Welcome to TheOhioOutdoors
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Login or sign up today!
Login / Join

Starting on this year's projects

Boone

*Supporting Member*
833
96
N.E. O-H-I-O
Last weekend I finally caught a break with the kid’s sports schedules to head down 77 and do some post season scouting and begin work on this year’s projects. As usual, we didn’t find any sheds. I have only found a handful of sheds my whole life, even when looking purposefully for them. Right after we got there, my buddy found a dead button buck off the corner of one field. It didn’t look like it had been dead long, but it was pretty picked over by the yotes, which have been all over the place down there.

Anybody plant fruit trees? Last fall we planted a few pears and apples about 4-5 feet tall we bought on clearance at Lowes. Back then I put a chicken wire cage around the bases to stop the rabbits and the bucks from rubbing the trunks. Well that worked but the deer have still been eating the tips, even off the upper branches. They are thin and limber so they must be pawing them over and them eating the ends. How big of an exclusion cage do you make for your fruit trees?

We had the chainsaws out and cut some longer shooting lanes for gun season next year in some of the areas we sit and have stands. The tractor we have access to started right up, unlike last year when the battery was dead, even though it had been sitting since last fall. It was dry enough to cut down/mow our plot’s cover screen from last fall. The goal was to get the stems and grasses in contact with the ground to start them decaying and also provide a mulch layer to prevent weed growth before we turn the field over and plant a new screen this spring. I just wish I had more time to play around!

Below is a photo of the dead deer and work on the plot.
 

Attachments

  • 223.jpg
    223.jpg
    46.1 KB · Views: 278
  • 215.jpg
    215.jpg
    51.6 KB · Views: 297

Boone

*Supporting Member*
833
96
N.E. O-H-I-O
Thanks guys. It's not our place, but we do lots of work for the landowner and he lets us use the equipment. The tractor is a Massey.
 

hickslawns

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
39,721
248
Ohio
Good deal on getting some work accomplished! We have tons of work to get done but have hesitated to even take a tracked skid loader to the farm to work due to the amount of slop we would be in. Pretty much would suck if you stuck a tracked skid loader and had to take a dozer or excavator over to attempt to pull it out. You just cost yourself a bunch of repair work from getting stuck and needlessly fired up the lowboy and brought another set of tracks out that you have to clean off when you are done. I guess it will be mid summer at this rate before we accomplish anything. If we are lucky, we might be able to use my backhoe as a skidder to drag out some trees which are stacked up and waiting to be cut to length and split. Hard to get motivated when you are limited on what you can do right now. I am pretty jealous of you guys.
 

LonewolfNopack

Junior Member
1,503
127
The woods
I would love to know about size and plans on how to make an exclusion cage for trees as well. I planted three apple trees last year and I think they are browsed beyond repair. I have a rub guard on but that does not stop the browsing.