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    #46
    I realized I never posted the pics/video from a drone flight I did over the farm a couple months ago....


    The whole 43 acres from the south. The red outlines the food plots. 2ac Dove field to the right, 2ac deer plot in the middle, and 0.5 acre alyce clover / joint vetch field to the left.

    Looking south into the 13 acre burn unit with the cut cedars.

    The cut cedars looking north from the south fence line.


    [MEDIA=youtube]0BNtAw9xSkU[/MEDIA]


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      #47
      Swung by the farm today and mowed the food plots so I can spray in a week or so. The winter deer plot turned out gorgeous. The crimson clover, vetch, peas, and cereals all exploded this spring. The camera has picked up a bachelor buck group of 4 using the plot over the last 3 weeks. I know the transition to the summer plot will take a toll on their frequency, but I take it as a good sign that they’ll use it this summer.

      The wildflowers are starting up as well. Not many are blooming yet, but false indigos, clovers, and Indian paintbrushes have all started.












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        #48
        Well, we went 27 days of September without a drop of rain at the farm, and I spent the last 11 days of it quarantined because I caught CoVid… so I’m skipping the fall plots for this year, because it would be at least mid-October before I could get anything in.

        I am still on track to burn the portion of the property where I cut the cedars down, and may try to put in spring oats, clover, and chicory in the fire breaks and main plot then while I have the equipment in.

        I plan to have the neighbor graze the place in July/August after the dormant season burn to help forb and broadleaf production. I guess I have to hit the public land hard for another year before the family place starts having a reason to hold deer.

        Best laid plans…


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          #49
          Alright… we just thought me and my parents getting CoVid was the worst of it, but it was just a drop in the bucket compared to what the rest of 2021 had in store for us. After blowing my ankle out in early October and missing 8 weeks of work, a couple deaths in the family, and my wife missing 7 weeks of work for a fracture in her leg….. we are finally back in business with progress on the farm.

          My Stepfather and I spent the day clearing and mowing fire breaks around the 10 acre burn unit. The breaks are ready to be disked in a couple weeks, and then all i need is a mild southerly wind that lines up with enough available helping hands.


          I did a 50 foot wide mowed break on the downwind break and plan to disk 25 feet of it to mineral soil as the main line of defense against a downwind jump.




          The east flanking break is mowed 30 feet wide and will have 15 feet of disked mineral soil.



          The west flanking break is a tight space tucked between a heavily treed fenceline and an old swale my great grandfather put in. I was worried about it being an effective break, so i built a second break across the fence from it just in case.

          This is the smaller break, i was only able to eek out 20-25 feet of mowed, and i will most likely get even less than that disked due to how steep the burm is just past that brush pile.

          And this is the backup break. I mowed this one to 40 feet at the narrowest, and will disk it at probably 20 feet wide.


          And finally the south has a 30 foot mowed break that 15 feet minimum will also be bare soil. I have a patch that goes through a small patch of Burr oaks and that will be leaf blown to bare soil as there is no grass beneath them. The break makes a bit of a zig-zag around that protruding patch of cedars. They sit on a chalk outcrop that was not conducive to putting a fire break through.



          The county extension agent was pleased with my break plan, and my weather conditions plan. Namely: southerly winds 5-12mph, humidity not below 30% and preferably above 40%, at least 5 people on hand for the burn, and hopefully local volunteer fire department on site (for a small fee) to mop up.


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            #50
            With a burn ban in effect just 4 days before my burn this past weekend, I am at the “praying for rain” stage. I went ahead and disked the breaks in preparation, and there are 3 days with rain in the forecast this week. I’m hoping that will drop the ban so I can burn the next time the winds are right.

            We went with an 18 foot bare dirt break on the north (downwind) side with plenty of mowed space either side.

            18 feet on the east side, since that has the closest houses…

            12 feet on the south (upwind) side


            And then the west side has a double break. The first is about 8 feet, but it is on a swale and backed up really close to a heavily treed fence-line. So, we did a 12 foot break on the other side of the fence as a backup.



