Some fishing, some farming

Your experience will save me some time on the thistle problem. I had
to pick most of the high rocks for the 4" mow, so going to 3" should
be OK . I can at least mow it 2 more times this year. Thanx. I have to
hold off on fire methods because the wheat stubble makes this area a
tinderbox before the rains.

We have a large variety of non-native thistle here. Our noxious weed
catalog is choked with them.
Kinda funny, when my neighbors got all hot about my prairie
restoration, one guy asked me if I knew what a noxious weed was and
how I would define it. I told him I didn't know enough (he started to
smile) so I relied on the state noxious weed catalog. I have three of
the weeds but I'm agressively trying to knock them down. Oh, by the
way, did he know that he has at least 7 noxious weeds in his
yard? :-) They hate it when you spear them with facts.
Dave, your work sounds fantastic. Thanks for sharing and death to the
monoculture!
Frank Reid

On Sep 21, 6:36*pm, JR wrote:
DaveS wrote:
Spent the last 5 days on the river place. Some good, some sad.
........

I've been traveling. *Only now catching up on this. *You're doing a lot of
things right, there, Dave (and making me really jealous in the process......).

Sometime we'll have to talk about the economics of your river place (by
email). *Sounds wonderful.

- JR

My model should produce a 2-2.5% return. Its composed of CREP leased
riparian strips taken out of grazing or crop production, leasing most
of the water rights to a non-profit trust ($ probably comes from BPA
fish $), and a small, fixed rent farmer handshake on the cropland.
On bigger wheatland you could get 1/3rd share of proceeds minus costs,
but you share the risks. If you had wheatbase you could collect the
payment and still farm some other dryland crop, maybe barley(?) not
sure what else, (poplar?). I think there is also a possible revenue
source from participation in state or private hunting access
arrangements but I haven't done that. (Yet ?)

Not a way to get rich. However, IF the property has the rec potential
a person wants, it is a way to 1), keep it in ag, 2), and therefore
keep the taxes low, and 3), generate a modest cash flow to fund
environmental fixes. And if a person wanted to live on the land, only
the 1 acre homesite would be taxed at the residential rate, as long as
the rest of the land was kept in ag, or conservation equivalents.

Alternatively, if you could get 5% money, its a way to get maybe 1/2
the payment coaxed from the property itself.

The other part of the economics, for me at least, is to not buy motive
equipment. Everybody in farm country has tons of the right equipment
already, and will trade for work or a little cash. These folks know
how to get things done without paying a fortune so I listen to their
advise. Every ag idea thats worked so far I got from the farmers, the
FSA, or the Water Trust.

Dave
Think other parcels, Eastern Oregon

On Sep 22, 4:56*am, (Kiyu) wrote:
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:23:38 -0700 (PDT), DaveS
wrote:

I know it sounds like a big deal for just 40 acres but it is a nice
chunk of river. That's why I bought it. It definitly would not be
everybody's choice. The price reflected the low value for farmers of
the rocky "out ground" along the river. I am encouraged by what
conservation minded farmers have accomplished along the river so far,
and the fact that the State, the Feds and the non-profit efforts have
persisted. Even the old timers say its getting better.

Dave,

It is wonderful what you are doing there as a landowner, and it is a
big deal to me though I'm across the country from you. If only other
users of the land shared a fraction of your concern and acted upon it
we'd all have a much better world to live in.

Well done, Sir.
And many thanks from a fellow world resident.

Kiyu

Thanks for the complement. I hope I can follow thru on my talk. I
don't think we are that alone. There are miles of new riparian
plantings along this river alone, admitedly a target. If the
incentives are there the owner/farmers often do the right thing. But
there has been so much damage it is difficult to see the end of the
tunnel. The food production system we have seems to be a big part of
the problem. I don't know what the answers are but more localized
production and marketing, fresher, local, and seasonal, family
ownership and such I think are worthy interrim objectives.

Dave

On Sep 22, 5:32*am, Frank Reid wrote:
Your experience will save me some time on the thistle problem. I had
to pick most of the high rocks for the 4" mow, so going to 3" should
be OK . I can at least mow it 2 more times this year. Thanx. I have to
hold off on fire methods because the wheat stubble makes this area a
tinderbox before the rains.

We have a large variety of non-native thistle here. *Our noxious weed
catalog is choked with them.
Kinda funny, when my neighbors got all hot about my prairie
restoration, one guy asked me if I knew what a noxious weed was and
how I would define it. *I told him I didn't know enough (he started to
smile) so I relied on the state noxious weed catalog. *I have three of
the weeds but I'm agressively trying to knock them down. *Oh, by the
way, did he know that he has at least 7 noxious weeds in his
yard? *:-) *They hate it when you spear them with facts.
Dave, your work sounds fantastic. *Thanks for sharing and death to the
monoculture!
Frank Reid

Right. Most wild flowers are weeds in somebody's book. One man's weed
is another man's . . . . In my kitchen are three bottles of "Star
Thistle" honey sitting on the wood stove. My beekeeping friend didn't
want to hear about my test plot. He rattled off half a dozen benefits
of the nasty little *******s. For me its a problem, for him it's a
living. Thanks for the encouragement.

