Things Are Growing

Food plots, grass, weeds, wildflowers, buck antlers, fawns, ticks, poults, algae and everything else all seem to be growing fast right now.

We had been visiting family recently and, when we returned, we found 1.5" in the rain gauge.  With the rain came a cover of green in the recently planted food plots.

Some of it may even be the things that I planted.  But there are also a lot of weeds.  I put sunflowers and buckwheat in the pumpkin patch this year.  So far, I can see buckwheat and weeds.

Above the pond, I put in buckwheat and cowpeas.

I think that I can see evidence of both of them in addition to the weeds.

I'm guessing that these are cowpeas.

This was a replanted clover plot - it's spotty but generally ok.

I'm not sure if I made any difference with the bentonite on the pond leak.  But we do seem to have more algae this year.

Butterfly milkweed is blooming.

The wild wineberries aren't producing fruit yet.

I found new survey stakes and tape along one border of the property.  I'm wondering what the neighbor has in mind here.

I suspect that this was part of the survey crew.

I'm providing some minerals for the buck antlers and doe milk.

It's that amazing time of year.

The ticks are also finding plenty of hosts to feast on.

And the fawns are frolicking.

Including some twins.

Interesting capture at the driveway - a hawk of some sort?

The deer and the turkeys are mixing it up a bit.

Is she nested out there?

Fox.

Scraggly coyote.

I'm surprised how much strutting is still going on.

A turkey dust up.

Exuberance or panic?

Help For Spring Chores

Van and Mike were out and helped a ton with the mowing and bush-hogging.

And Creigh came out for two days to help with my timber stand improvement (TSI) work.

We made a lot of progress.

Sometimes it may not have been perfect.

Like burying a saw in a tree that leaned back

Or leaving a hanger that needed felled with the help of a winch.

And it was hot sweaty work.

But we really opened the canopy.  I think that I'm 90% done on the 3 acres that were marked.

On the way out to the farm, I stopped at Jones Fish to get minnows for forage and grass carp to work on weed control.  We saw a heron the next day - wonder if I still have any grass carp.

I'm still chasing pond leaks with bentonite.

I was supposed to get the kitty litter sized stuff but I got the real fine stuff instead.  We'll see how that works.

Creigh brought Marty out for some farm time.  He likes to fetch. Marty fetch

They had several nice explorations.

Covered a lot of ground.

Found butterflies and a couple carcasses.

Went for a swim.

I think Marty likes the farm life.

I got my two summer plots planted.

First disking.

Then dragging.

Planting striped sunflowers for Joan this year (not black oil sunflowers for the deer).

I tried this blend for the first time and added some buckwheat in.

My first time with cowpeas and hairy vetch.

And finally rolled to get seed to soil contact.  Now we just need rain.

I have been putting out minerals for the deer.

Both the does and bucks seem to appreciate it.

We do have fawns now.

And bucks.

The turkeys have survived the Spring season.

It's a busy time of the year.