Blue Heron and mother nature

We made a trip to the farm on Thursday, Dec. 17th to check things out as we hadn't been there for two weeks. Everything was in good shape, we had gotten some rain a few days before as you could still see the puddles. I also had a red maple tree to plant and two blue hydrangeas. We planted the two hydrangeas down under the lob lolly pines where we planted the Hostas. The red maple we planted down by the south pond.

While I was planting the red maple I noticed a funny looking area over on the dam, it looked like something white laying on the ground. When I got over to it, I could tell it was feathers from some bird. Once I got to looking closer I found a skeleton laying down on the side of the dam. It had legs and a head with beak. It was the blue heron that we have been seeing quite regularly in both of the ponds on the farm. It apparently got caught by either a coyote or bobcat. Mother nature in a complete circle, the blue heron eats the fish then is eaten. Here are before and after pictures.

here are the after picture

I worked on the oak tree and am happy to say that it is completely cut up and moved. I did take the main log and cut it so that we could have seats that we can sit on down where we have a camp fire. Once I get it all done it will have log seats and a walled fire pit. This is just the start. I thought I had taken pictures of these but apparently I didn't, so you'll have to wait.

Next we went down to the south pond and started clearing some of the brush away from the west side of it. We have some nice plans for this side of the pond and to get it done we have to get it cleared first. As usual I didn't take before pictures but hopefully as we do more of this you will be able to see what we have gotten done from the pictures I do take.

There wasn't any exciting pictures on any of the game cameras and what was there I am going to try and post them on the game camera blog.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Holly & Hazelnut bushes, Oak tree

I made two trips to the farm since the last time I posted, one on November 24 and the other on December 3. On both trips I planted some holly bushes along the north fence line, this will help to isolate us from the neighbors on that side who have dogs that bark and bark and bark.

I don't know just how many I planted but it is a start.

Next I planted three new Hazelnut bushes, these I planted up by the loblolly pine trees. On all these plants that I have planted lately I have used a combination of sand, dirt from the side of the barn that has a lot of cow manure in it and dirt from the original hole. Hopefully this will be better for the plants.

I next planted four azaleas bushes to replace the ones that had died this summer. I also started working on the azaleas so that when it rains the water will be caught to help water them better. I started digging around the bushes so that there is a dam around the lower end of the bush.

On the third I worked on the oak tree that had fallen down last spring and if I hadn't run out of gas in the chain saw I would have gotten it all cut up. I did get a lot of it done as you can see from the photos.

This is a picture from June 23rd.

These are pictures from Dec 3rd

Here is the brush pile that is left from the cutting.

This will be left here for the quail, birds and rabbits.

Here is a picture of the 1 loblolly pine tree that died last year from the drought. It was seventy foot tall and the forestry man said it was at least 80 years old. It fell down sometime between the visit on the 24th and 3rd.

Until next time have a good day.

Nov. 3

We made a trip to the farm on Tuesday, first trip for Lois in 3 weeks. A lot of the leaves that had turned colors, had fallen so Lois did not get to see how pretty the farm was. We had some plants we needed to set out and I had a mission I wanted to get done.
The mission I had was to clear the dam on the south pond, the last time I was at the farm I was fishing over by the dam and had gotten my line hung up on a tree by the dam. When I went to retrieve it and was walking back I got tangled up in some of the briar's on the dam and took a fall. Here is a picture of before I started clearing.

I started clearing and about an 1 1/2 hrs later here is the result.

Here is a picture of across the pond where I started mowing while I was there. It sure looks nice.

Here are the plants that we planted down by the pond, once these started it will look nice down here.

I downloaded the pictures from the new camera placements, the one camera placement did not have many pictures, a total of 4, all does. The other camera did have some good pictures, 2 pictures of a nice 8 point buck.

Here are some doe pictures from the same camera

We also took some pictures of one of the little fence lizards that is always at the door of the barn. When I caught him I told Lois that I had something that was cute, she had to agree that he was cute.

Until the next trip have a great one.

10-22-09 Visit

I went to the farm today to check on things, my son wanted me to set up a camera on a scrape to see if I could get some good pictures of some bucks. Got that done, got some pictures of the colorful trees, hoed the weeds in the iris garden, cleaned the radiator on the tractor and fished a little. Also downloaded a one weeks worth of pictures from cameras.

