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PPlinker
04-02-2005, 07:26 PM
My husband and i have 48 acres, about half of which is wooded. We just bought another 17 acres and it is going to be some fantastic hunting because there's a lot of honeysuckle and brush. We're having a great time blazing 4-wheeler trails through there.

My husband is just excited about making the trails. I, however, have great plans to plant a variety of fruit trees to provide abundant fruit for the deer and other wildlife. So far i have planted: 2 hybrid persimmons that will produce in 3 years, 2 pear trees, 2 apple trees, 2 mulberry trees.... I guess that's it. Except for those 25 persimmons on our old property.

Our old property has lot of oak trees that should provide tons of acorns. But when the acorns don't do so good, the deer don't have much to eat in late fall. The fruit trees should fill the gap. I also got a bunch of seed for a food plot, but it's been too wet to till the ground.

I got interested in deer last year when hunting them. Well, maybe obsessed would be a better word. Started doing a lot of reading, and learning deer in our state are too numerous for the habitat to support them. So, i want to improve the habitat, at least give something back for all the enjoyment i've gotten from hunting, photographing, and observing the deer and other wildlife.

Plinker

Scrounger
04-02-2005, 11:13 PM
Well said.

Ed Barrett
04-03-2005, 02:38 AM
Some of the best tasting deer I ever hunted were from an old apple orchard in central Wisconsin. The trees hadn't been pruned in a decade and they produced thousands of 1" and 2" apples. the deer were fat and content. Good luck on your new place.

lar45
04-03-2005, 03:56 AM
We planted over 150 trees 2 summers ago. There is less than 10 that still look alive. I think the soil is really crappy on the place. It grows thistles good though. I think next time we plant tree's, I'll get several bags of potting soil to put in the hole to start them with. We have automatic sprinklers so they didn't go dry at all.

NVcurmudgeon
04-03-2005, 10:26 AM
Penny, You and your husband are being good stewards of the land, in the Theodore Roosevelt tradition. Good to see your post here. curmudgeon

carpetman
04-03-2005, 10:52 AM
Penny I have seen several pictures you have posted at Accurate--deer stands,feeders,bow targets,trail cams----you name it. You do it all,and do it well.. I hope you will be treating us here with posts and pictures. I envy you having your own place. Really neat you can hunt there and ride atv. For me to ride my atv,I have to load it,drive atleast ten miles,unload it,load it back on and then unload again when I get home. To just go out there, crank it up and then park it when I got back would be a super deal.

Buckshot
04-04-2005, 05:17 AM
...........PPlinker, adding my welcome and it's nice to see your post. If you provide ofr them, they WILL come 8) . When I lived out in the sticks it was in a narrow canyon, off a much larger wider one with a nice creek, that was a riparian habitat. Our canyon was dry and the walls were steep enough in most places to keep most anything from taking root except grasses.

The ravines and tops though were thick with various hardy bushes and some stunted trees. Rainfall in So. California was too slim to support much more at 1200 ft. However there WAS some deer but they had it pretty tough. Part of the problem was all the coyotes and dogs which some residents just let run loose. But to prove the fact that if "You provide, they will come", there was an old couple that lived in a side canyon, off ours, futher south.

They were kind of like caretakers. They lived in an old travel trailer with a shed built on the side for a kitchen. Very rustic :D . Their water came from a windmill and was piped into a horizontal tank. Floyd had some hoses that ran to his garden and a couple other places. He had a cut off barrel just kind of sitting out and he said that in the mornings there'd usually be 3-4 deer out there drinking from it.

I had 48 assorted fruit trees at the end of the house and one of the irrigation valves leaked a little. It was enough to have a little pool around the standpipe. Sometimes while I was out working in the afternnon or mornings you could watch flight after flight of quail come in off the hillside and land in the trees around the puddle. Then by small groups they'd flutter down to drink. Then it was back up into the trees and then they'd fly back to the hillsides into the brush.

I dearly love Quail. I think they're almost as much fun to watch as a bunch of biddy hens out scratching around. Had a bunch one time crossing the driveway. You know how they do? All dam up on one side and then run across by onesies and twosies? One started across and was about halfway when I whistled at it and it turned around and skedaddled back. A couple other darted across and then this one tried it again, I whistled and back it went. Poor thing, I was prolly messing with it's head. Took it 3 tries to finally get across :lol:

I can't abide dogs running loose and a turkey farm on the other side of the hill had several thousand young ones killed by a couple dogs. Father in law had 6 sheep killed by 3 dogs, but I bagged them with my Ruger Mini-14. I was out in my fruit trees one day and there was a bunch of dogs on the other side of the canyon on the hillside, running around. I watched them for several minutes before I went in and got my M112 Savage 223. I managed to decrease their numbers by 5 or 6 before they decided to scram.

Sounds like you have a very nice place to retreat to, and have fun with. You should plant some English walnuts if you can. Watch those chiggers!

.....................Buckshot

PPlinker
04-04-2005, 10:21 AM
Thanks for the replies on this guys. And the welcome, although my absence here wasn't intentional. Just....i'm inconsistent, either on or off, LOL.


