Successes and Failures this Spring in the Back40

Several apple trees in the Back40 are putting on fruit.

The pear trees are also coming along nicely.

The frost claimed two young persimmon trees. Hopefully they'll recover.

The grapevines show some damage but over all came through the frost OK.

The wild plums have a scattering of fruit on this year.

I did battle with the tent caterpillars this spring. A dose of Sevin won the day.

My Back40 grafts continue to flourish.  A Liberty apple noted for it's disease resistence.

 A Hudson's Golden Gem. A fine fresh eating fall apple.

 A Summer Rambo. As the name suggests a summer apple for eating or cooking.

So over all it's been a fairly nice spring in the Back40.

The Grafting Bug

This apple tree grafting could get out of control.

Every morning I can't wait to check my grafts to see if any new buds are opening.  I'm already trying to decide how many rootstocks I should purchase next spring and am pouring over nursery websites that sell scionwood, looking at descriptions of apples with names like  Black Amish, Guyandotte Pippin, and Hog Sweet. Yes I can see this grafting thing spiraling out of control.

My daylily plantings are growing nicely on the breast of the vernal pond.

The mystery nest in my last posting has been solved.

As I went to open the box this is what flew out. I'll leave her alone till she hatches her eggs and then maybe try for a pic of the youngsters.

Signs of Spring around the Homestead

The bees are busy.

The apple trees are in bloom.

The vernal pond is full of water and teeming with tadpoles.

An interesting nest has appeared in one of my bird boxes. A Chickadee or perhaps a Nuthatch??

My grafting skills seem to have improved. In future years I'll be enjoying old-fashioned apples with names like Pomme Gris, Red Limbertwig, and Newt Grindle to name a few. Let the average person eat their store bought Red Delicious & Yellow Delicious, I'll be savoring these old apples from the past.

Life is good here on the homestead.

Tiny Dancer

About every evening I visit Simpson LTD's website. It's a gunshop that specializes in WWII items, but also from time to time imports large shipments of shotguns from Sweden, Belgium. and Germany. There are usually a fair number of old hammerguns in various conditions from good to wall-hangers. The nice ones usually are sold in a day or two and I can usually resist the urge to buy for that long. Well last week I noticed a 16 ga. Belgium hammergun on the site. It was a top-lever gun with straight grip, back-action locks (my weakness), with blackened 31.5 inch damascus barrels built in the 1880's. It was described to be mechanically fine with tight barrel lockup, excellent bores and a good walnut stock. I lusted over it for a little while knowing that it would go quickly and left the site. The next evening to my surprise it was still available and I fought off the urge, for I surely didn't need another hammergun. On the third evening I searched it out and there it was still waiting to be bought. I took this as a sign, picked up the phone, and in minutes she was mine. Being classified as an antique, no FFL was needed and she arrived at my door last Friday. As I assembled her I was struck by her light weight and suddenly she had her name "Tiny Dancer" after an old Elton John song from the early 70's. The kitchen scales showed her to weight 5 3/4 lbs, the lightest gun I've owned but her long barrels makes for a smooth swing and on Sunday I hit every claybird I pointed her at. With her cylinder chokes she should be right a home in my woodcock coverts.

God these hammergun guns are addicting.

Wandering a Spring Woodcock Covert

Was able to take Emma today and wander the Shawnee Creek Covert, a large expanse of nice looking woodcock cover that I had discovered last fall. Just several hundred yards into the cover I saw Emma making her way back to me with something large in her mouth. I wasn't fast enough with the camera to get a pic of the retrieve , but this is what she brought me.

A very alive opossum that was "playing possum". I had to wonder if a coyote or bobcat instead of Emma had found it, would it's playing dead act had saved it's life? I guess I should have gotten a rock or club and killed it for the egg eating predator that it was, but I've gotten "soft" in my old age and just can't kill something without giving it a sporting chance.

We worked our way through the nice cover. Both of us enjoying the nice day afield.

Finally Emma's bell went silent and I found her pointing in some thick alders.

 Further on in the cover she had several bumped birds until she found another one that proved to be more cooperative.

The skunk cabbage was bursting out of the ground along the creek, the first plant to proclaim that spring was here.

The birds that I saw today seemed to be large, no doubt hens, and I know that very soon nests will be built, eggs laid, and I'll have to stay out of the coverts till fall.

 

 

Back Forty Cat

My nephew Jim and his boy Caleb have been trapping the Back 40 this fall hoping to catch a coyote but catching only raccoon. Just before the snows came their luck changed.

Second Season Wanderings

Now that the snow has curtailed my hunting I thought that I'd catch up with some pics from the second season. The grouse were scarce and nervous but Emma was able to give me one nice point in the Graham covert that I missed with both barrels. Here are some of the covers that we hunted.

As usual I'm always looking around as I wander these mountains seeking the beauty in nature. For some reason fungi always catches my eye.

The day the snows were to arrive I hunted my southern Chaneyville coverts. I hadn't hunted this area much the last several years and I hunted several new coverts that had just begun to reach grouse holding potential. I didn't move any grouse in the first two coverts.

The last covert turned out to be a huge clearcut that gave us two wild flushes.

As we pushed further from the truck I could see the snow coming from the south.

As I made my way back to the truck the snow began and I eased my way down off the ridge on the slippery skidder road, feeling a little melancholy that my season might be coming to an end, but knowing that Emma and I had made enough memories to last us till next season.