Frost Seeding

Change-up on wildlife food plots – or as I like to call it:  Meatball Farming

Attempting an experiment.  Will report on success or not in three months or so.

Picked-up seed yesterday at the Door County Co-Op and mixed a couple pounds in a large Tupperware bowl.  Equal parts of red clover, turnip, chicory and dwarf rape.

Used the spinner to broadcast it on top of the snow covering a ratty bare patch of food plot that didn’t germinate last year.

The theory is that as the snow thaws, more snow falls and the freeze thaw cycle does its thing the seed is slowing worked into the ground by Ma Nature.  No till!  When the ground warms-up in the spring hopefully it will germinate and there will be a flush of new growth for the pollinators and critters when they need it the most.

I’ll have to see if it works.

The girls and I are going to do another patch tomorrow and overseed some of the trails with straight clover.

If the experiment fails I’ll nuke it with glyphosate.  When I have some extra hands at Schuetzenfest we can run the disc over it and replant it traditionally.

Also going to order 50 pounds of oil sunflower.  A giant sunflower patch would be like an acre of bird craziness.  Pheasants Forever has free shipping on their seed mix.

The Big Sniff

I was out with the girls yesterday so everyone had an opportunity to stretch their legs.

Less than 200 yards from the house there is a motion activated camera located where the trail intersects with a northbound path eventually crossing the creek.  I paused there to swap-out the memory card on the camera and check the battery life.

There was something in the fresh snow that sure had the Labs attention. 

Their noses were working overtime.  They were giving the area a big sniff.

Here's why... 

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The Labrador retriever has never won Best of Show in the Westminster Kennel Club competition but there's not much that can beat their sniffer.  This coyote has been showing-up fairly regularly on the camera which is unusual.  I should make time to dig out my winter cammo smock and fetch a varmint rifle from the gun safe.

Antler Hunting

The girls and I were out in the woods last weekend.  (Note to self - bring sunblock next time)

I had tree farm chores to perform and the girls did what Labrador retrievers do - they hunted for stuff.  Including antlers.  I'm sure they enjoyed some tasty rodent snacks when I wasn't looking but they came-up short on the shed antlers.

Upon further review I now know why.

We uploaded two weeks of photos from four trail cameras and only one buck has lost half his headgear.  Everyone else is still sporting both antlers. 

Here is Mr. Half Rack...

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And here are the antler hunters...

 

New Location

New location for one of the trail cameras is on a worn game trail winding through the north plantation.

I mounted it lower than usual - about a foot above the snow surface. 

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Sturgeon Bay

In case you missed the scheduled broadcast - Around the Corner with John McGivern of Milwaukee Public Television visited Sturgeon Bay...

Talking Turkey

Ahhh.  More gobblers coming and going.  Gotta move around to forage for food.  Tough bird - engineered for winter.

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Always good to see...

Whodunit?

While working in the woods the girls and I cam across a crime scene.  Well, not really.  More of a nature scene in keeping with the Platz's mission statement about the survival of the strong and the killing and eating of the weak.

A disturbance in the snow.

Feathers and itty bitty bird parts scattered-about.

These are definitely the remains of a grouse.

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The perpetrator was either an owl, hawk or coyote.  Whodunit?

Fortnight

A fortnight is a unit of time equivalent to two weeks.  It is a derivation of the Old English:  fēowertyne niht, meaning - fourteen nights.

It has been exactly two weeks between checking on the trail cameras.  Batteries are at close to 20% on two of them and not as many pictures on the SD cards.

Nevertheless, the camera that was relocated to a deer trail in the woods did produce any number of fine photos.

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I'll post some of those in the next several days.

Deer Movement Goes Natural

Now that the bait piles are off of the landscape the movement patterns of deer have become much more natural.  Plenty of daytime sightings.

Not that deer don't move during the evening hours at all but when there is artificial feed placed out for them they're more likely to restrict their movements to the evening hours when there is no hunting pressure but the corn buffet remains open.

This is the new deer management paradigm in Wisconsin.  Supplemental feeding, shooting deer off of corn piles and a one-size-fits-all deer management policy. I guess all a person can do is get by as best they can on their own chunk of turf.  Oh well.


Successive photos taken of a group of three deer...

Followed by two more...

And two more...

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Seven deer in the space of a minute.
 

Animal Hole

If you are a Labrador retriever there is nothing better than discovering a bunny nest in the woods.

While out working on the tree farm I came across the destroyed remains of what was probably a rabbit nest.

