NiobraraHunt

With the recent fire it is time to get moving on a firewise plan for the Niobrara River land.    This the current plan as of this morning !   . I will try to explain each site from East to West with plan, funding and contractor.   On the east side there is the trailer/cabin site.  This is about 3 acres where the open deer stand is and where we cleared out the boundary fence line on the east.  Max was considering putting his trailer down there.  It is about 70% forest cedars with enough oak for it to qualify for cost share.  I think we can get a grant up to a maximum $1,350 per acres contract cost with the grant paying about $1,000 per acre.  Going south up the hill is the township road.  I think we may be able to get money to widen this as a fire break.  It would add about .5 acres. The neighbor to the east has all of the heavy equipment to do this work.  He has two skid steers with mulching heads and an excavator with a mulching head.  He should be motivated to do this because it woul

  I have been watching a guy in Tennessee built a homestead in the Smoky Mountains, called Smoky Mountain Outpost. He is doing most of the work himself with a little help from family.  He has a sawmill.  He is building a big cabin with post and beam using mortis and tenon with wood peg joints. Although I think I could do it, it is probably beyond my years and forest resources.  He has also built a forest kitchen using post and beam but with cedar wood.  This is more compatible with my Niobrara land.  I am going to refer to his videos with comments on the construction and our site. The Utube channel is Smoking Mountain Outpost and the forest kitchen is in season 2.  I can't get episodes right now but the one I want to discuss is the use of cedar trees for roof rafters. Installing the metal roof was season 2 episode 29 so the rafter one was before that. What he has done is taken cedar logs with a base of 5-6 inches to 3 or 4 inches at small end and has milled them to a width of 3 inc

I really enjoyed using the tracked mulcher at Tom's. I ran it for 1 day and for 11 machine hours.  Tom has some trees in his pasture that he wants shredded. I ran the machine for about 1 hour on 20 year old trees and they were shredded. For 2021, I would like to rent the machine for a week.  That gives us 40 machine hours.  I think Birkel Farm and Ranch would use it for one day or 8 machine hours. With that Tom could do a lot of clearing in his pasture.  The machine rents for a week for the same rent as 3 days. We would then take the machine to the Niobrara. On the Niobrara, there is a really nice bench just west of the pump site that has a lot of Oak trees.  I would like to clear out all of the cedar and maybe some of the oak trees.  It would make a great family area or cabin site.  I would seed some blue grass as I did at the other cabin site.  The site would have a great view up the river.  I think I could put in a drive from the pump site,  It would take a culvert and I would h

This is just my thoughts or plans for the Niobrara hunting land.  Comments are always welcome. We should be adding 43.6 acres of pivot irrigated land to the hunting tract.  It will be planted to corn for 2020. These are my current thoughts for 2020. Food Plot Seed:   I have four bags of food plot seed from Whitetail Institute.  White Clover which needs heavy soil.  Fusion which is a giant clover which also needs medium to heavy soil.  Chic Magnet which needs moderately well drained soil.  Winter Green which also needs well drained soil. Rather than seeding this anywhere this spring I am going to wait until early August.  Food plots have never done well because the lack of consistent moisture at the locations that I put them.  What I am going be testing is inter-seeding something in the outer ring of the pivot.  That way, assuming the pivot runs in August, the food plot seeds will be getting watered by the pivot.  Long Term:   Starting with 2021 I will have full control of the 4