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.

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 new roof, corrugated galvanized panel, not likley to rust

The dogtrot at Two Mile has a new roof over the breezeway that joins the two cabins and makes the breeze way.

The roof line of the dogtrot was one I tinkered with during the initial design.  The original design, and one often favored in traditional dogtrots is a single unified roof line.  In my early 3-D renderings, I exlored at a roof line that was unified, higher and lower than the other roofs.

In the first construction, I opted for a lowered center roof and built it using lattice to offer both shade and light in the center space.

Last last year, I took down the lattice during some repair and adjustment to the center breezeway due to settling of the two cabins.  I debated a number of materials for the new roof, including tongue and groove, PVC, and polycarbonate.

I returned to the original design by Stephen Aktinson, shows his Zachary House is sheathed in corrugated metal, and chose that material for the roof.  Later this fall, I will replace the lattice skirting with the same material.

PS:  Tin Roof, Rusted is the line at the end of the B-52′s song Love Shack. (See the 2009 CMA awards covered by Sugarland featuring the B 52′s here  Pop culture suggests it means this.  (really?)

An early design with a raised center roof

The settled on design, using lattice for the center roof

They moved into the duck pen from the brooding room in the barn earlier in the week after this morning, before I began reviewing graduate student work, I opened the pen and had the adult ducks lead them to the little pond.

Zinger and I stayed behind them, offering an encouraging hand gesture to the crowd of 6 ducks and 2 geese following the 4 adults to the pond.

Herding ducks and chickens, I’ve discovered, is fairly easy if you do two things.  Don’t get too close, and use the hand opposite the direction you want the group to go.  In other words, by extending my left arm, the group goes to the right.  Right arm:  they go left.  Now that I write this, I’m not sure what happens if I extend both arms.

Here is the video of the gang, just as they made it to the little pond and joined the others.

They did a little swimming, and little frolicking, and then spent most of the day in the shade on the dam.

In time, the 4 adults made their way back to the pen.  The newcomers didn’t really know want to do, so Zinger and I walked along the pond edge and then herded them back to the pen.  On the way back, one of the young cresteds eyed the dock and bolted for the water.  But rather than abandon the crew and try to get the loner, I stayed with the group as they waddled back to the pen.

This year, the little pond has none of the floating pond meal that covered much of the water the last two years.   There is a thick growth of water primrose along the edges and to the north, the grass and weeds are thick and stand shoulder high.

To make it easy for the ducks to get in and out of the water, I  mowed the dam and the eastern edge, but I leave the shore growth thick to help contain the ducks to the pond.

After about 20 minutes on the pond alone, the young crested worked through the floating portions of the primrose and headed into the tall grass.  I wasn’t worried about finding a big white duck in a field of green, but I did grab my boots and set out to steer him back to the pen.  When I got to the water edge, he was no where to be found, but as I listened, I could hear him whisper his not-yet-developed adult duck voice as we worked through the growth, at ground level.   He made his way to the mowed grass and up the hill to the pen.  He followed along the pheasant side of the pen, turned the corner, and made his way back to join the others.

I left the pen open for them to come and go as they please.  We’ll see how they do on their future trips.

My First Tractor: Stories of Farmers and Their First Love appears in many online book sellers this week and includes work by Michael Perry, Bob Artley, Roger Welsch, Bob Feller, Ben Logan, Gwen Petersen, Ralph W. Sanders, Robert N. Pripps, Patricia Penton Leimbach, Randy Leffingwell, Lee Klancher, Don Macmillan, Scott Garvey, John Dietz, and more.

Of personal note are two essays, one by Ralph W. Sanders, who by coincidence, is the father of a neighbor, and the other by Micheal Perry, who I blogged about a year ago.  Perry’s story comes, in part, from his book, Coop: A Family, a Farm, and the Pursuit of One Good Egg (P.S.)

I’d like to thank the folks at Voyageur Press for including me in this project.

The Farmall 706 which has served Two Mile Ranch since May of 2005

The ZenBasser on christening day

Starting  with flat sheets of marine plywood, lots of fiberglass and epoxy, and multiple trips to marine stores, I finished building the boat  very near my birthday seven years ago.  Rather than christen her with champagne, friends who had coached me through the construction and fishing buddies from around the country sent me bottles of water from their favorite fishing holes, and I sprinkled each over the bow before the inaugural launch and cruise.

This week, my long time friend Donald Winslow is visiting from Austin, Texas and while he works on two projects. He’s writing a book chapter on multimedia and web-based video ethics and he just published the August issue of News Photographer magazine, we’re squeezing in some fishing around Two Mile Ranch.

The last time we went fishing was two years ago in June, with the ZenBasser, on a lake in Oklahoma.  You know the one, “where the winds come sleeping down the plains”.  Yes, that one.   On the lake, the ramp was about a mile or so by water from the dock where we tied up near our cabin.  That weekend, the wind was so severe, that it bashed the boat around and the rough, wet trip back to the dock left me drenched and through a combination of things, caused some minor cosmetic damage to a few items on the boat.

When I returned to Two Mile, I parked the boat next to the barn with full intent of repairing her.  Over time, wind, rain, snow and leaves took their toll on her beauty.  The aging batteries failed, and she hasn’t moved since that weekend 2 years ago.  Always intending to fix it, I was still able to fish nearly every day on one of the two ponds here so the boat moved lower on the fix-it priority list

With Winslow’s return, and a string of vacation days, I decided it was time to put the boat back in the water.  Two days ago we filled the trailer tires with air and pulled her out into the drive and began repairs.   First, I emptied 5 gallons of the old gas out of the tank.  Even with fuel stabilizer, there was no sense in struggling with bad gas in an attempt to start the motor.

