Swamp Gas is Plotting

What's up? You say.

And I would reply - I am plotting something.

Yeah, I know you're probably thinking - He's up to something and it's probably no good. He's been festering over something and now he's plotting something big. Something that will get people's attention maybe.

You would be partly right. It's big for sure but it's designed to get the attention of the critters.

The first food plot of the season has been planted.

I probably shouldn't even bother with this since there is so much farm land in the surrounding countryside - all chock-full of corn and beans and what not. Nonetheless, most of that stuff is harvested and off the fields by fall and I like to grow stuff with the intent of providing an insect attraction during the growing months and then leaving it stand over winter for the critters to eat.

In this case I am planting with the birds in mind - namely birds that hang-out here both during the summer and over the winter.



Step number one - Disc-up a big area of open ground.

This has been planted before so it is a task of little consequence to work the soil after it dries-out.

If it is a new plot you might have to kill the turf with an herbicide in the fall and again in the spring before you work the soil.







Step number two - Gather your supplies. Fertilizer, seed and a broadcaster.

Start by broadcasting your fertilizer. I use triple 19. The soil is neutral so I don't have to add lime. I just fertilize the daylights out of it.

Step number three - Broadcast seed. Beginning at one end of the plot I broadcast a pound of decorative corn. You know - the stuff that we used to know as Indian corn when we were kids.

Progressing towards the opposite end this was followed by about five pounds of oil sunflower seed. Lastly, I broadcast something on the order of five+ pounds of nondescript wildlife plot seed. With the exception of forage peas I've forgotten what else was in it. Aside from the ornamental corn everything was free from my Pheasants Forever Chapter.

I'll have to see what comes-up.

Step number four - Disc it again. I like to go in one direction so that the seeds kind of line-up in a half-arsed furrow.


The fifth and last step - Drive all over the plot using the tractor tires to compact everything and allow for good seed to soil contact.

Pray for rain.

This isn't rocket science and you'd be surprised at the results.

Some of our trails have been seeded into several varieties of clovers and once established all they require is some occasional mowing.

All the creatures of the forest enjoy clover.

I'll update you with a progress report before too long.

Turkey Tetrazzini?

Two gobblers already this year. That's a first.

About seven years ago I bagged a gobbler in the spring and a jake in the fall. Other than that it's been one turkey a year - and some years no bird at all.

Like the spring of 2006 when I hunted for three days in below freezing weather, with high winds and blizzard conditions.

There was no turkey that year.

That happens sometimes. That's the attraction about hunting. If it was easy everyone could do it.

So what to do with the handsome fella that you see in the photo below.


My wife makes a kick-ass turkey tetrazzini. Or maybe I could fix turkey breast tenderloins, or smoke a turkey breast, or slow roast the breast or make turkey schnitzel, or turkey cordon bleu.

Bottom line is breasts are easy. Legs too - for soup.

But what to do with those thighs?

Turkey Tuscan? Or Osso Buco? I wonder if I could prepare them like a sauerbraten?

Too many possibilities - so a good plan would be to pluck the thing leaving the skin intact and reserving the giblets and neck.

That allows me all sorts of options - such as brining it and roasting it stuffed with my wife's spicy pork sausage dressing.

If I roast it there is the possibility of turkey sandwiches, turkey salad and turkey soup to follow.

I could also deep fry it and we could enjoy KFT.

Or I could smoke it whole!


Bottom line is there is now a second turkey in the freezer along with the bird I got last month. One whole and the partitioned portions of another.

I have options to indulge whatever inspiration I encounter.

The one thing for sure is that my sister-in-law has already invited herself to Thanksgiving dinner no matter how we serve it.

When I find that inspiration I'll post the recipes.

Turkey Love Song

Up at the crack of dawn and walked-out to my turkey lair.

I crooned the lonely hen love song on my box call.

Yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp yelp, yelp. Cluck.

Cluck. Cluck.

Yelp.

Mr. Gobbler responds from somewhere off to the south.

I reply -Yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp.

I get some gobbles in return.

This carefully choreographed dance continues for about ninety minutes.

Mr.Gobbler is really putting the moves-on for the pair of foam ladies I have placed in the trail.

He actually reminds me of some kind of lounge lizard.

He's taking his time.

Turkey foreplay.

Finally he pirouettes within gun range.

Home for coffee by 7 AM.

Bird number two of 2009.
















Edit - 9 inch beard, 7/8 inch spurs and 24 pounds.

