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.

Some people don’t know that most baby chicks of all species are shipped by US Mail.  A certain number, based on the size of the bird, are put in a box so that their internal body heat keeps them all warm, and usually, they can survive for a day or two before they need food and water.

NPR’s Scott Simon did a story last weekend on chicks by mail.

Snow angel, the pheasant's wings made these as he took flight

Fresh snow is perfect for making snow angels.  And by tradition, Christmas is the best time to be visited by ghosts from the past.

Last year about this time, King Louie, Scout and Ace were still hanging around Two Mile Ranch.  It was March, after a long and loud crowing season, when the three pheasants moved on from Two Mile.    In a few months, new pheasants were in the fly pen and have since been released.

This season’s pheasants have  scattered into the habitat.    From time to time, I can see one on a short flight in the tall grass habitat.

With the snow that fell over the last few days here, all the old footprints and paw tracks made by Zinger and I were wiped clean, leaving a new winter playground for the mice, voles, rabbits, and song birds to decorate. The new snow has also made  food  scarce for pheasants.   They find grain spills, still standing corn, and planted food plots.

In this recent storm, Winter winds whipped a few new drifts, snowed in the ducks, and covered the daily paths we used since the last big snow.  So today, after a cup of coffee and a visit to the post office, Zinger and I went about our winter daily chores.

We fed the chickens, who smartly stay on their roosts in the coop to stay warm.  Next we dug out the duck pen to give them passage to their pool.  On the way back across the snow, I noticed a set of pheasant tracks coming from the fly pen to the cabin.    They were moving forward,  past the chicken coop, and up along the cabin. From the cabin, the tracks snaked under the deck, and then they stopped in the middle of the hill leading down to the pond.

Zinger and I walked over and I found a snow angel:  the wings of the pheasant made two prints in the snow where he took flight for a short glide to the lighted Christmas tree on the dock in the small pond.   The landing print where he landed was at the base of the tree, then, his walking prints continue out to the middle of the pond, and then the pheasant took off again, heading for the tall grass over on the west side.

The tracks in the snow, retracing the familiar route of Louie and Ace, are almost like a visit from a ghost of pheasant’s past.  I suppose I should drag out the Dickens, and read about the visit from three ghosts.  If Dickens’ spirit lives in southern Iowa, I can expect to be visited by two more ghosts.

Just as I did with last year’s chicks, I place them in the  brooder box built in the barn. This is now the third set of checks to be raised in the box and with each group, I think the box gets better. It’s still very heavy and I may build a different one for the July arriving pheasants.  I think I  learned some valuable lessons from last season.

I took the thousands from the box they ship and dipped their beaks in water. For the first few days I use paper towels for betting, as they grow bigger I’ll add straw. The temperature hit nearly 80° outside, and the chicks were plenty warm through most of the day and very active. Last night, we had a set of thunderstorms, and that was the beginning of a rough night of sleep.

Power to the router box runs through an extension cord from the main electrical service box. By design I placed it on a ground fault circuit. Somewhere before 2 AM, the ground fault circuit breaker tripped. When I checked the chicks, the warming light was out. I was able to reset the breaker and returned the cabin, but when I checked again at five, the breaker had tripped a second time.

Now awake, I am checking every half-hour. I added a space heater and lowered the lamp to increase the temperature and hopefully revive some of the chilly chicks.

I am especially interested in those meats and veggies that people don’t eat much any more, like venison or cardoons. I have nothing against good grass-fed beef or a head of lettuce, it’s just that others are doing just fine writing about those foods. I’m trying to walk a less-traveled path.

For those who enjoy eating pheasant, his blog post offers terrific insight into the pros and cons of hanging the birds first.

Enter the pheasant. A pheasant really is a “ditch chicken.” It is a close cousin of the domestic chicken and when eaten fresh has, as Brillat-Savarin puts it in his The Physiology of Taste, ”nothing distinguishing about it. It is neither as delicate as a pullet, nor as savorous as a quail.” Those who have eaten fresh pheasant — and by fresh I mean un-hung — can’t help but thinking: “So what? This just seems like a slightly tough and slightly gamy chicken.” They’re correct, especially with farm-raised birds or those shot at a game preserve.

Hanging Game Birds – How to Hang a Pheasant | Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

As warmer air has moved in, a group of 5 hens has formed a harem, led by a very well fed rooster who I’ve nicknamed “King Louie” – from  the Jungle Book character.  I refer to the hens in the harem, collectively, as “the girls”.

