Category Archives: Habitat

land stewardship, conserving your farm for the next generations

2011 USDA Summer aerial photo

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The Summer 2011 USDA Aerial photo of Two Mile Ranch

Sometimes each summer or fall the USDA Aerial photo is taken and the folks at the GIS center at Iowa State University publish them, along with digitizing aerials from years gone by.

This year’s photo of Two Mile Ranch clearly shows what’s hard to see at ground level, the area of new habitats that was cleared, and replanted in a mix of native grasses and forbs.

Next year’s photo will include the Writer’s Loft barn, and if you look just north of the bend in the driveway, you can see the general area where it stands now

Fire drill – a practice burn

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The big burn will be sometime in the next few weeks, depending on wind, rain, humidity and availability of the fire crew.  Until then, I did a small ditch burn for practice to see how well, the fire line kept to the boundaries.

Planning the Fire

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As the temperatures dipped below zero this week, it was an ideal time to start planning something a little warmer for spring break:  how about a good raging grass fire?

A night photo of a controlled burn - courtesy of Texas Parks and Wildlife

About 60 acres of Two Mile Ranch is conservation habitat.  It needs stewardship:  its erodible land, covered mostly in grasses and some timber and isn’t suited for a row crop. Looking at older aerial photos, prior farmers planted it in hay, alfalfa and grasses.

The last owners didn’t farm or graze here. It was a passive investment. If I understand the prior owner’s management, the original habitat planting was 13 years ago 1997.  Their approach was to plant and ignore.  No doubt, you’ve seen similar neglected conservation ground like this all over.  It’s often weedy, and has invasive species not well controlled.

Beginning in 2005, we began to strengthen the habitat.  We strip disc tilled about 10 acres and planted food plots.  Last fall we took down the invasive cedars. This spring, I’ll re-seed a little more than half of those acres with a prairie grass and wild flower mix.  What I hope, in the next few years, is this new planting will knock down some of the undesirable weeds, improve the quality of the nesting and foraging habitat, and as I continue to mange with fire breaks and other “edges”, provide lots of opportunity for wildlife and most importantly, the pheasants we release.

This piece of ground sits in a rectangle that measures roughly 1/4 mile wide ( 1320 feet or 400 meters)  Of the approximate 60 acres, 30 will be left untouched in the existing grass mix and 30 will planted with the new grass mix, and I’ve broken the new grass plantings into two approximate 15 acre strips.  These strip areas are  about 400 meters by 150 meters.

The burn plan is to burn the entire space this year, then follow with burning 1/6 to 1/3 of the ground every few years in a rotation. Essentially, we’re be burning part of it every year. The initial year’s management of the new seeded area includes mowing each month to help control weeds and get the slower growing grasses off to a good start.

The burn plan document from the NRCS

This is not the work for amateurs and I have help, both from the NRCS in writing the burn plan, and from the local fire department.  As I started working through the documentation over the weekend, I worked through the plan and sketched out a grid for burning over the next several years.  As of now, the first burn target date is late April, about the time of the last frost in this part of the state.

But this week, with 6 – 8 inches of snow cover, not much will burn, so as Zinger  and I walked the ground in yesterday’s break between snowfalls, there were many sets of deer paths and a couple of paths of pheasant tracks in the snow. Each year, we make a little more progress.

The last tree

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The last of nearly 400 Eastern Red Cedar trees to be cut down.

Working little by little, in the evenings and early mornings, I managed to clear 60 acres of volunteer cedars which had moved into the eastern two thirds of Two Mile Ranch.

My estimates may be off.  At first look, I predicted 300 trees.  As I began to work with many of them, what looked like one tree was a cluster of two to four trees clumped together.

Some of the newer trees have 3 inch trucks.  Others, more established and longer lived, has trunk diameters of 6, 8 and sometimes 10 inches.  The mechanical way to do this is with a skid steer and a tree shear..imagine a hydraulic pruning scissors on the front of a small tractor.  This shear snips the tree near the ground, leaving almost no above ground stump.

This one is cut a bit higher than I would prefer. A stump like this could be trouble for a mower or grain drill planter.

The interesting thing about cedars is, if you cut below the lowest growing green branch, the tree will not re sprout and grow.

As I walked the acres, looking at the general condition of the ground, I was struck by three things:

First, the soil is rocky in many places.  It’ hard to imagine the early owners in the 1800′s and 1900′s being successful growing much on this soil.  True, top soil has eroded, but this is not the same farm ground found 90 miles north of here or 90 miles east of here.