Be Still My Beating Heart

I'm still waiting for my heart rate to come down.

I just had the crap scared out of me.

The dog and I went for a run - well actually her running and me on the ATV - mostly to stretch her legs and to drop-off a couple of turkey decoys at a ground blind in preparation for another foray into the woods in search of more Thanksgiving dinner.

We deposit the decoys and tear-off down the trail at a sprightly twenty miles an hour or so. At about the half-mile point on the main trail I see a flash of movement out of the corner of my left eye. Instantaneously, an adult deer bolts from the trees in front of me.

Jesus Jones!

Instinctively I hit the brakes as a second deer follows the first - clearing the trail in a single bound - only a half-dozen yards in front of me.

What I presume to to have been the flash of movement is a third deer - trailed by a fourth that leap across the trail immediately in front of me and vanish from sight with a thoroughly enthused Labrador retriever in hot pursuit.

The entire sequence of events is over and done-with in seconds.

Then it dawns on me - Swamp, you came awfully close to being trampled by a couple of deer.

Yikes.

I call-off the dog and we head back for home at a more leisurely pace. All the while I'm thinking about how my wife would have somehow worked into my obituary - Death by sharp hooves.

She would do that you know.

Seven Miles of Lawn

Most of my life I have lived in modest bungalows with modest little lawns.

Postage stamp-sized lawns that you can cut with an old-school reel lawn mower.

Done and over within a matter of about an hour. Tops.

Here my house is still modest yet I have way too much lawn.

Lawn around the house. Lawn around the machine shed. Lawn around the granary. Lawn over the grave of the old house foundation where the Council Ring is situated. And a very vigorous lawn on the septic mound.

With the recent rains and the warming weather my very non-native lawn has been greening-up and begging to be trimmed.

I take that back. It has been demanding to be cut.

Under normal circumstances I would use the self-propelled, walk-behind, Toro mower (with small cutting radius) to cut the lawn around the trees, buildings and other borders.

This would be followed by finishing the job with one or both of a gasoline-powered Bush Hog (36-inch cut) towed behind the ATV or a PTO-driven Rhino mower (60-inch cut) hitched to the tractor.

Since it was a nice day - sunny but cool - I thought I would cut the entire yard with just the ordinary Toro. The way I figured it - I could use an invigorating walk and I didn't have much else on my chore list anyway.

Besides, I wanted to know how much distance would be covered in this endeavor.



Lest you doubt the precision accuracy of this elaborate instrument of quality Chinese manufacture it says in the Operating Instructions: False mounting or walking away will possibly cause inaccurate result. Ensure your walking method is right.

The Flash

I call this fella The Flash.

A flash of brilliant orange that has been hanging around lately. His girlfriend too.

I'm always catching a glimpse of flaming color out of the corner of my eye.

I'm told that these birds often return to the same location year after year.

If so - I've taken his picture before.

Feeding these birds is a pretty simple process. Heat four cups of water in the microwave. Add one cup of sugar. Stir to dissolve. Cool. Serve in a feeder.

The Baltimore oriole is one of the last of the birds to arrive and the first to leave before the commencement of fall.

Yesterday I had a hummingbird on this feeder so I better hurry-up and get their feeder out before a rumble starts.

Day Job Gardening

This whole notion of the remote work site is really working out swell for me.

For any of you who are shackled to your work station in a stark cubicle, inhaling stale office air, all the while laboring-away under the glare of fluorescent lighting...

I performed my day job (rather efficiently I might add) while gardening.

Equipped with my gardening gloves, knee pads and a Blackberry I putzed-about in my vast garden weeding and planting.

If a voicemail came to my office my Berry would chime and I would return the call. If an email arrived my Berry would ping a cool sonar ping and I would reply. When a scheduled task was to be completed a bicycle bell would sound and I would attend to the task.

Periodically I would have to do something that couldn't easily be facilitated on my handheld device so I would walk over to the garage to where my wireless laptop sat on the work bench and I would happily tap-away on it's slightly larger keyboard.

I returned calls. I scheduled meetings. I talked to clients. And I talked to my people hundreds of miles away. Once in awhile the laptop would speak to me - you have voicemail. And I would return the call.

I did everything I would ordinarily do in the workaday world and I completed my gardening.

What is not to like about that.

These are my radishes. French Breakfast Radishes to be exact.

They have a sparkling white tip and are very mild.

Plant your radishes now while the weather remains cool and you will have a delightful crop before too long.