            There is a BUNCH of fuel in this fire unit. I trimmed about 3 acres of cedar trees over the last year and a half that are still laying in place.









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              #51
              Burn incoming…. Wednesday looks to be the day.

              We moved the brush that was against the west fire break further into the burn unit, and cleared around the bases of the oaks to protect them from scorching.

              The west side of the burn will be very patchy thanks to the green-up and thin growth from last year.
              The farm received 1.75” of rain tonight and narrowly missed a tornado on the ground…. Just 2 hours after we left. So, between the green up and the high fuel moisture, the fire shouldn’t be too hot.









              I didn’t get a good picture of the rest of the fuel load. I forgot after knocking out all the rest of the tasks. 70% of the unit should carry a decent fire, but that west side will be hard.


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                #52
                20 mph winds today. I would wait until a day after the next significant cold front where you dont have but 5 mph winds. You wont need wind to burn. There is a reason fannin co is under a burn ban

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                  #53
                  Prairie Valley Farm

                  Originally posted by .243 WSSM View Post
                  20 mph winds today. I would wait until a day after the next significant cold front where you dont have but 5 mph winds. You wont need wind to burn. There is a reason fannin co is under a burn ban

                  We peaked with the highest gusts around 12mph today during the burn. Burn ban has been lifted for over a week, and we BARELY got the unit to burn for all the green grass and recent rain. The dew set this morning was so heavy that tall grass soaked your pants instantly. Honestly, if we gave it another week of green growth after the rain this week,
                  It would have never burned.



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                  Last edited by IkemanTX; 03-16-2022, 05:20 PM.

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                    #54
                    Prairie Valley Farm

                    Well, the fire was a bit of a struggle. With all the green grass coming in, and 2” of rain on Monday, we really fought to get the unit to carry a fire. Taller grasses in the west side of the unit were almost non existent, and the low level duff i was relying on burning was replaced with bright green annual ryegrass from the seed bank.

                    We barely got a blacked break on the west side, and it took 4 passes with a torch to get that. The North break (downwind) was about 80% black with the remaining 20% being light fuel and green already. The east half of the unit burned well minus one thin stream down the middle, and the head fire was absolutely useless. The areas that had leaves were too moist to carry, and the areas that didn’t have leaves were green as well.

                    I ended up doing alright lighting any cedar that had decent grass grown into it, but all of the skeletons remain.

                    What ultimately killed me on this burn was the month long fire ban. If we had been able to burn the first day I scheduled a burn (third week of February) we would have had very good results.

                    Oh well, the patchiness will just make more diversity. I will need to pile all the cedars and burn them as a bonfire since they weren’t even nearly consumed.

                    It stayed so small, one of the local fire department guys never came closer than the road which is 350 yards from the closest break.

                    This first pic was supposed to be my head fire… more cedars than grass. The hail from the tornado near miss knocked nearly all of the needles off and it didn’t carry at all.



                    A small area with good tall native grasses that carried alright.

                    Marginal penetration under the oaks.



                    The grasses on the east side did the best.




                    But the west side did nothing.



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                    Last edited by IkemanTX; 03-16-2022, 05:24 PM.

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                      #55
                      Well congrats on getting it burned. I was surprised the wind held off, forecast was 20 mph today. I had no idea the burn ban was lifted. I wish it had burned better for you. Wow, yall got 2"? We barely got a quarter inch n of hg. Its gotten very dry up there. I'm glad yall missed the tornado. Missed a buddy's place by a mile

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                        #56
                        Originally posted by .243 WSSM View Post
                        Well congrats on getting it burned. I was surprised the wind held off, forecast was 20 mph today. I had no idea the burn ban was lifted. I wish it had burned better for you. Wow, yall got 2"? We barely got a quarter inch n of hg. Its gotten very dry up there. I'm glad yall missed the tornado. Missed a buddy's place by a mile

                        My place in denton hasn’t even had 2” since January 1st… so I definitely feel your pain.
                        As far as winds go, they couldn’t have been any better. We only had about 15 minutes above 10mph and it died back down. The rest of the day stayed somewhere between 6-8mph. We intentionally started on the early side to avoid the wind speed increases into the later afternoon. Better to struggle getting it lit than struggle containing it.


