Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Deer stand update

I did not go hunting today.

I am switching banks and I had to do the liquidity dance.  Move money from heyar-to-thar, thither and yon.

I bought 32, 8' two-by-fours before I figured out that I had a liquidity problem.  I used the remainder of the day to work on the deer blind.

View out of the north "window"opening.
View out of the east "window" opening.
The south side rates TWO windows because it is a prime travel corridor.
This is the view out of one of the south windows.  While it does not look significantly different than the other directions, it looks over a trail that runs from bedding areas to the east and prime food sources to the west.
Looking west.  Off screen to the right are persimmon trees, GoldRush and Keepsake apple trees, oak and chestnut trees.

Word is getting around that I am throwing together a deer blind.  Advice is being offered.  I listen.

Some of my favorite pieces of advice were to make room to record every deer harvested out of the blind...Who, when, method-of-take, details about deer.  J.K. who lives south of town let me look at his blind.  He had record of thirty deer taken from his blind.  They were written on the door frame and reminded me of parents documenting the growth of their children.

Another suggestion was to plant cover species that will provide good contrast with deer. 

Black Currant bushes
Deer are very easy to see when snow is on the ground.  They are much harder to see when standing in brownish-gray brush.  Why not plant "brush" that has chalky-white stems to provide that contrast through the entire season?  Suggestions for those species include Elderberries, Highbush Cranberries, Currants and Salix irrotata.

Salix irrorata is a species of willow that grows from south-east Wyoming to Mexico.  It has powder blue stems which would provide maximum contrast to deer-brown.  I have to find some cuttings of this species.  Image from HERE.
Oxford Violet (Salix daphnoides) is another possibility.  "The young twigs are a delightful pale violet and turn turquoise with a white bloom in the second year."  Image from HERE.


1 comment:

  1. I have a liquidity problem too. My money always flows away from me.
    Late this summer, my son walked upon a cougar a couple miles N.E. of Hesperia, on the spot where I used to live.
    My wife said she saw a picture on Facebook on I think one of my brother's pages, where there was a cougar trying to pull a buck that had been killed by a bow hunter, off into some brush. This was up near Brohman. Again, N.E. of Hesperia, although quite a bit farther. The details are kind of sketchy, and my wife is out, so I can't ask her right now. But this is a trend. Good or bad, I'm not sure, but if I lived up there still, I would not let my smaller dog out without a leash, or without me and a sidearm.
    The blind looks great and the advice sounds, well, sound.

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