Building a new house and shop (1 Viewer)

[tstepp920]

Just today I was telling my wife I hadn't seen a post about your project in a while. Glad you shared what is going on.

 

[waiting for time]

I believe congratulations are in order.
Glad to see things are getting better for you.

 

[1911]

I believe congratulations are in order.
Glad to see things are getting better for you.

Thank you Michael, I appreciate that!

 

[dad4x4]

I believe congratulations are in order.
Glad to see things are getting better for you.

Agreed, well said!

 

[1911]

I have been wanting to plant some hardwood trees up on the hill above the house, but the expense of trees in containers and the rocky nature of the hill has kept me from doing anything, until now. I was searching for nurseries on the internet, and found the Arbor Day Foundation: Arbor Day Foundation - Buy trees, rain forest friendly coffee, greeting cards that plant trees, memorials and celebrations with trees, and more. - https://shop.arborday.org/

You can buy 6-12" bare root seedlings of any tree they have, 50 seedlings for $69.00! That's only a $1.38 per tree, something I can afford. So I bought 50 Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) seedlings. Bur Oaks are great (I've had or planted them at the last two houses before this one). They are good shade trees, grow fairly fast (for an oak) yet are long-lived, grow fairly upright (don't need much pruning), and most importantly for me, they grow well in alkali soil. They're well adapted to this climate, heat and freeze tolerant, and like full sun.

Now is a good time of year to plant, so I ordered the seedlings a couple of weeks ago. They shipped from Tennessee, and only took 2 days to arrive via UPS. They came all wrapped together in a box, with the roots in some kind of moisture-retaining gel to keep them from drying out. Here's what some of the seedlings look like after I unwrapped the bundle:

They all have buds on them about ready to pop.

Once you get and unwrap them, you want to plant them right away, within a week at the most. I planted at least 40 yesterday and today; I'm tired of planting now and have blisters on one hand from breaking rocks. I planted them on the hill above the house, some in front and on the side of the house, and all along our 1/2-mile dirt road from our gate on the paved county road to the house.

Here is one planted on the hill above the house:

My planting rig; everything in one place and necessarily portable - water in the tank on the four wheeler, and trees (in a bucket), peat moss, a shovel, and a rock breaker bar in the trailer:

It was a lot of work, had to break through a lot of rock in more than half of the planting sites. I'm glad it's over! Hope they all live and grow, but we'll see. I have about 10-12 left over, which one of my local children can have if they want, or the mrs. may plant them in containers in case we need to replace some that die.

Keeping the water tank on the four wheeler because I'll have to water them once a week for a good while, if it doesn't rain. This should be our rainy season right now, but we haven't had that much yet this calendar year.

Not sure why the photos are doubling; I deleted the extras but they keep coming back.

 

[Ol Yeller]

Planting trees is a great & rewarding investment in your property, love it.

 

[Dunbar]

Make sure to kill 10 of those cedars for every burr oak you plant. Well maybe 1000 cedars. I like burr oaks.

 

[dad4x4]

I would be glad to give you some of this rain we have had this year. I feel like it won’t stop!

 

[1911]

Make sure to kill 10 of those cedars for every burr oak you plant. Well maybe 1000 cedars. I like burr oaks.

I do my best, but it's slow work with a chain saw. Some day, I hope to have a second-hand track steer or maybe even a small bulldozer to push them over, then it will be war in earnest.

 

[greenbeast]

Was just browsing the work shop threads again since I am working on some drawings. I noticed the cedar tree's also. After I move late next spring back to Oklahoma I would gladly load up the big tractor with grapple and come down for a few days. On my farm a good push halfway up the tree just unroots them then we can pile somewhere. I'm trying to get the wife to let me buy a 3 point wood chipper but I think the movie "Fargo" has her little squeamish.

 

[1911]

Was just browsing the work shop threads again since I am working on some drawings. I noticed the cedar tree's also. After I move late next spring back to Oklahoma I would gladly load up the big tractor with grapple and come down for a few days. On my farm a good push halfway up the tree just unroots them then we can pile somewhere. I'm trying to get the wife to let me buy a 3 point wood chipper but I think the movie "Fargo" has her little squeamish.