Ed, i'm glad to hear apple trees can do well without pruning. That was one concern, by placing them out of sight, out of mind, they wouldn't get proper care. Ideally, i'd love to have some of the trees you're talking about. Probably the old green apples we used to eat as kids. The kind the grownups warned would give you a stomach ache, but i don't remember ever getting sick off green apples. Often wondered if those apples would have turned red or gotten big if we hadn't eaten them before they had a chance.

Sorry to hear many of your trees didn't survive, Lar 45. Using the potting soil might help. Book by Jerry Baker says to remove all original soil and replace with potting soil when you plant a fruit tree. I try to save money and only put in one bag which doesn't quite fill the hole, but it should give the tree some help. I fill in the rest of the hole with the original soil.

NVC, good stewards maybe.... that sounds better than what i have to admit is part of the truth. Wanting to attract and grow some bigger than average bucks to.... exploit. :D

Carpetman, i get a lot of blank stares when i tell people about buying some land that is mostly gullies and brush and hillside. I'm glad you don't think it's stupid, because it doesn't make sense to most unless you can put a house there. Yes, it's convenient to ride ATV here. But whatever you have to do, just get out there and have fun when you have a chance. My husband has a jet ski, and he has to go 50 miles to ride it, but he does whenever he can. Reminds me to work him harder to get those trails done before it gets too warm or he'll take off for the river. :wink:

Buckshot, your quail sounds interesting. We used to have something called ruffled growse here. They don't seem too plentiful anymore. Not many rabbits here either. The dogs running wild can be a nusiance and so can cats. They are mostly well fed and the critters they kill for sport means less food for the wild animals that really need it.

I may plant some hybrid pecans that only take 6 or 7 years to produce nuts.

That's a nice picture of you and John Wayne. That might be your mule in the background.

Penny

Scrounger
04-04-2005, 10:30 AM
Thanks for the replies on this guys. And the welcome, although my absence here wasn't intentional. Just....i'm inconsistent, either on or off, LOL.


Ed, i'm glad to hear apple trees can do well without pruning. That was one concern, by placing them out of sight, out of mind, they wouldn't get proper care. Ideally, i'd love to have some of the trees you're talking about. Probably the old green apples we used to eat as kids. The kind the grownups warned would give you a stomach ache, but i don't remember ever getting sick off green apples. Often wondered if those apples would have turned red or gotten big if we hadn't eaten them before they had a chance.

Sorry to hear many of your trees didn't survive, Lar 45. Using the potting soil might help. Book by Jerry Baker says to remove all original soil and replace with potting soil when you plant a fruit tree. I try to save money and only put in one bag which doesn't quite fill the hole, but it should give the tree some help. I fill in the rest of the hole with the original soil.

NVC, good stewards maybe.... that sounds better than what i have to admit is part of the truth. Wanting to attract and grow some bigger than average bucks to.... exploit. :D

Carpetman, i get a lot of blank stares when i tell people about buying some land that is mostly gullies and brush and hillside. I'm glad you don't think it's stupid, because it doesn't make sense to most unless you can put a house there. Yes, it's convenient to ride ATV here. But whatever you have to do, just get out there and have fun when you have a chance. My husband has a jet ski, and he has to go 50 miles to ride it, but he does whenever he can. Reminds me to work him harder to get those trails done before it gets too warm or he'll take off for the river. :wink:

Buckshot, your quail sounds interesting. We used to have something called ruffled growse here. They don't seem too plentiful anymore. Not many rabbits here either. The dogs running wild can be a nusiance and so can cats. They are mostly well fed and the critters they kill for sport means less food for the wild animals that really need it.

I may plant some hybrid pecans that only take 6 or 7 years to produce nuts.

That's a nice picture of you and John Wayne. That might be your mule in the background.

Penny

Easy solution: Invite Buckshot (Have Burrito, Will Travel) over to take out the dogs; CarpetDude will hitchhike or ride his ATV 10,000 miles to take care of the cats...

carpetman
04-04-2005, 12:53 PM
PPlinker---People are surprised you bought land in WV that is hills and gullies?????? Flat land would be useless there. Couldnt walk on it with the legs of different lengths. Art Linkletter(young folks wont even know who he was)probably wasnt the first to say it,but first time I heard it said when I was a youngster---real estate is good investment as there will never be more land.
Dep Al,now you done it. You have Buckshot using words that I have to look up. Riparian habitat--I thought possibly a nudist colony.

StarMetal
04-04-2005, 01:06 PM
Ray

When that big volcanic eruption happens in Yellowstone they are predicting, I believe there will be more land then.

Del Al is a Funk n Wagnall !!!!!! :lol:

Joe

DOUBLEJK
04-04-2005, 08:59 PM
Hiya's Penny
Nice to see ya over here n hear yer game size has been increasin'...
Sure don't ferget that Grackle season is upon us tho... :lol:
Them er still pure lead projectiles were shootin'.... :wink:

PPlinker
04-06-2005, 06:42 AM
Hi, DoubleJK. Yep, there's nothing like the whallop of a .22 lead projectile impacting a massive grackel ....unless it's the thump that follows when it hits the ground.

Deer hunting is great. My goal, eventually, is to get one with a bow. That would be the ultimate.

Penny