Monday, February 17, 2014

Doe Had Close Call

I have told several people about the doe at our house that had a close call.  I have posted pictures under the "Miscellaneous" tab for you to see.  What do you think did this to her?  I wish I knew but I might be afraid to go our side with out my gun.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Prescribed Burn of Two Year Old Longleaf Pines


The best tool for managing longleaf pines, fire.

This is a picture of the two year old longleaf pines before the burn. In the next few days I am going to add pictures and videos of the burn of our eight year old stand.

Picture taken after the burn.  The competition is eliminated, Brown Spot disease is controlled and the longleaf pines will thrive this year.  This will become a haven for deer next year because of the increase in the amount of food available.  Wild turkeys are already using this area because it is open and predators can be easily seen.  

The start of the burn.  
The day we burned we had a northwest wind and the ground was frozen, what we called spewed up.
It was wet so the roots stayed cool.  It was a perfect day for burning longleaf pines.

No, it will not kill them, just make them grow better!

It looks bad now (not really) but these trees will double in size this year.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Winter of 2013-14


I have added some pictures of the winter snow on Dewberry Lands from January 2014.  I hope you enjoy!
A hemlock tree we planted down at our park area with a light dusting of snow.

This is the old railroad bed covered with snow.  The snow really made it where you could see for a long distance.

This stream and the mountain laurel covered with snow made for a peaceful setting at the park on our property.

At the park, the bridge across another stream where the railroad once crossed.

Abby and Nathan were waiting for me to make this picture so we could get started tracking deer in the snow.  We saw several the two days we hunted in the snow but we didn't see any we wanted to harvested. It was a beautiful time to be in the woods and a great time to get an estimate on the number of deer we have on the property.



This Is "Multiple Use"

We have just cut these 40" long sweetgum bolts off of our property for the purpose of growing Shiitake Mushrooms. We made several trips to get enough sticks to grow the mushrooms.  This is a project we just started.  We inoculated the logs this past weekend with the spores and hope to be harvesting mushrooms in six to nine months.  
Harvesting these sweetgum trees in a loblolly pine stand is just another way of "cutting down" on the competition in the loblolly stands, IPM "integrated pest management".