This and That

This week started off with presiding over the Clay County Farmers Federation Annual Meeting.  We had a good meeting with Rosemary Elebash, Director of NFIB, speaking on how grassroot efforts can stop an increase in property taxes.  She did a great job. 

Another day I met with a timber buyer about buying a tract of timber and thinning another.  Hopefully something will come of this.

Lisa and I put up more tomatoes for winter and I sold, probable,  the last of my crop for the year.  We are planning on making some salsa out of the remaining tomatoes we gather.

Another day this week we met at the Clay County Extension office for a review of programs for the year and a question and answer session.

We have had many different things going on this week.

Uuummm Good!

This Clay County grown white field corn is so good, but it will be better than steak this winter and when it will be added to vegetable soup when it is cold outside there will be nothing better!  We were able to get some ahead of the deer eating it all.  You can look at the picture below and see how they are enjoying their share of it also.

The Sawtooth Oaks acorns are growing also for the deer.  The rain is finishing them off for the year.  The deer will not be hungry in the woods at Bowden Grove.





I made a picture of the tracks of a big cat.  A big bobcat.  They are looking for the small turkeys and are waiting on the fawns to start dropping.  They are roaming the roads.

 



Alabama Farmers Federation President's Conference

Last weekend Lisa and I attended the Alabama Farmers Federation County President's Conference in Sandestin, Florida.  It rained every day but it was a welcomed site and to a group of farmers and I'm sure all the others at the resort wanting to play golf got tired of hearing the farmers say,"Thank GOD for the rain".

We enjoyed watching the fireworks one night on the beach in the rain.  They were sponsored by the Mississippi BAR Association also meeting at the Hilton.  It was a good show!

Rain, Rain, Thank GOD for the Rain

I went over to Bowden Grove today with a forester/timber buyer to look at thinning 75 acres of pines.  While over there at the corn field I emptied 3" of rain out of the rain guage.  About 90% of our Round-up Ready yellow field corn is going to make.  The deer are already enjoying it.  Last week when I was over there it was 95 degrees at 12 noon and there were two deer in the corn.  They are eating the silks and some are eating the corn.  The picture below is an example.

The Sawtooth Oaks are loaded.  The tree at the kudzu patch has acorns on it for the first time.  It will be one more feeding area this fall.

(Below)This corn plant is white field corn.  It is the stranges looking plant I have ever seen.  It looks as if the leaves have been eaten off all the way to the top and then the tassel topped.  I dont know what could have eaten the leaves this way and not pulled the plant over........Mystery Plant? 

Tomatoes grown on Dewberry Lands



Tomatoes did well.  They were grown on black plastic.



                                                                         

There are many tomatoes on the vines.



The hardest part about growing these plants has been
keeping them from falling over.



Cornfield

The 1.5 inches of rain we got last week helped this field.  We will make some corn here if we can get another rain our two.  A quarter of a mile away down at the Kudzu patch it only rained a half inch. That corn looks bad.  I don't know if we will make any white field corn this year.  It makes me wonder if I should plant everything in grass and buy corn to feed  the animals?

The deer are enjoying the Kudzu.  This picture just doesn't do this justice.  They have completely devoured this spot as well as many others around this cornfield.  There is not many kudzu leaves left here, just vines.

Visitors from Haiti

Yesterday Felicia and I had visitors to our property from Haiti.  There were two young men that we had met through SIFAT that had forestry backgrounds and were interested in what Southern Forest Management was all about.

They enjoyed looking at our longleaf pines and how we get them started as far as site prep and prescribed fire to control competition.  They said that most of the wood in their country was made into charcoal.  They talked about how they made it.

They looked at Yellow-root that I pulled up to show them.  They had talked about plants in Haiti that were used for medicines and I told them of some of the uses of this plant.  One of these young men has a degree in biodiversity and the other a degree in agroforestry.  They were impressed at how we manage our forest to keep the water clean.

They had fun, made lots of pictures to take back to Haiti.  They said it is hotter here than in Haiti, it was a hot day, about 100 degrees.