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                          #57
                          Prairie Valley Farm

                          I got up to the farm today to plant the food plot.
                          The burn is just as green as can be, like it never even happened. You can definitely tell what parts burned and what parts didn’t. The burned areas are MUCH darker green than the areas that didn’t burn. The camera doesn’t pick it up well, but you can easily see the exact pattern of the burn when looking over the grass.

                          I was able to put in most of the food plot, but it ended up a little smaller than previous years because it was too wet to till. The far west 30 yards or so went unplanted. I would have liked to have planted with the “throw and mow” technique I used the last few years, but after catching CoVid and blowing an ankle out last fall, the field sat fallow for the winter and didn’t have enough growth to mow down a good enough thatch to ensure germination. I ended up at around an acre and a half instead of 2, but I have MUCH more food plot than the area can justify with deer density anyways.
                          I didn’t have a drag or cultipacker, so I just seeded the full 2 acre rate on the 1.5 acres assuming lower germination.

                          The plot is Justin Seed Company’s spring deer mix with some vetch and clover that I added in.




                          When you don’t have a drone, you improvise…




                          The entrance to the plot where I usually plant screening had HORRIBLE pig damage. I would have had to work for several hours with the bucket to repair it, and didn’t have that kind of time, so I just skipped it for another day. Some of the holes are 2 feet plus deep. I only let a tire drop into one once before deciding I would give myself plenty of space to avoid them. It was so deep that once the back tire slid down into it, I had a hard time getting out because the fully lifted tiller was bottomed out behind me.
                          The below picture is before I ever started tilling, but the camera doesn’t show the depth very well. This area was probably 1/8th of an acre just turned into a moonscape.



                          I did video the beehives that arrived a few weeks ago, but it is taking forever to upload to YouTube. So, once that has uploaded, I will post that. I have yet to count the hives, but there are SEVERAL hundred. They ring the edges of 3 different pastures in pallets that have 4 hives. One of the pastures is exclusively 5 frame nuc hives that I am assuming were split this spring. If even half of those do well enough to transfer into full hive boxes, the whole north half of the place will be white boxes.

                          (Edit: Heard from the bee guy and he said these are pretty much all split hives growing out for either sale or to go into his honey production. He will only leave a small percentage of of the 1,000 or so hives currently on the place.)

                          The below 2 pictures are just the hives added this week, and this is by far the smallest set on the place.
                          From our old hand-dug well looking west

                          Looking east, remember, each patch of white in this pic is 4 hives.


                          The bees have definitely settled down in the last couple of weeks. They were VERY active when they first arrived and were fairly aggressive for domestic bees. I’m guessing that was just stress from being shipped from california almonds back here to Texas. My aunt lives on the property next door and said all the neighbors in the area had called her and asked what the heck was going on, because of literal clouds of bees in the area. Haha.

                          There will be some productive gardens in the area this year!


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                          Last edited by IkemanTX; 04-09-2022, 08:42 AM.

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                            #58
                            Looks great, keep posting pictures. You have done alot out there and its really starting to shape up.

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                              #59
                              Prairie Valley Farm

                              Lets see if this works…
                              One of the hives got after me at the end, so I didn’t get everything on film.




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                              Last edited by IkemanTX; 04-09-2022, 10:31 AM.

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                                #60
                                After fighting this property’s natural desire to be wet after ANY rain… I’m considering a wetland project instead of a prairie project…. Anyone with advice?


                                Wetland Reserve Easements question…



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