"Scout" in the tall grass along the north fence line

Two other roosters are not attached to the harem,  I gave the name “Scout” to one of them, as he was usually the first one out of the tall grass in the early morning, and the others would follow a few minutes later.

The other rooster, who I’ll call “Ace” will often fight or dance with Scout to establish pecking order, and the two will patrol the yard and borders of the tall grass all day, scratching for food.

The night before last, when I arrived home around sunset, Scout and Ace were on opposite sides of the highway, standing proud in the gravel.  As I parked the car, and walked past the pen, King Louie and “the girls” were eating at the feeder and ran off to hide.

Ace pacing on the deck

Once I got inside the cabin, after a few minutes, I heard a Kaw ACK outside the cabin and when I looked out, Ace was standing and as I walked out, rather than run off, he led me to the barn and waited for me to throw out more corn on the ground. The next day, he repeated his performance, this time, walking on the deck and waiting for me.

Later, 5 hens, whom I often refer to as “the girls”, flew out of the brush at the north end of the ranch and over to the grass between the cabin and their pen and former.

A hidden rooster cackles every now and then from the dense cover to the east, and whenever a noisy truck or motorcycle drives by on the road, another rooster cackles, either as an alert to the others, or in competition with the noise.  Of the 44 pheasants released in the fall, it seems that somewhere between 8 and 11 still are making a home near the cabin.  I’ve seen a few down the road, and wonder how well the others may have done over the winter.

Just now, 14 geese flew over heading for the pond across the highway. Through the bare trees, I can see my neighbor’s paint horses and I wonder sometimes if they stand there because they can see me on the deck?  Mostly likley, they just like the grass they find there.

One of our readers commented about her enjoyment of solitude on her farm, writing

And in that moment I didn’t feel in the least bit alone. But those moments are precious. I can not begin to tell you how relieved I am to find this site. I’m not crazy after all…..

For moments like these, there are almost no words.

Today was a picture perfect day.

Pheasants roosting on the ice covered fly pen that used to be their home

Pheasants feeding in the snow

The cabin at Two Mile from the East hill

I kept their feeder full, but I was also  throwing cracked corn around the pen once or twice a day.  This gave them something to do (scratch at the grain) and to helped build their carb stores for the first week of freedom  Their choice to follow me reinforced it was time to be free.  I had probably already imprinted on them more than optimal for their survival.

The day of release, I took some netting and covered the bed of the pick up, with enough left over to make a way to close the birds in the truck once loaded.

My children and I carefully netted each bird, one by one, although a few I managed to catch without the net, and moved them in batches of ten or so, into the truck, for the ride back to deep in the habitat I’ve been working for the last three years.

Once away from the roads, and the neighbors, we parked the truck, opened the netting, and the more adventurous birds immediately took flight up and away.  It was amazing to see the distances they flew.  Many of then flew a quarter mile or more, before landing neat timber or in the middle of open grass fields  The more reserved birds cautiously took to the edge of the truck before flying.  Only one or two hopped from the into the deep grass.

All 44 were released into the habitat without injury.  During the rest of the day, we saw several birds exploring their new surroundings, and could hear them call off and on to each other.  The following morning, a trio of roosters searched for food along the pond banks near the cabin.

By now, they are settled into the deep grass, protected cover, and learning to find food on their own.

The DNR conservation officer I spoke with suggested feeding them for their first week.  Originally, when I thought the birds would move as a group, I placed the feeder in a protected spot.  When I saw how far and wide they dispersed, I re-thought my plan.  Now the feeder is near their fly pen, along with fresh water.  Any birds who decide to return to their old feeding area can find food and water.

Next year, my goal is to return 100 to the wild, in two batches of 50 birds each.  I am also tempted to keep a few — both as pets and breeding stock, and give a try to incubating chicks in 2010.

An 8 week old hen pheasant, with others in the background

So if you are a pheasant chick, finding your voice means switching from the chick “cheep cheep cheep” to the cackle of a game bird.  This week, my birds began to find their voices.  I first heard it when I drove the truck by the pen — to be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was just the sound of an old truck, the the new found cackle of a young pheasant.  Tonight, I heard it again, and I suspect I’ll start hearing it regularly.

They are eight weeks old.