All seriousness, good photography CNC.

Thanks, I appreciate that……I usually take my camera along with me every morning when I let the dogs out to play and we typically see something new about everyday it seems like……My lab is hell on the critters………The snake was actually buried in a hole but she sniffed it out and got it pissed off….It was hissing loud and dang near sounded like a little rattle snake…….

I think she’s caught the same poor turtle 4 or 5 times now….She even bit off the edge of his shell and marked him so I know for sure it was him again this last time she brought it to me…..

I got some well needed tractor time today. Also put me a top on that sucker..

The caterpillars have been thick over the last few weeks……Oddly I don’t think I ever saw a single Army Worm that I know of…..The caterpillar numbers seem to dwindling so maybe their cycles are about done with now……Planting about 3 weeks away.

This video is about as entertaining as watching paint dry but the end product of what he's making is pretty cool....espcially when they use the cement mixer.......It's basically making his own "seed coat".........One of the things I've found very cool about watching the videos of this old Japanese farmer is that the seasons and climate where he lived in Japan match ours here in Alabama damn near perfectly.......and the vast majority of the seeds and plants he used are the very ones we use most often for food plotting......What he was doing was not "food plotting" for deer but A LOT can still be learned from his ideas, methods, timing, etc.........

I’m gonna go English Lit class on that last video for a minute…..

The first thing that jumps out at me is that the area this guy is living in is just outside of Boone, NC in the mountains…..We’re talking about the mountain, mountains too where bars live…..not ag land by any stretch of the imagination…..The old man said when they originally cleared the land though that it was so fertile it would grow 2-3 ear corn without any fertilizer……a peck to a hill…..Sounds like they were planting “three sisters” mounds….Then he went on to say that in just a few short years that the land got so poor it wouldn’t even sprout seed anymore due to the topsoil erosion. I think that is a very good representation of the potential fertility the land possesses and the drastic differences that can be created due to how we manage it……even in mountains of NC the land has the potential to be extremely fertile……

The next thing that I found really striking about what he said is that this degradation of the land kept on and on by his forefathers until the point that they were literally starving and it was only then that he sat down and pondered over what to do different…….That in and of itself is very telling about the stubbornness of the human psyche…….

Something else that jumped out at me about this video is when the old guy talked about not even using any “fertile” referring to fertilizer……You’re talking about someone that probably barely learned to read and write as kid if he even did.....and he doesn’t even know the right word to call fertilizer………Yet he could look and understand nature just the same as anyone else….....probably better due to the strong attachment to it....…It doesn’t take having a college degree to understand these things.

Started getting some things prepped to plant ahead of some rain in the next couple weeks……..



I’m gonna mostly just top sow these areas in clover like the pic below……same spot as above planted the same way……This is just pure crimson clover…….Gonna mix in a little white clover again this year.



A couple more spots where I’m gonna do the same thing…….The biggest portion of what I’ll plant in cereal grains and clover is still standing.

Got mine done today. Just Bush hogged at the house and drug down at the old lease. Partner wanted to disc at the new lease so we did. We will see how this year goes. First year I’ve never at least sprayed prior.

I havent spread any seed yet........Gonna go see what I can get tomorrow and just spread it over the top and maybe run the mower back over it one quick time......

I spread my seed regularly

I've never sprayed prior.. I just bushog and disc till no green is showing or will survive then plant

The rain worked out just right.......rained all night.......Noticed the ends of the cereal rye already starting to bust open this morning and a lot of volunteer crimson that's already established.......I should have a food plot a week from now.