It was already excavated as the girls got to it before I did.  Not that it would have mattered anyway.

If there were any inhabitants they were consumed.

Life is tough when you are on the bottom of the food chain.

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Swamp

Mounted on the chariot

Dismounting the chariot 

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Coming and going

Talking Turkey

Spring turkey hunting is on my mind and it is refreshing to see the gobblers moving through regularly.
 

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They were away for about a month as the old year ended and the new year began.  No pictures.  No tracks.

Seeing both now - although these guys are looking sort of scraggly...

Old Camera Location

Last couple of photos from this camera location.

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Scouted a heavily trampled trail to the north and moved the camera to that location for a fresh perspective.  Have only gotten one deer on camera in the last two weeks that was sporting his headgear.  

Probably time to ramp-up the antler hunting.

Corrective Pruning

Winter chores on the tree farm include corrective pruning.

Tools of the trade...

What to do about this bur oak?

Limb it-up being careful to never take more than a third of the branches.  Return in the next couple of years to continue to train it straight and tall.

Not sure at all what to do about this fork.  

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Giving it another year or so to see if the limb on the right asserts itself as the dominant main leader.

Gobblers

Nice to see these gobblers moving thru every once and awhile...

The Hairy Eyeball

Deer giving me the hairy eyeball.

I hate this when it happens....

 

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Passage of the Sun

It's Valentine Day today.

Not that this post has anything to do with it.

Purely by happenstance this camera was placed in such a way that it has been regularly photographing the passage of the sun across the sky.

Three pics chronicling the movement of the sun.  Check the time stamp for the period covered as the shadows lengthen...

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Messing With The Camera

While swapping-out SD cards and checking battery life on the trail camera last weekend I noticed one of the cameras was knocked-off plumb.

By more than a few degrees.

It was about 15 degrees off center.

Evidence of the head butt that caused it...

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Nice Composition

Say what you will about these cheap trail cameras.

I think they take nice pics under good conditions.

I like the lighting of these shots in particular.  Same day - two different locations...

Poetry in Motion

Isn't reserved just for my girls.

The local whitetails are pretty good about putting-on the moves...

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That is graceful.

Antler Hunting

Was out with the girls last weekend to perform some corrective pruning on bur oak.

Let the Labs range freely with the thought that they'e fetch some shed antlers.

Nothing.

Returning home we swapped out the SD cards from the trail cameras and it would appear we're premature.  Everyone seems to be sporting a full set of headgear except for one deer three weeks ago that was sporting a half-rack...

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Door County Deer Damage

Been spending some time performing winter chores on the tree farm this weekend and I wanted to share with my readers evidence of the damage to working forests when a deer population begins to outgrow the carrying capacity of its habitat.  I took these photos last weekend.

In this part of Door County there is no longer any natural regeneration of cedar, oak, hemlock, white pine, etc.  None.  Having been picked clean by the deer and any new growth halted in its tracks (no pun intended) the understory is barren.  These cedars have been hammered by browsing deer.  

They’ll survive in their stunted condition but as a food source they’re done-for.  Nothing left to eat and it’s only the beginning of February.

This is one of many smaller trees.  It happens to be a red oak.  Like its thousand or so other struggling hardwoods it happens to be anywhere from knee to shoulder in height and already has been stripped of this season's buds by browsing deer.   

The tree will push out replacement buds in order to grow new leaves but a tree can only do this so many times over the course of several growing seasons before its reserves are depleted and the fatally-weakened plant succumbs to disease or insects.  This is not a laughing matter.  This has a cost that is measured in real money.

Southern Door County has too many deer.  Be mindful that high deer numbers result in a severe economic loss to tree farmers across the state.

After four years of inaction the Walker administration rolled-out their County Deer Advisory Councils (CDAC).  The purpose of the CDACs is to allow grassroots participation at the county level to influence deer management decision in each of Wisconsin's counties.  The Door CDAC has voted unanimously to reduce deer numbers.  The CDAC also voted unanimously to put an end to baiting and supplemental feeding of whitetail deer.

They already cannot sell $12 antlerless permits that nobody cares to purchase.  And as soon as the bait piles come out in September the deer restrict their movements to the dark hours when there is no hunting pressure.

Getting rid of the baiting and supplemental feeding is a good start.  And if I had my druthers I'd bring back the October antlerless gun hunt.  Oh wait.  Everything has to have legislative approval now.  Good luck with that.

Gotta wonder what use is the CDAC process after-all.