Spring is here!

Spring is finally here in Michigan. It's been a rough winter and an even rougher start to spring. With the snow, ice, rain and wind (all at once it feels) we have had some trying times. But, hopefully that is over, or at least it will settle down a bit now.

We have been working on things at the Estate but it's been fits and starts. We made a family day of cutting down Autumn olive and pulling stumps. My wife drove the tractor and pulled on the stumps after I cut them down. My daughter even used the winch on the 4 wheeler to pull a few out.

Using the tractor to pull out Autumn Olive stumps

After a full day of cutting, pulling and piling, we had made a big mess. In the interest of completing some projects instead of the usual habit of partially doing something, then moving on to something else, I decided to rent a big wood chipper to make quick work of the brush we piled up. Autumn Olive is full of thorns, sharp thorns. It doesn't burn well in a brush pile for some reason, and I just hate looking at it. So, the following weekend, I rented a 9 inch chipper from the local hardware store and brought it out to the Estate. I only had it for 4 hours, because I'm cheap, which meant I would be stuffing brush into it as fast as I could.

Rented a bigger chipper to handle the amount of brush we cut down.

This chipper was a beast compared to the 4 inch chipper I have. With hydraulic infeed rollers, it just grabbed everything I gave it and spit it out in little pieces. I was just barely able to get everything cleaned up in the 4 hours I had, but it was a great feeling.

The reality was, even with all the work we had done it was difficult to really see much improvement. There is so much out-of-control Autumn Olive on the property that it's overwhelming. I could spend weeks cutting and clearing and I still don't think I could get a majority of it out. Then, even when you pull the stumps out, it will grow back. Luckily, the deer do eat it when it's very small. In some places I have removed it and it started to try to come back, the deer have eaten it down enough that it finally died. However, that is not the usual case. It grows so fast that within one summer, it can be tall enough that the deer don't want it anymore.

While I am not a fan of herbicide use in the woods, that really is the only way to make sure Autumn Olive doesn't come back, right away.

In other areas, we found that there were a few standing dead Poplar/Cottonwood trees. The property is mainly Poplar and Cottonwood when it comes to the larger trees. Some of them are 50-60 ft tall. They die often and rot quickly. These trees were near the area of the solar panels and a couple were leaning in the direction of the panels. This meant they needed to come down.

I had disconnected the panels in the fall when I removed the battery on the camper for the winter. The temporary stand I had made them when I first installed them had rotted and fallen. At this point, they were laying pretty flat on the ground. However, they were still working, so I left them until I could put in a more permanent mounting system.

For this reason, it was easy to move them out of the way while I cut down the trees that were threatening the current panel location. This is good since one of the trees would have landed directly on them when it came down. Cutting the trees down and cleaning up the brush with my little chipper took a bit longer than I had planned and ate up the entire work day I had planned for the projects I wanted to accomplish.

Dead trees down to make room for permanent solar panel mounting

The end result was that I had cleared a lot of brush and the dead trees from behind the panels and I could then move them back a little more so they are out of the way and in a better location for getting sunlight. Currently, I am using two 250W commercial panels. The plan is to use 4 or 6 panels to allow the installation of an inverter for continuous AC power. This will allow us to run the AC in the camper during the summer and also use the power for other things such as water pumps and lights outside. During the winter, I will remove the Inverter battery and use only the camper battery when I am hunting. I will also have the possibility to use a generator if AC power is needed, or if I need to charge the camper battery due to low sunlight. I want the power system to be as self-sufficient as it can be, that way, power is there when we arrive and all I have to do is flip the breaker. Heck, we could even leave the fridge on while we are gone and keep snacky-snacks ready to go.

Other projects on the list are mostly for wildlife/hunting or "farming". There are areas that I want to open up to make the existing food plots larger. The "large food plot" currently is only about 100' x 150' and has mainly clover and alfalfa planted. I would like to nearly double the size and plant some more sorghum, which the turkeys and birds seemed to like a lot when I had it planted a couple years ago.

In another area, I want to open up the canopy and add some tall grass for bedding and nesting. We do have a lot of predators, both 4 legged and avian in the area and another place for the nesting birds to hide or for the deer to bed down out of sight won't hurt.

The ever-going battle with invasive plants will always be a project. Add to that the battle with poison ivy, we will stay pretty busy. Then, there is the perpetual plan to erect some sort of storage building. A couple years ago, I purchased a 10' x 20' metal shed from an auction. The entire building comes in a wooded crate that weighs 650lbs. I can only imagine what high quality it is. But, if it can provide some shelter for things we don't want to leave in the rain AND keep things out of sight that I don't want to wander off while I'm not there, it will have done its job.

Generic Potato Photo Because Mine Were Sad

As always, there is the "farming" activity. Every year I plant potatoes and every year I have a different outcome. The first year was fantastic! I no issues with pests or deer eating the plants. Since then, this has not been the case. Last year, I had a big problem with insects eating the plants. This caused the yield to e quite low. My plan this year is to keep a better eye on them. I did kinda leave them on their own last year, thinking they would be fine. This year I will be better about watching for issues and taking care of them when they arise, quickly.

For now, I think that is about it for projects. I will update as we go along as well as do my best to post video of them. Taking video does make every project take twice as long, then add in the editing time and it's a very time consuming endeavor.