Food Plot Resurrection!

We arrived at the farm on Friday.  There had been a pretty good rainstorm on Tuesday.  This is what the rain gauge showed.

You can see the evaporation lines.  Looks like it was originally 3.5".  It had an amazing effect on the food plots - this is brassica in main field - higher than my boots.

What a strange year.  It was wet thru July and then just basically stopped until October.

This is the orchard plot looking back at the barn.  My seeding was spotty but the brassica is great.

The long main field is leafy brassica.

The field by the main stand was clover over-run with grass.  The clover is back with a bunch of smartweed.

The high pond field had looked like bare dirt.  There is spotty brassica now.

The barn field clover is back.

And so is the driveway stand clover.

Joan and I did the camera tour.

The pond is still quite low.

I got out the zero turn to mow and, of course, I had a flat.

I marked a big gouge in the sidewall - doesn't look repairable to me.

The pumpkin patch is a complete lost cause this year.  I wandered in for a minute and found one gourd.

I finally looked at the spent cartridge that my guide gave me as a souvenir of my elk hunt. It was a 300 RUM, not a 7mm RUM.  Shows you how much I knew about what I was shooting.

I went to the main stand Friday night just to have a good perch for spotting activity.

The does just kept pouring out into the field.

I'm sure that I had 11 out there at one time.  They kept coming and going so it was hard to keep track.  It could have been a lot more.

Even with this high stand and the drop off down wind of me, one eventually got behind me and caught my scent.

Which started a parade of them out of the field.

Do you think I was busted?

But the dumbo forkhorns weren't worried about it at all.

Beautiful night.

More touring.

Saturday I went to the pond stand.  I have not done my pre-season chores.  I was able to reach out and break off some branches that were in the shot window.  I was lucky that there were no wasp nests.

Spotty brassica in this upper pond field too.

A few does out.

A couple of dumbo spikes.

Another great sunset.

Turkeys out the breakfast window.

I finally remembered to turn on the camera at the rebuilt mock scrape.

It got a lot of activity.

Territorial fights.

And she was not happy with it at all.

I'm not sure what this flock of birds is.

Or this individual.

Pretty sure this is an owl on the hunt.

And now landed.

I wonder if the turkeys even care about the electric fence.  Some trees still surviving.

Multiple big flocks of turkeys are about.

I'm pretty sure this is a pileated woodpecker on the wing.

I'm sure that I heard this pack of coyotes singing one night.

Bobcat.

Fox.

Some random shots.

Love the farm in the fall.