Thanks, I really appreciate that! I may take you up on it. Some will have to be moved a fair distance for a burn pile, but I do have a few open spots that would work.

Another option is cedar harvesters around here, that want your cedar trees for fence posts, siding, boards, etc. so they will haul it away for free and you don't have to burn. The only problem with this is, I want to be careful with the hardwood trees in between the cedars, and I don't necessarily want to clear every single cedar, just maybe half of them or so. If you take out the female trees, then there are no more berries to drop and spread.

In any event, I'm in it for the long haul - I don't expect to be able to get my land all how I would like it in the remainder of my lifetime. But I enjoy what I am able to get done.

 

[greenbeast]

Well the offer is there and it’s actually short distance for me.

Bringing the big tractor home from NW Colorado to Tulsa area next weekend. It’s a 15 hour trip and there is now awesome Tx BBQ anywhere to be found along the way!!!

I’m putting grapple on front and weights on rear it in couple weeks just to move some brush and good sized trees so it will perfect for your mission!

 

[1911]

It's been four weeks since I planted all the oak seedlings. I was getting discouraged because despite following the instructions from the Arbor Day Foundation very carefully, I hadn't seen any change at all in any of the saplings. It takes 3-1/2 hours to water them all, and even though you're only supposed to once a week, I was already starting to wonder how much longer I would before giving up on them. But we've had more than 3" of rain here over the last 3 days, with more predicted tonight and tomorrow morning.

I was out on the four wheeler today, doing some outside work and patrolling my southern fence line (the only one where I have neighbors) in between rain storms, and I stopped and spot-checked several of the new saplings. To my relief and delight, six or seven of them definitely have new, light-green leaves growing on them. So they're not all dead, and hopefully with more time and the rain, more will finally leaf out.

 

[1911]

Mrs. 1911's next land-improvement project, honey bees. She bought a swarm of Russian bees with a queen from a semi-local couple, two counties to the northeast. We brought them home yesterday in a cardboard box, but waited until today to move them into the new hive box so that it would be sunny and warm to transfer them. She built the hive by herself, from a kit.

 

[Dunbar]

I have a buddy with 10 acres and he has bees for the agricultural tax exemption. Much less hassle than other critters.

 

[1911]

I have a buddy with 10 acres and he has bees for the agricultural tax exemption. Much less hassle than other critters.

That would be our fall-back. We are already ag exempt, but if the appraisal district ever questioned it, we have the bees and chickens.

 

[dad4x4]

congrats on the trees. I know that is a good feeling seeing them grow. I did the same thing 2 years ago and all 6 seedlings died. I'm sure it was something I did or didn't do.

 

[1911]

Quick update: with all the rain we've had lately (5-6" in the last 10 days) the planted saplings are doing well, 79% of them have now sprouted leaves. A lot better than I thought after the first month or so. I just hope I can keep them watered enough in the depths of the summer, after the rain stops.

The rain has made the waterfalls much more dramatic; here is the biggest one:

I started building a pig trap today - they're getting more obnoxious and foraging closer to the apartment and chicken coop, so it's time to start thinning them out. A local friend had a bunch of the pieces that he wasn't using, a trap door, a man door, cattle panels, and t-posts, so I'm just borrowing his stuff for now. Needs some more work but the basic shape is there, and I can start bating it to get them accustomed to getting food there.

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

Heard them pig is a good eatin. Might need to grab one from ya. Trees are lookin good.

 

[1911]

Heard them pig is a good eatin. Might need to grab one from ya. Trees are lookin good.

Thanks CD.

Feral hogs have a lot more fat than livestock pigs, which have been bred for more meat. They taste fine to me; some think they are more gamey or greasy tasting but I guess I'm not picky. When we start catching some I will let you know. Linda will not cook or eat them, because they are not wormed, so you'd be welcome to any that you want. I'm just going to shoot them and feed the turkey vultures and coyotes.