We took the boat to the local drive-through car wash and hosed out 90 percent of the detritus living on a farm can produce.  I charged one of the aged batteries enough to have enough power to test the electrical system.  Once connected, all the electrical circuits worked.

Yesterday morning, I had some work to do in the city and so while there, Winslow and I bought a set of new batteries, returned to Two Mile, hooked everything up, and drove to a lake near hear.

Zinger, the Two Mile Ranch Aussie Shepard, Winslow, and I climbed aboard and I started the motor.  It turned over on the first crank, and with the third crank, was running and steady and quiet idle.  After a few minutes of idling at the dock, we put the boat in gear and spent the rest of the night fishing the 900 acre lake. Zinger was slightly spooked by the sound of the motor  for the first few minutes, but soon settled into the boat seat, nose pointed in the air.  As we chose various fishing holes and came to a  stop, she would walk around the deck, from front to back, following the lures, and and watching the water.  Once we came under a tree with two turkey vultures, she barked orders to them to leave.

The only mishap of the otherwise ideal day came as the result of a bad cast on my part.  It was Winslow’s birthday, and as host and guide, it was my job to assure he caught his birthday bass.  We cruised up to mid lake and entered a cove filled with flooded timber.   I pitched my line up against a small shrub against the shore and on my retrieval, I accidentally caught the bass intended to be Winslow’s birthday fish.

Signal Shed as featured In Sunset - Photo by Thomas J. Story

I receive Sunset Magazine and the cover this month is this 8 x 16 cabin called the Signal Shed, built for under $60k including a small lot in Oregon. The plans and more information are available here at Sunset or here at www.signal-shed.com.

This would make a nice day cabin and work space for visiting guests and writers.

Hmmmmm.

The turkeys in their barn pen, enjoying daylight and free access to pasture

I have written about building poultry pens in the 1940′s barn, converting what was left of stalls into poultry wire enclosed pens for the meat chickens, the turkeys, and a separate brooding room.  The brooding room is now home to 6 ducks and two geese.  The turkeys moved into their pen a week or so ago.

But yesterday, I mowed the pasture and set up the electric poultry netting fence as a perimeter for the birds to be safe (safer) from predators.  AT night, they can be secured in the barn pens.

Turkeys are interesting birds.  It’s not un common to read reports on the internet of them flying out of their fenced pens and into nearby trees to roost for the night, or to fly over a fence, only to then sqawk to be let back inside the confines with their turkey kin.  So as I opened the door to let them explore, I was prepared for nearly anything.

Pheasants, even at 4 weeks old, fly when released from their brooder box into the fly pen.  Some walk, some stay inside, but many take to the air.  The turkeys were slow to explore, preferring the known safety of their barn, but as they began to step out side, one of them took flight, down the length of the pen, over the fence and into the thick brush east of the barn.

Slowly, I backed out of the barn, walked around the barn and electrified fence, and began moving through the shoulder high weeds and brush in search of the eloped thanksgiving dinner.  To be honest, I had visions of each turkey “flying the coop” and taking both my  initial investment and future earnings with them as they took off for refuge in the habitat.

Electric pountry netting protects the birds from ground predators

What I found, when I found it, was a turkey who looked just as amazed that it could fly as I was.  I easily collected it out of the brush and returned it to the others in the pen.

All of which brought to mind the old television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.  If you don’t know the show, it featured Gordon Jump (later he became the Maytag Repairman in commercials) as a suit wearing radio station manager and a collection of misfits who worked at the radio station.  In one episode, they hatched a Thanksgiving promotion that included dropping live turkeys from a helicopter at a shopping center.  The radio news man, Les Nessman, reported on the ensuing carnage  of live turkeys crashing to the ground to their death and smashing car windshields and equated it to the Hindenburg disaster.

During the closing credits, the disheveled station manager Jump enters the office with all gathered around and utters probably the funniest poultry line in the history of television.

The east face of the original barn, built by Art Andrew, with modifications over the decades.

On the east side, there are three person-height doors, and on the west, there are two.  The center door connects to a walkway that bisects the barn.  At some point in time, the sliding barn door on the lean to on the east wall was cut out to make an opening for the Farmall 706 tractor.  I’ve put up a temporary wall to block the weather.

In the photo, the left door leads to the new turkey pen.

You can tell from the photo this is a very weathered barn with a significant list.  Nothing in the barn is square.  So designing new supports for walls, a door, and the framing for the chicken wire was done with some measuring and a lot of estimating.  This is crude construction at it’s best…or worst.

A quick frame from scrap 2"x 6" lumber closes a passage in the barn to complete the pen.

I made a frame for an old screen door,  This gives access to the turkeys from the inside of the barn for feed and water.  The screen was out of the door, and I stapled 1 inch poultry netting to the face of the frame.

I cut the poultry netting long at the top and the bottom to leave a sweep to help deter small animals from burrowing or gnawing on the door frame.

The 1 inch poultry netting ( chicken wire) is 48 inch wide.  I strung a 2 ” x 6″ horizontal between the existing posts in the barn, then stapled the poultry netting to the ceiling and mid  frame 2 “x 6″.

Finally, I burred some poultry wire in the ground around the permiter to help deter any digging predators and rabbits.

The installed door.

The turkeys in their new home.