The Solon Albino

Well it's no secret anymore that there is an albino doe living west of Solon near the McBride golf course.  Yesterday I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her and snap a few quick photos.  The zoom isn't the greatest on an iPhone so the photos aren't be best.  Recently there have been several articles about the deer with better photos than I have so you might have some luck doing a google search.  

It's pretty neat to see in person considering the odds are something like 1 out of 100,000 that a deer will be born an albino.  I definitely don't think I'll see another one in my life time but you never know.  

Stay tuned to the blog, both my brother and I should be making some posts about food plots and sharing trail cam pics in the coming weeks! 

Puttin' in the Work

I spent most of the day today doing a lot of food plot maintenance and site prep for a new plot.  Not to mention mowing & packing trails and finishing a small construction project on our property.

I spent about half the morning at Turkey Top.  I finally got the last third of the clover plot mowed with my string trimmer.

This is a section I mowed 10 days ago.  You can see how the clover is doing well since the grass was cut back.  Hopefully after applying Arrest, the grass will be no more and the clover will really take off.

I also found a break in the weather today and suitable conditions to spray the plot with Arrest herbicide.  I only sprayed the part of the plot that I mowed last week.  I saved the part that I mowed today as a "control". 

I then had a small strip of land between the end of the planted corn field and the edge of the timber that'd I'd never done anything with before.  I mowed it down and sprayed with round-up. 

The farmer we rent to left me a pretty wide strip of land between the forest & his first row of corn this year, so I might try to seed a strip plot the entire length of the field.

 

I have a bag of clover still left to be planted, but I kind of want to try something new here.  If anyone actually reads this and has some suggestions, it'd be much appreciated.  The site receives almost full sun the entire day.

Turkey Top update

This past Saturday I had a chance to get up to Turkey Top and check out the progress of my clover plot.  To say the grass had taken it over was an understatement.

However, there is good news.  The clover is thriving under all this grass.

It just needed a good mowing.  Unfortunately this plot's located in an area of our property only accessible by foot.  That makes driving or even pushing a mower to get to it impossible unless accessed from the neighbor's property...but that's another issue all in itself!  So I used my string trimmer and got about 2/3 of the plot mowed down before a storm chased me back to the truck.

In the next week or two I'll be hitting it again, this time with a herbicide called Arrest that's designed to kill only the grasses & leave the clover to thrive. 

From the pictures you can also see that there's a dead Locust tree in the middle of the plot.  I girdled this tree last winter to kill it and it makes a good place for my trailcam.  However, there were some honeysuckle sprouts that grew up in front of the camera since the last time I'd been to the plot.  So my SD card was maxed out with 2905 pictures, of which about 3/4 were honeysuckle shoots blowing in the breeze!  Here's a couple from before the camera got blocked though.

Seems like a popular place to be.

First fawn picture of the year!

Getting The Most Out Of What You Got and Garage Sales With The Wife.

Well today I took the Exmark out to mow trails and food plots.  I've got to say, that thing has become a Swiss Army knife for me. I have used it for the initial purpose I purchased it for- mowing the yard. However, I have found with some creative thinking, it can accomplish a lot of things.  

I have pulled hay rakes, yard sweepers, grain augers, and trailers.  With enough passes it can turn 5 foot of grass into a fareway at Augusta.  If you ease into it and lead with the open, ejection side of the deck, you can cut most brush up to one inch in diameter.  Recently I was sick of mowing around a small pile of dirt so I turned off the PTO, set the deck as low as it would go, and leveled it off by straddling the pile and using the front edge of the deck as a dozer blade.  

Every spring there is a multitude of branches in the yard that fell victim to the weight of the previous winters snowfall.  Why pick them up when you can just mow them into pieces?  Of course it does dull the blades but you should sharpen them every spring anyway so why not wait until after you have mulched up some sticks first.  Now all this does put some wear and tear on the machine but if you have something that's built well (i.e. has more metal than plastic parts) if something breaks its an easy fix with some pliers, wrenches, and maybe a hammer. Here's a before and after shot of the plot grooming capabilities of the ol' Exmark.  This plot was clover, volunteer oats, and weeds.

This morning I woke up at 6 and went garage sale-ing with my lovely wife.  That statement might make most men cringe but I have found it has paid off big time for me.  Last year I scored 3 lone wolf climbing sticks (retail over $100) for $10.  This morning we were cruising by a sale and my wife immediately liked the way it looked so she did the tuck n roll out the door while the mini van was still doing 20 mph.  I parked and waited for her to return. 5 minutes later I looked in the rear view mirror and there she was smiling and carrying a shot-at-twice-almost-new $5 archery target towards the van.  "Happy Father's Day!" she said.  Happy Father's Day indeed.  And here's to all you Dads out there including mine- Happy Fathers Day.

Turkey Top Results!

3 weeks after establishing my food plot, I checked my trailcams.  The plot was seeded on April 7th and by April 11th it saw its first good action.

This old boy and about 5 hens spent a good part of the morning hanging out in the plot on the 11th.  He gave me lots of great footage and pictures from up close!

One of 3 Jakes that cruised through

2013 Food Plot (Part II)

3 weeks had gone by and I finally got a chance to go check on Turkey Top.  My friend Andy that helped me establish the plot checked on it at the 2 week mark and reported a lot of grass, but couldn't see much clover germinating.  He then proceeded to walk down the hill from the plot and shoot a nice 2nd season Tom off a field closer to the river!!

When I went to the plot on April 28th (3 weeks exactly after seeding) I found a tremendous amount of clover had germinated!

Small clover in the center of the picture. 

Moisture for the plot has been outstanding over the last 3 weeks, but temps have been less than ideal.  Once we start getting some consistent sunny and warm days, this clover should really take off.

Some good green growth, but unfortunately most of it is grasses.

My next step will be to get some herbicide that kills only the grasses and see how that works.  Cabela's and Bass Pro sell a chemical called "Arrest" and the reviews are great for use with clover plots.  I've got some gift cards from my birthday for both stores and I might have to look into investing in some Arrest.

Spring 2013 Food Plot (Part I)

So this spring I've decided to try my hand at a "budget" food plot.  We have a clearing on top a ridge along the west boundary of our property that is perfect for a food plot.  I've decided to call it "Turkey Top" because my ultimate goal is to design the plot to attract turkeys.

On April 7th I did the site prep & seeding.  I had a ton of help from a good local friend.  We used a little prescribed fire to remove all the dead vegetation and grass and kill off a few multiflora rose and poison ivy shrubs.

The burn wasn't as complete as I would have liked it to be, but for the conditions we had, I was satisfied.

Keep in mind that this location is only accessible by foot on our property because of long, deep, and extremely steep ravine that bisects the property.  All the tools we had with us were brought in by hand.

I have a Troy-Bilt weedeater "combi" system that has interchangeable attachments.  I next used the tiller attachment to work up the ground in the areas where we had a good burn.  Following the tilling, we broadcasted the seed and then used a hard rake the rake it in.

This is after I've tilled about half the plot.

Here the tilling is complete and seed has been scattered & raked.

 The seed I bought was on sale cheap at Shopper's Supply during the going out of business sale!  You can still pick it up at most other sporting goods stores, but I bought it because it was cheap and worth a try.

I used Evolved Harvest brand, ProVide Clover with Chicory.  Clover plots are relatively easy to establish and the added benefit of it being a perennial crop made it even more attractive to me.

I set 2 trailcams at different angles up on the plot.  One was set to take pics & videos and the other is set to Plot mode.  Stay tuned for updates on how the plot progresses and hopefully some animal sightings!