A visit to the farm

We were at the farm yesterday, I had to drop off some forms at the NRCS office in Dresden, Tn to get the farm into the EQIP program. It turned out to be a beautiful day to go although it was muddy and we had to walk to get to the back part of the farm. Which for me was a good thing as I can always use the exercise. I wanted to put the game camera back up and was going to put it at the deer feeder, but I took a different route back to the game feeder and found a ridge going down into what we call fern valley that had an abundance of deer sign on it. So I put the camera there. We also had a small fire we started and sat by for about 2 hrs. I did check the deer feeder and it didn't look like the deer had been feeding at it. Of course it has only been up for about 5 days and the deer need to get use to it. It did look like the deer had been passing through the area. I just recently got my Colt 45 pistol back from my brother, we took it along and tried it out. I have forgotten how much fun shooting that gun can be. It looks like I will have to purchase a new loader so I can reload the shells. That is all for this visit, I am going to be making plans for planting some trees and will be posting those plans soon. Keep reading and watching for new posts

Next trip to the Farm

We got the deer feeder set up a week ago today, we were going to download pictures from the game camera and leave it to see what visited the feeder, but I took the wrong USB connector so we had to bring the camera back to our house to download the pictures. We will be taking the camera back tomorrow and will take more corn to put in the feeder. One of the pictures that was downloaded from the game camera showed someone trespassing/hunting illegally on the farm. There was also a coyote that was caught on the camera. We will also be going by the USDA office to turn in paperwork for a program that hopefully we will be getting into to help pay/improve the timber on the farm. I will be doing posts about this project if and when we get into it. I will put in all the plans that the forestry service want to do. See the new game photos below.


Coyote


trespasser




Deer

Going to the Farm

Lois and I will be going to the farm tomorrow, for Lois this will be her first trip over there since thanksgiving. It gives her a chance to slow down from her job when we go there. Lois bought me a deer feeder for Christmas and we are going over to put it out and start feeding the deer, turkeys, raccoons and etc. as this seems to the animals that show up once you start feeding corn, I also bought a mineral block to put out. We are going to put the feeder down by where I have the game camera so hopefully I will get more good photos of the animals on the property. We will spend a relaxing day there, we may stop in to check on well drilling as there are two drillers that live just down the road from the farm. Hope to have more photos to put on the blog site of the farm. Will also down load photos from the game camera.

Thanksgiving at the Farm

We spent thanksgiving day at the farm, Lois and I, Liz, Scott, Darren, Chad and Carmen. We were suppose to have a wiener roast but decided to eat at a buffet in Mackenzie sometime during the day. We were able to do a lot of different thing that day including fishing,

shooting,


, exploring and of course we had a bonfire
.
We were so busy during the day that at about 4:30 pm I said that we needed to head into town to eat. Of course by that time the restaurant had closed, so we headed home and stopped at a McDonald's for Thanksgiving Diner. Everyone had a great time and we are going to do it again next year and include more of the family.

Work at the farm needs to be done, work on the dam at the south pond needed to be done, a washout up on one side of the draw that feeds into the south pond needs to be filled and an area up on the hill needs to be cleared of brush and dirt. I hired a backhoe and operator to do the work. He on the south end of the dam, it had washed out over 7 feet deep. We were able to get enough dirt from the side of the hill to fill this in. We then cut a new ditch into the side of the hill on the east end of the dam to create a spillway for the dam. See attached pictures. We were able to use the brush and dirt from the area up on the hill to fill in the washout on the south side of the draw that goes into the pond. I was also able to haul a bunch of metal that we had picked up from numerous places on the property and haul it to the recycle plant in Huntingdon. We also had to have a tree cut down that had died down by the barn. It was leaning towards the barn and was also next to the electrical wires that come into barn and property. The reason the pond looks so dirty in these pictures are the cows were still on the property and they would get in the ponds and keep them stirred up and dirty.

Birds

One of the things that has been exciting for me at the farm is all the different birds I have seen at the farm. There are several pairs of bluebirds that I have seen. One pair stays close to the barn. I have seen numerous pairs of cardinals and jays. The bluebirds were the most fun to watch. I will be building some bluebird houses to put up. I also saw a Pileated Woodpecker near the farm (I have included a picture of one). We have a lot of swallows that nest at the barn. We also have quail, turkeys and hawks. I have started a diary of the different birds I have seen and will update the blog with the different birds. I will also be adding some wood duck house with hopes of attracting some.