Here are some pictures from cameras

Oak grove camera

Pond camera

I moved the two cameras that were at the oak grove and at the pond, both are now on scrapes. One has a scrape dripper on it so it will be refreshed each day. The other one is on a trail that has a couple of scrapes on it. Hopefully we should get some good pictures from both of these.

Here are some pictures of the fall colors

Here are some scrapes

I saw more deer sign at the farm than I have seen all year. They have gotten all the corn out on the neighboring farms and most of the soy beans. The deer will have to eat acorns now so hopefully the larger bucks will start showing up. The persimmon trees should be loaded this year with the rain and as soon as we have a couple more frost they will start dropping and there are a bunch of those on the farm. When they start dropping I will move one of the cameras to that area.

10-15-09

Made a trip to the farm today, went by myself to check things out. We hadn't been there for two weeks. Everything looked good when I got there, I did have to hoe the weeds out of the area behind the barn where we planted the iris's and they are looking good. With the onset of colder weather it will help getting rid of a lot of these weeds.

When I opened the barn door there were two lizards underneath it. The one took off running across the concrete floor, he stopped about 5' out on the floor. I went back to the blazer to get the camera to take some pictures of him. He sat right there and let me take some, I tried to get closer and closer and at one point I realized that the cold from the concrete floor had slowed him down so much he could barely move. It was what you call a fence lizard and here are some pictures of him. When I went to put him back onto the grass I took a picture of the other one that was there.

I next went out and planted the lilly's a neighbor had given me, had quite a few of them and planted them with the phlox up under the loblolly pines.

I then went and down loaded all the pictures from the game cameras. I may have to find another tree to put the one camera on, it seems that when it is windy the movement of the tree trunk will set the camera off and I have a bunch of pictures without any animals in it. You can tell it is the wind as you move from one picture to the next you can see the movement of things in front of the camera. We did have a variety of pictures from each camera, although the one at the pond needed to be moved a little to better catch the animals. One of the pictures from the camera under the oak trees you will really enjoy as the deer stuck its head right down in front of the lens.

These next pictures are from the pond

this picture shows how deep the mineral lick is getting

I next went exploring, I had never gone back into the timber down by fern gully (as we call it). It is amazing all the ferns that are growing on the northern hillside. Now is the time to do this kind of walking and exploring as the snakes will be slowed down and should be trying to get somewhere where they can get some sunshine or get warm. I can't say I found anything unusual or exciting. It was just nice to be back in there, I did scare some deer out, couldn't see how many or what they were, bucks or does. I did find an area where there were several rubs, one of which was on a tree that was 4-6" across. See picture

Next I went fishing, I can now say I have caught the largest catfish out of the south pond, of course I am the only person who has caught a catfish out of the south pond. I wasn't fishing for catfish as I had a bass lure on. He hit it anyway and he ended up being about a 3.5 lb catfish. As you can see from the picture he is almost as long as a machete. The only other thing I caught was a small crappie. The important thing was it was fun.

Sep 26 visit to the farm

We went to the farm yesterday to pick up the trailer to bring back to the house, we have to go to pick up some furniture that belonged to Lois's sister, It is at Lois's nephews house down in Birmingham, Al.

I also needed to take the weed eater to Phil Haskins who lives just down the road from the farm and runs a small engine repair shop there. The weed eater broke the last time I used it, hopefully it is still under warranty, we just bought in the spring. He is an authorized Poulan repairman and is the one that repaired my chainsaw and did a great job on it. So if you are in the area and need work done on small engines see Phil. You will see signs for Haskins small engine repairs.

I also changed out the memory cards on the game cameras, only the one at the mineral licks had pictures on it, the one at the oak grove had nine pictures on it but none had any animals. I have readjusted it so we will see if that makes any difference. Here are some of the pictures from the mineral lick area.

There is still standing corn in most of the fields around the farm and we think that all the larger bucks are hiding out in the fields. The standing corn gives the deer an extra place to hide. Last year the fields had soybeans in them and the deer couldn't hide in those.

I did do a little fishing and caught one small bass and a bluegill that was bigger than my hand. He was one of the largest ones I have ever caught. Turned him loose.

I did some hoeing around the iris's at the end of the barn, planted some bulbs up by the lob lolly pines. I also started up Jessie the pickup truck and took her for a spin out on the highway. She fired right up. Still no signs of any oil leaks underneath her.

We forgot the camera again, hopefully we will be back week after next. See ya then.