Porch is the Battlefield: Mom Bird 2, Bill 0

We enjoy sitting out on our porch which is covered by the roof and from which a light fixture hangs.  This is an ideal place to sit anytime, especially on a rainy day, because it is covered and stays dry and is shady.  Unfortunately, a bird has also decided that it is the perfect place to build her nest.

Several years ago she built it inside the light fixture.  The porch floor was a mess, because, in order to keep her nest clean, she sat on the edge of the light fixture and used the floor as a target for the bird poop.  Finally Bill dragged a tall ladder onto the porch and wrapped wire all around the lamp in order to encourage Mom Bird to build her next nest somewhere else.

Birds sitting in nest build by Mom Bird after the wire was wrapped around the light fixture

Evidently Mom Bird liked this added protection for her nest and next set of babies.  Soon a new family found the light fixture with the wire a neat place to live.  And the wire had the added advantage of providing the perfect ledge to sit on and observe the surroundings, as well as to continue to use the floor as a target for the bird poop.

After these baby birds finally grew up and flew the nest, Bill decided that more drastic measures needed to be taken.  More wire was bought and aluminum foil was added to the mix:

New nest build by Mom Bird on rafter next to light wrapped with wire and foil

We thought that surely Mom Bird would give up and find somewhere else to build her next nest.  So were we surprised when, after a short absence, we were greeted with lots of mud on the floor of our porch and a new nest on the rafter next to the light and positioned right over our table, which I am sure will be the new target.

The battle continues, but so far the score is Mom Bird 2, Bill 0.
  

Spring is Back and So Is the Owl

Finally - Spring has arrived.  The pear and plum trees are in bloom.  Hopefully the apple trees will soon awaken after a fairly cold winter.  And our screech owl has returned to the wood duck box.

Each Spring we eagerly sneak up to this beautiful cedar nesting box and quietly open the side door and peer inside to see if a wood duck has found a new home.  And each Spring we find instead an adorable little screech owl that has taken up residence with plans to raise her owlets in the plush surroundings, recently filled by us with fresh cedar shavings.

Screech Owl with Eggs in Wood Duck Box

For More Wildlife Sightings Consider a Golf Cart

If you want to see more wildlife on your hunting property forget the ATV or MULE.  What you really need is a golf cart.  Slow and quiet beats fast and loud if you want to fit into the surroundings and not announce your approach.  We recently invested in a vintage golf cart that rolls along at a slow but steady pace and is so quiet that we can’t even hear ourselves coming.  We got it to help get around the property while nursing a healing knee but were surprised at an unexpected result.  We actually started seeing wildlife again!

When we first bought our property we often would get glances of wildlife, but after a few years we noticed that we hardly ever jumped a deer or spotted a rabbit or turkey, even though the cameras around the property proved that the wildlife was still around.  The first day that we used the cart to get close to a favorite spot for hunting turkeys, we saw a deer browsing in an open field.  It looked up at us and just stared, not sure about this odd creature.  We stopped, it stopped, and for a few minutes we enjoyed a beautiful sight of a deer at sunrise enjoying fresh greens. Later that morning we called in a turkey, and, although it was a hen, it was a thrilling duet of fake and real turkey chatter.  Later we even called in a turkey hunter, whose face I am sure was very red beneath his camouflage mask.

But the most amazing experience happened later that same morning when we moved, stealthily, in our cart along a fire trail and then slowly started walking toward a new hunting spot.  We spotted two deer in the open field next to us, they spotted us, we froze, they froze, and then they slowly walked toward us to check us out.  To them we must have seemed like ghosts, just materializing out of thin air.  The encounter didn’t last long, but it will last in my memory for a long time.

Graft Sexcess!

Since we know that deer like the persimmon fruit, we have been watchful for any female persimmon trees on our property.  What we have discovered is that, while we have many persimmon trees, most of them are male and so do not produce any fruit.  An article in the QDMA magazine Quality Whitetails from June-July 2011, Grafting Persimmons, by David A. Osborn and Dr. Karl V. Miller, recommended a remedy to this situation.  The article provides detailed instructions on how to graft a small branch with several buds from a producing female persimmon tree on to a male tree or a young persimmon tree that has not produced any fruit yet.  The result would be a hybrid tree producing fruit.  This was definitely worth a try!

We have several prolific female persimmon trees, so we carefully followed the directions on 9 healthy young persimmon trees of unknown sex, using scion wood cut and stored during the winter from one of these prolific females.

Prolific Persimmon Tree

We were hesitant of sexcess; however, months later, we were thrilled to see that the process was sexcessful on 3 of the 9 trees.  After rereading the instructions (always a good idea) we discovered that we should have cut the foliage below the graft in order for the scion to receive most of the energy from the roots.  Possibly the other 6, all of which had a great deal of foliage beneath the graft, would have been sexcessful, too.

Sexcessful Graft

No Equipment is "No Maintenance"

When a salesman tells you that you never have to worry about maintenance on a piece of equipment, be very wary.

We are learning that every piece of equipment needs maintenance, some more than others.  Keeping maintenance logs for the various machines can be very helpful.  But a regular careful inspection is also a good idea.  I'm not sure how long one of the disks on our harrow had been freewheeling, but by the time we noticed it the disk had done some serious damage to the shaft. The hole in the middle of the disk, which should be a square and fitting tightly onto the shaft, was almost a perfect circle.  By twirling around the shaft instead of fitting onto it, the disk had worn a ring into the shaft that can't be repaired.

So we have added disk observation to our long list of inspections and shaft replacement to our long list of maintenance.

Camera Observations

Now that we have 3 cameras for observations we decided that we need to coordinate the data.  Having read that using a camera for every 100 acres can give a good picture of the wildlife, we have divided our property into 3 areas.  Within each area we have designated smaller parcels that have unique characteristics, such as a stream or large groups of oaks, so that we can more accurately pinpoint where the cameras are placed..

Our cameras have the ability to print out not only the time, date, and temperature at the time that a photo is taken but also the name of the camera.  For the name we can use a number and letter combination that helps to note exactly where the photo is taken.  The number 1-3 designates the general area in the property, and the letter A-Z then designates a particular parcel.  When we set up a camera we can just designate the name for that particular location.

For example, if a photo shows the name of the camera to be 2 M, that would mean that the location of the photo (and the camera) is in the 2nd large area of the property but also in the section of that large area denoted by the letter M.  Since the camera name can be printed on the photo it will give us a clearer picture of who is active where and when.

The Power of the Screw

Recently we attended a large garage sale at a high school.  The sale consisted of mostly furniture, clothing, and electronics.  However, under one of the tables we noticed an unusual piece of equipment.  It had a wooden handle and looked like it belonged on a farm, so we picked it up and examined it.  We finally realized that it was basically a large screw that, when placed vertically on the ground and turned with the wooden handle, would dig a hole.
This intrigued us, because we were planning to build a fence and needed to dig about 25 holes for the fence posts.  We have a post hole digger, but it is awkward and difficult to use in hard clay soil.  We had also contemplated buying an auger to use with our tractor, but that tool is quite expensive.  So we decided to take a chance on this antique, or at least very old, farmtool, helping the school and hoping to help us with the fence.

We were quite excited to find that our garage sale discovery did an excellent job of digging the holes that we needed, and, as an additional benefit, it was fairly easy to use.

Two Post Hole Diggers

Design of the Screw