Second, there is a growing invasion of sericea lespedeza. This may be a challenge to mange in the next few years.  Goats might help.

Third, there are some stands of native grasses, that given a good burn next year, combined with follow up burns every 3 – 5 years, make enrich the grasses and forbes I’ll plant next spring.

Conventional logic it to kill everything with glyphosate and start fresh.  That would potentially complicate an attempt to have the poultry certified as organic, and, in the long run, doesn’t fit with the overall management plan here.  Glyphosate may or may not be effective on sericea.  Neither is burning alone.

But for this week, the trees are down.  For that perspective, I offer this final image.

Looking southwest from the north fence line. The dusk on the gravel road is kicked up by a truck delivering to the south neighbors.

Habitat restoration and invasive control

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While under my watch here at Two Mile, I’ve not done much to control the invasive cedar trees that move into prairie and pastures if not regularly mowed, grazed, or burned.  This year is the year to do it, and this week is the week to get it done.

Actually, that first line has some mis-truths.  The Eastern Red Cedar is a native tree to North America and is not a true cedar, but a juniper.  Because it is not naturally part of the prairie, and both the shade they create and the water they consume restricts regular growth of grasslands, the Cedar tree is considered invasive. The trees don’t flower until they are about 10 years old, and the berries are often eaten by birds, making the transmission of seeds across lots of miles of ground easy.

Last year's USDA fly over - note the cedar trees scattered

To get a sense of  where these trees have grown, click the 2009 aerial image to the left and get a view of the topography and clusters of trees. The big pond is in the left third of the image, about in the center. In this photo, the little pond is covered with pond meal  and reflects the light. The right two thirds of the photo is the managed habitat for pheasants, deer, and songbirds.  Two Mile Ranch gently rolls, with elevations varying about 50 feet.  On the far West, the left edge of the photo, is 7 Mile Road. The ground gently slopes down to the pond levels, then rises halfway and down again. On this halfway crest is where the barn, bird pens, and cabin sit. Terrain rises up on the east side, right, of the big pond and crests about one third across the photo. It drops down again and rises back up about two thirds across the photo, then gently slopes to the east, right, property line.

The ground also slopes from north to south, resulting in drainage down the hills east and west and generally north to south.  That’s created some erosion issues over time. I’ve included aerial photos dating back to the 1930s to show the evolution of the farm in the last 80 years.

Cedar trees, are the beginnings of a new habitat. Over time, the grass filled prairie converts to a scattered tree savanna, then to a sparse woodland, and ultimately to timber.  The US Fish and Wildlife Service suggests  that an acre of cedar trees can use 55,000 gallons of water. This translates into roughly 2 inches of rain. Historically, prairies remain prairie because of wildfire. Fire started by lightning and later by man allowed huge sections of prairie to burn, controlling new woody brush, weeds, and encouraging and strengthening grasses.

So with that little bit of ecology lecture out of the way, let’s look at the task at hand. I didn’t do a count, but I estimate between 300 and 400 volunteer Cedar trees over the 60 acres of habitat. Many of them are clustered in the 20 acres or so from the big pond to the valley between the two hills. My original thought was to hire a contractor with a skid steer and tree sheer to remove the trees. But after learning both local contractors were booked solid, I remembered  a quote I heard on NPR from J. David Bamberger, http://www.bambergerranch.org/

“You don’t need a bulldozer. You need a chainsaw, wheelbarrow, axes, hand tools, and a lot of friends coming out from time to time, and a little time. You can buy used equipment — don’t waste your money on new — and you can accomplish on your property what I’ve done here.” (quoted on NPR)

So by working a few hours each day, I’ve begun removing the trees with the goal of having them down by Friday. Later posts will show progress and my results.

The T-post

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The T-post.

There are dozens of ways to build a fence…and the field fence in the mid-west is typically 3 or 4 stands of barb wire strung on T-posts every 8 feet or so. When the farm has one pond, there used an interior fence that protected the pod from the cattle. It runs down to the big pond and into the water across part of it — then between the little pond and the road. This weekend had two projects — to take our the main section of fence that runs on the East side of the little pond….the second project was running a bush hog through the deep grass where the tractor might get stuck. Bush hogging thick wild areas takes time and muscle. Along the way, I found a few distractions.

The fence line came out pretty easily. I had the barb wire down in an hour or so for 280 feet more or less. I coiled the old barb wire and set it in the junk file for a trip to the dump.

