Mrs ERJ and I made a trip out to the property.
We walked around and removed "unauthorized" tree stands. The owner of the property informed all of the deer-hunters who had hunted the property in previous years to remove their tree-stands. That was six months ago and makes all of the ones that remain on the property "unclaimed property".
We found six and removed three of them. Two of them were on the property line and feelers were put out to the party that hunts the adjacent parcel. The other stand was lag-bolted into the tree and I didn't have tools to remove it.
The stands were in two Black Walnuts, one Shagbark Hickory, one Silver Maple, one White Oak and the one shown above was in a Northern Red Oak. One stand in a Black Walnut and the one in the White Oak were attached to the tree with lag-bolts into the trees.
Then Mrs ERJ mowed grass while I marked trees for cutting and turning over some sod for spring 2025 tree planting. I also cleared and reset the traps.
My best guess is that there are 25 "holes" in the apple orchard, 30 "holes" in the new orchard and eleven + eight holes on the steepest part of the slope.
The owner wants apples replanted where the apples were and is OK with Asian Pears replacing the holes in the new orchard. Chestnuts and a couple of pecan trees will be planted on the steepest slopes.
Fortunately, the landlord has budget for making those kinds of improvements...maybe from selling tree-stands 8-).
Fruit is ripening way ahead of schedule
Most of the Liberty are already on the ground.
I need to pick fruit and get it squirreled away in the shade to process later.
The economy
I am starting to see more "toys" beside the road with "For Sale" signs on them.
This and that
I saw a plant that I didn't recognize and it keyed out to Ageratina altissima also known as White Snakeroot. Pollinators seemed to like it although Goldenrod is in full bloom almost everywhere it is sunny so it has a lot of competition.
Lobelia was also spotted in a damp spot and it is a lovely shade of blue.
I also saw three more Basswood on the property.
Have you made a "map" of the locations of the trees? I think it would be beneficial to mark the locations of desirable trees and fruit bearing trees. You could use long. and lat. positions starting from a fence corner or some point that is static.
ReplyDeleteirontomflint
That might be overkill.
DeleteThe property has a "valley" that cuts from corner-to-corner. The "developed" end of the property is where the valley hits a road. 1/4 of it is tilled.
From a deer-hunting perspective, the challenge is to get "ice-cream" masting species deeper into the property to get them walking past more deer-stands. The interior has mature trees, some cover and very-limited mast-producing trees.
Ideally, most of those trees will be dropping fruit October 1-through-January 2. Mast in October is a piece of cake. November is hard. December is very, very hard.
My thoughts were just to locate and label trees for their value, fruit trees, nut bearing trees, hardwood trees, and useful wood trees like locust, basswood, etc..
Deleteirontomflint
My first thought when I saw Property Walk was you were planning on opening a store in a Blue city. A fella would get to watch his property Walk that way.
ReplyDeleteThose Black Walnut trees are worth quite a bit, I hear.
Fred in Texas, That depends on how much discoloration is in the wood due to the lag bolts. I've had several lumber logs turn out to be firewood because of metal contamination.
DeleteNah, own a sawmill, got walnut sitting around. Nobody's buying anything.
DeleteHad 3 very large black walnut trees on property I owned and was putting up for sale. But checked with every mill around and nobody wanted any of them.
DeleteWell, I guess I'll just never mourn the loss of that tree again. I appreciate the input. I have felt screwed over because I told them not to cut it. Now? Mehhh,, I'm good.
DeleteIt amazes me the people that walk away from expensive stands. I found a single tree in a huge cut once that had a stand in it. The logger cut around it for fear of metal.
ReplyDeleteERJ, for no particularly good reason my spidey senses are tingling on the economy. My sense is a continued slide punctuated by a miserable holiday season.
ReplyDeleteThe only way I see an upturn is if Trump has a clear win - maybe.
DeleteI'm hearing lots of people with above average incomes complain how expensive things are and how fast their pay check disappears.
I work with gold mines most of the time at my day job. Some of them are cutting back operations due to difficulty getting financing, especially if they are still getting set up and not yet producing anything.
Given current prices, that tells you how bad things are.
We are working on selling some big ticket items below "market value" before the market gets even worse.
Jonathan
Jonathan
My sense is that mining is heavily regulated and aggressive enforcement can really tangle-up start-of-operations.
DeleteFederal bureaus like the Bureau of Reclaimation seem to hold the private sector to a much higher standard then they hold themselves to. Many of their dams are in deplorable shape.
I can't speak to BoR specifically, and I've heard similar stories, especially about the EPA.
DeleteAny activity on federal land is heavily regulated, though most of those regulations apply at the beginning of operations, not once they are underway. It also varies substantially which state, which agency, and which district is involved (for example, it shouldn't surprise you that California is a nightmare).
The odd thing here is that it isn't issues with getting the permits, it's the cost of operations and the cost of putting up their bond to clean up the site afterwards if they go under.
Jonathan