When your radishes are ready serve them with a full-flavored cheese (brick is good) and a frothy pint of dark German beer.

Prosit!

High Tech Camouflage

One of the tools a hunter has at his or her disposal to succeed in bagging a crafty deer or turkey is to blend-in with the environment and ambush the quarry.

Concealment and surprise is the key.

I have just learned that there has been a dramatic breakthrough in camo technology.

A company in New Zealand (of all possible places) has developed Habitat Camouflage™.

It is so awesome I think I am going to invest in some of this land-down-under clothing line.

You can view the demo here.

More Birds

Carduelis tristis

We had to drive into town today to pick-up another twenty pounds of Nyger Thistle.

Flocks of these have been eating us out of house and home.

The little Chipping sparrows have been hanging around too - gleaning anything that is dropped from the feeders.

Baltimore orioles have been coming to the feeder this weekend.

Yesterday a pair of blue-winged teal dropped into the dog's pond. They stuck around until I went out to throw the ribs on the grill.

Edit - The Spotted sandpiper that I spotted on May first is still hanging around.

Wednesday Morning Waylon, Willie and the Boys

The day you were born

Celebrated with some friends

Jukebox song recalled

Happy Birthday Misha...

Another Bird

Sinissippi Gal sent this picture of a yellow warbler.

It is a common insect-eating bird but I cannot recall seeing one.

Perhaps I've been confusing it with the goldfinch.

The male can be found atop trees and the female is a bit inconspicuous.

Anyway, I'm told it will begin its migration back to Mexico and Central and South America in July.

Come August they'll have departed for good.

Maybe that's why I don't see them.

The Big Pecker

For a couple of months there has been a persistent hammering coming from the woodlot to the west.

I'm not kidding.

This hammering goes on for hours on end.

All day long.

For days on end.

Actually this is the beginning of the fifth year since this noisy neighbor took-up residence.

I already had a pretty good idea of who might be the maestro of the anvil chorus emanating from the woods - but I hadn't had an opportunity to confirm the identity.

So yesterday morning while Girlfriend and I were out for our morning constitutional I thought it might be a good idea to see if we could determine the source of all of this racket.

Check this out.




















A big old half-dead paper birch - almost completely hollowed-out.

If I was the least bit ambitious I'd wait for the perpetrator to finish the job and then cut the tree down and use it as a dugout canoe.

At the base of the tree was a sizable trash midden of wood chips











And while I didn't catch him on the job - this is the bird that is responsible.


A pileated woodpecker - Wisconsin's largest pecker.

The name derives from the the Latin pileatus - "wearing a cap".

This bird is about the size of a crow and announces its territory by drumming on hollow trees, chimneys and utility poles.

It's favorite food is carpenter ants and it will carve oval holes up to several feet long in tree trunks. It feeds it's young regurgitated insects.

Yum!

Photo - Ohio DNR

Spring Blooms

The marsh marigolds are blooming.

New Bird Sighting

A couple of years ago my neighbor excavated another small pond in a low area of the backyard.

He is actually the local grave digger.

He is an excavator extraordinaire.

Our intent was to capture the rainwater from about half of the gutters and all of the sump pump discharge.

We wanted something bigger than an ordinary rain garden - something on the order of a micro-wetland.

I constructed a berm around the pond from the excavated spoils and over-seeded it with rye to keep any erosion down.

It immediately became the dog's private swimming hole.

We cannot keep Girlfriend out of it.

In the summer the dog is content to spend an entire day chasing about the pond catching frogs.

Somewhere at the bottom of the pond are a couple of perfectly good Frisbees and countless tennis balls.

Anyway, last fall I finally got around to nuking all of the vegetation and seeded the berm (and a good portion of he surrounding dead turf) with a variety of wet-loving native grasses and forbs. We stapled erosion matting over the berm and let the whole shebang set over winter so the freeze-thaw cycle would stratify the seed and allow it form good ground contact.

This afternoon I noticed a bird picking about my expensively-seeded berm and just generally hanging around.

It is still there as I write this post.

Olive-colored back, white breast, white ring around the eyes and a long dark bill.

I surmised that it is a Spotted Sandpiper (although it has no spots to speak-of yet so it's probably not quite yet at the breeding stage).

Get this. The females mate with multiple males and lay eggs in multiple nests. The males then incubate the eggs and care for the young.

This doesn't sound at all fair.

Then again - nature isn't fair all of the time.














I have no recollection of seeing one of these before so it's been added to the life list.

I wonder if it's passing through or sticking around?