren't that many people following the GBR Blog I'm not feeling too bad about being so absent for the last month. I have been very busy with work, 9 days in San Francisco, couple weeks in Dallas, then in DC last week. But somebody has to pay for the Ranch so I feel really blessed to be so busy especially during the current economic climate. I just know when I follow a blog, and consistently check it almost on a daily basis, I will lose interest after awhile without updates. Good news is I'm back at the Ranch for an extended period of time now and should not only be keeping things current but hopefully will be able to make up some lost entries that I have just been too busy to do.

So lets get this party started with a Turkey Trot. This old (I know by the length of his beard) Gobbler was strutting his stuff (literally, this is where that term comes from I would assume) 10 feet from my front door this am.

                                            TURKEY TROT
Watch HD Video:

TURKEY TROT VIDEO

Funny thing is, I had 2 local guys come out to hunt Turkeys yesterday and they didn't even see one. Go Figure, I could have hit this one with a stick.