Friday, December 14, 2012

Deer at the Lodge

This morning was an interesting morning at the lodge.  I always look out across the pasture for wildlife when I get there but this time I walked over to the well house and  I saw a deer laying beside the lodge.  How did he get there and what was he doing?  He was a yearling buck.
When he saw me he immediately jumped up and tried to run through the fence.  He was crazy and I was afraid he might damage the heat pump or something else so I went around to the other side of the lodge in hopes of turning him. 
He was determined to go through the fence.  He tried everything he knew to do to the point that he had bloodied his nose on the wire and had broken some of the wire.  I finally got him to turn and run to the other side of the lodge where I had left the gate open,.... 
but he didn't go through the gate, he went behind it and started again trying violently to go through the wire.  I climbed over the fence at the north side of the lodge and started around and toward him.  He really tried hard to go through the wire.  As I got closer to him he finally turned and ran by the well house and this time he jumped the fence and ran by the large oak with the swing and off to freedom.  It looked as if he had been in the fence all night by the beds in the hay and how the leaves around the fence were shuffled.  He had enjoyed the ryegrass that the cows could not get to but I bet he will be more careful the next time he comes to visit at the lodge.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Multiple Use Forest and Prescribed Burnning

 Our forest is a multiple use forest.  What better way to use the forest, as our granddaughter would agree, than playing in the pine straw on a cool late fall day.

Another use of our forest is to provide a Christmas tree.  I went out and cut one this morning that was growing in our longleaf pines.

The tree is in the lodge waiting to be decorated. It smells so good, just like Christmas is supposed to. 

Last week the Alabama Forestry Commission put in firebreaks to burn this tract of two year old longleaf pines.  This is where I took the deer a week earlier.  We seem to get some good bucks in these young stands of longleaf pine for some reason.  This tract is to be burned next week.

Last week I burned under the loblolly pines at our home.  I got a good burn that cleaned up under the stand real well.  This was the second time this stand has been burned since they were thinned.  Having a water tank on the four-wheeler is a great tool when doing a prescribed burn.
Slowly backing off the firebreak
Cleaning up!
The last of the fire as it starts to burn together that evening.
The results: a clean stand and wildlife habitat that deer and turkey love.