Offseason

[jrock75]

Offseason projects are in full force. First order of business was to burn a 45 acre unit that we had aerially sprayed last fall. We pumped it out for a week and got the surface water off. Thankfully the weather forecast held up all week and we had 10-15 mph NW winds that shifted to W as the day progressed. Perfect for burning this unit. I wish we had the time to let the soil drain and dry out more but this time of year the low humidity moderate north wind days that line up to my limited weekends with no kids' activities are rare.

Between the spraying and the hard freeze we got this winter, there was a ton of dead fuel. This is a unit that we sprayed and burned the during the drought we had in fall of 2023 but the cattails grew back just as thick. My goal is try and keep this unit dry and hopefully get it to the point where we can disk it several times this summer. We are also going to build up the levees to allow us to hold deeper water in the offseason and hopefully that will help keep the cattails at bay. It has worked well in some other units both on this property and back at the farm. The war with cattails is never over, you just need to be satisfied with winning battles along the way.

Grant had a good time driving the water cart and keeping us well supplied to snuff out any fire that tried to leak out over the levees into the neighbor's property. I bought this 3" pump and heavy duty fire hose and nozzle to clean off UTVs but it served us very well in helping to contain the fire from a distance with confidence.

Grant and Me Fire.jpg

Grant Firehose.png

Grant Refueling.png

[Rick]

Hopefully more rewarding than the usual Soapbox Derby cars stuff with Dad.

[jrock75]

Texans love dove hunting. I read an article recently that stated that 25% of all the Dove hunters in the US are from Texas. Though I have lived here 25 years I haven't adopted the tradition. For most of the state Dove season opens on September 1st each year and people have long lasting annual traditions to hunt that day, work and school be damned. My property is in the South Zone so we don't open until mid-September without all the fanfare. With teal season shorter this coming year I thought, why not have something else to hunt in Sept and Oct? But what really excites me is the idea of another habitat project to work on.

The north end of our farm contains a ~40 acre field that is adjacent to the main county road. The family that built this farm back in the 1940's used this as a cattle grazing and pen area but we haven't done anything with it other than mow it occasionally. This should be a good spot for dove: 1) there is a power line that runs along side the road for the entire length of the field, 2) the old homestead site (house is no longer there thanks to Hurricane Ike) contains many large live oaks for perching and roosting, 3) gravel roads run on 2 sides of the field and on the shoulders of the county road, 4) the adjacent ponds provide a water source, and 5) it contains the only soil we have with material amounts of sand (along with the ever present clay) .

I have designed a plan to make a 25 acre dove field that is sunflowers, browntop millet, and a dove mix of various millets and other dove friendly seed bearing plants. Not sure what is going to work but with 3 different options I should have success with at least 1. Elevation of this field is 7' on the east and 3' on the west. Will be interesting to see how that affects what grows.

We mowed the field last week and then started plowing this week ahead of the rain. Of course when we got ready to get started one of the disc's obscure hydraulic fittings blew and it took 5 days to get one delivered so we missed the really dry window and got caught by some rain. I hope to get several passes of the plow across the field over the next few weeks to really powder the ground. Around early-May we will spread some 19-19-19 fertilizer and make one final pass with the plow. After a couple of days we will spray any vegetation with roundup and will plant the sunflowers and dove mix following up with the pre-emergent herbicide to give the sunflowers a fighting chance against our vigorous grasses and broadleaf weeds. Browntop is much faster to mature so we wont plant that until mid-late June.

Hopefully we get some rain over May, June and July but not too much. 20"+ like last July would certainly doom the sunflowers if not the whole project. We will do a combination of mowing, burning and plowing in August and September to scatter the seed and provide bare ground for the dove.

Dove Field.jpg

Dove Plowing.jpg

[Rick]

Reads like a good spot and especially if the water has some bare or very sparsely vegetated edge to it and some of those trees are dead. Once overheard one of our dove hunters ask a young Cajun kid who worked for us where would be a good spot and get the best dove advice I've yet heard: "Stand by a naked tree." But water with open ground access might take second.

Camp I long worked for once experimented with a large, originally fenced for rye grass, plot of both sunflowers and brown-top which drew birds, but not as well as later on, when goat weed took it over.

Have to admit being jealous of the land situation you've earned yourself. (Albeit for waterfowl, rather than doves.) Best of luck with it.

[jrock75]

The opportunity to own this land is truly a dream come true dating back to my youth hunting the WMAs and refuges in North LA. In high school my hunting buddy and I used to talk about trying to save up to buy a rice acre field. I wish he lived close enough to be a part of this all now. I am truly blessed to be the caretaker of this plot.

You make a good point on the goat weed. I may add another component to the plan for this year, a "control" plot from a scientific standpoint where we just disk it and see what comes back. That would sure be a lot easier and cheaper than planting, herbicides, etc. There is a 10 acre plot to the west of the picture that I showed that could serve this purpose easily.

[DComeaux]

You're living my dream.