The T-posts came out with the help of a T-Post puller — a $40 tool I had to hunt all over to find, but when i found one at Harbor Freight, I knew the job would go quickly. 30 or so posts later and the fence above is gone. On the next run through with the mower, it will be a distant memory.
This bush hog has a 30 inch deck — not wide — but I’m not sure I’d want to push more through the waist deep jungle of grass and weeds. Yes, it’s powered, but it takes a strong set of muscles to maneuvers it around and over the ant and termite hills, the fallen trees, and the muck. There is a dear man grip for the propulsion and a second for the blade — which means you grip this tightly for hours on end.

If i were to name this, I’d name it “Jaws”. It eats anything and everything and lays down a carpet or organic mulch. Everyone should own one — but they are $2K – $3K and I rented this one for $70 for the holiday weekend……I can rent many many times for $2K
The ultimate in buffet is the tailgate. I stopped about 5:00 to catch dinner from the pond. I cleaned the fish and cooked them on the Coleman stove using a vintage 1960′s Girl Scout aluminum mess kit.

After dinner, I cut a half mile trail around the ponds and to the end of the property. Halfway back, I looked to the south to watch the sunlight paint the surrounding farms with light.

The farm gently rolls, varying about 50 feet in altitude — or roughly a 5 story building. From the highest point, you can see much of the Eastern and Southern parts of the county. It would be a great place to build a shelter for get aways…or a lookout tower.

Ol’ Red

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Ol’ Red hasn’t been out of the barn for at least 1 year, probably 2 and maybe even three. Ol’ Red is a mid 1960′s IH Farmall 706 tractor with a gas engine. The sellers said the tractor was “for sale” when I looked at the place. As we haggled, I offered to include the tractor in the sale and they agreed as long as it was sold “as is”. Translation, something isn’t working.

First things, first, it had a flat right front tire and it had broken the bead. But life is good and sometimes, things have a way of working out. I went down on a Sunday with a floor jack and a air compressor. By coincidence, one of the neighbors had called me asking permission to fish the property. He caught up with me about the time I was getting ready to fix the tire. Turns out he used to be in the tire business. Between two of us, we re-seated the bead — thanks to some oil in his truck and pumped it full of air.

Sometimes you meet nice people, and as we talked about the tractor, he offered to drain the old gas during the week if he came down to fish.

Last Friday, he, and I and my realtor stood around the tractor taking turns scratching our heads as we cleaned the sediment bowl, the fuel line, and the carb. After 3 hours, we still couldn’t get it to run without pouring gas in the air intake ourselves.

So the carburetor came off and I took it to the Case/IH dealer down the road for them to rebuild and clean. Wednesday, I picked it up and My son and I put it back on and tried again to start Ol’ Red. Again, it wouldn’t. Gas engines and carburetors are really simple things. Fuel mixes with air and a spark sets it off. There’s no fuel pump, no fuel filter, no computer injection. It’s really a beautiful thing. Except this beautiful thing wasn’t doing what it was supposed to.

All the way home, I wondered what next. I logged onto Yesterday’s Tractor and read up on the 706 Carburetor and learned that the solenoid attached to it was used to shut off the gas when the key switch was off to prevent engine run-on or dieseling. So I asked in their forum if anyone thought this could be my problem and in minutes, 3 answers assured me I was headed the right way.
Today, armed with my voltmeter, and a copy of the owner’s manual I ordered online, I turned the key and listened for the “click” from the solenoid. Silence.

So I checked the voltage to the wire to the solenoid. 0….dead.

So I traced the wire back to some very old electrical tape. It was good there. Across the engine block to the other side and more tape. At this juncture (sorry to borrow from the original Bush) the wire was broken.

Now I was optimistic. The volt meter sprang to life as I measured the voltage at the hot end of the wire.

But, of course, I didn’t bring any new wire, or wire connectors in the tool box. They are on my boat.

So I loaded up and headed to the nearest NAPA Auto store and $15.00 later we had wire, connectors and a stripper.

I ran new wire, taped the connectors and had 12 volts running to the solenoid.

I turned the key: “click”.

I hopped in the cab, turned the key to on, dropped the clutch pedal to the floor and pushed the start button.

Oh-h-h-h-h- Yeah-h-h-h-h-h-h-h. Listen to the roar.

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Post Script: If you’ve ever seen a sci-fi movie, the hero from one culture galaxy usually finds himself making an escape from another culture galaxy and jumps into one of the spacecraft for the getaway. He fires it up and he flies away.

Yeah, well, okay. I’m not that good. Plop behind the wheel of a tractor and there are a few extra levers and controls. Note I’ve put the owners manual on top — for reference.

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