Dave
I am still going to kill most of it if I can.

I am still going to kill most of it if I can.- Hide quoted text -

I mowed it and then walked around with Roundup and spot treated the
plants I could find (they make a nice, flat bullseye). I wanted to
use my torch, but there was too much dead material out there. It
might work after a good rain. I just put a 20lb propane tank on my
dolly and haul it around when I need to torch something.
I really don't like thistle or burs of any kind. My neighbor has a
real bad infestation of sand burs and shatter cane. I've got the
cockle burs, button weed, and Canada thistle. Its a fight, but I WILL
win.
Frank

On Sep 10, 4:27*pm, DaveS wrote:
Was out on the Touchet last week for 5 days. Headed back ASAP. Fished
most mornings and evenings. Water levels up a bit as some of the
irrigation on the forks stops. Driving around Ive noticed some water
seeping back in the draws and my wheat farmer neighbor says yes, and
that they got a bit of a recharge up on the rolling paloose. Temps
still seem up a bit , and the fish still are clustered more than usual
below the oxiginated riffles. Caught many 6-8 inch cutts and a few
"rainbows" 8" to 10" or so. All on small stimulators in hopper tones.
Most interesting was dragging a 4" weighted black bunny leach thru a
few choice larger holes below riffles, fished with a steelie leader
and a 1x tippet, *In one of these I had wild assed grabs 2 evenings in
a row and breakoffs. Ive had this happen in warm water from turtles
but I am pretty sure these were fish. I am pretty sure the Dolly
Vardens, which do wildassed grabs to perfection, are absent from my
streatch of river. So my fantacies run to monster browns. We shall
see.

On the farm groupie side of things, we pulled the irrigation pump and
boom pipe out of the river, moved then picked up the pipe off the
alfalfa. Picking up 40 foot long, sun hot pipe at 66 years is more
than enough to put my farmer fantacy jones back in its box. The
swather was leaving too much so I helped replace some of the cutter
blades, and the fields got cut. The humidity and sun were such that
this 4th and final cutting was put up in 700lb bales 3 days later. My
lessee is tarping and holding most of this year's crop till prices
pick up. Most of the livestock has been moved to his new place in
Oregon and i notice the coyotes are getting more nervy at nite near
the few hogs that are left.

With this last alfalfa crop we are shifting to fall sown, dryland hard
red wheat. Should be a good crop because the field is moist and has
lots of nitrogen from the alfalfa. Things look good on leasing the
water right to keep the water in the river. Ive also made some
progress on marking out where some lines of hybrid poplar will go to
cool down some dry pasture and where there is enough soil on some rock
scabby areas to support survival of some more ponderosa pine. Ill wait
till first snow fall to seed some wild wheat grass into the CREP
strips. Its a small place, but the river front is 1/2 mile. If half of
what i plan and do works, *it will make a difference in summer river
temps and keep at least 70af in the stream at a critical time. Anyway
this is much more than ROFFians would want to know but for some
weirdness I do enjoy sharing these farming groupie and amature
conservation experiences.

Dave

I've been scouting, observing, collecting, eating, potting, grafting,
planting, thinning, pruning, felling, sawing, splitting, stacking and
burning American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra), Butternut (Juglans
cinerea), American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) and American Hazelnuts
(Corylus americana and C. cornuta). At the moment only the first
listed is of great economic importance but the rest have been and/or
will be. Meanwhile, all are of tremendous ecological
importance.....and/or have been and/or will once again be. Two are
critically endangered. The property on which most of this activity is
taking place, (officially about 70 acres.....but topography renders it
more like 85-90 in reality) is a ****in' goldmine!

There's also some oak, hickory, black cherry, various
conifers.....um.....and some other stuff.

g.
who will happily provide more conservation details for those ROFFians
who want to know.

Giles wrote:

...........The property on which most of this activity is
taking place, (officially about 70 acres.....but topography renders it
more like 85-90 in reality) is a ****in' goldmine!

There's also some oak, hickory, black cherry, various
conifers.....um.....and some other stuff.

g.
who will happily provide more conservation details for those ROFFians
who want to know.

Please. And history of the land, too, if you know it.

- JR

In message
,
Frank Reid writes

I am still going to kill most of it if I can.- Hide quoted text -

I mowed it and then walked around with Roundup and spot treated the
plants I could find (they make a nice, flat bullseye). I wanted to
use my torch, but there was too much dead material out there. It
might work after a good rain. I just put a 20lb propane tank on my
dolly and haul it around when I need to torch something.
I really don't like thistle or burs of any kind. My neighbor has a
real bad infestation of sand burs and shatter cane. I've got the
cockle burs, button weed, and Canada thistle. Its a fight, but I WILL
win.
Frank

What a worrying combination - Frank- plus- propane-plus torch !!!

I await the report :-)
--
Bill Grey

*What a worrying combination - Frank- plus- propane-plus torch !!!

Not that I would do this, but I've "heard" that if you turn of the
flame and point the torch down a ground squirrel hole, let it run,
then light it after a bit, you'll get a shot of flame coming out then
a really cool "thwump" that you can feel through your feet. I can say
that the old tennis ball cannons made with duct tape, soda cans and
lighter fluid have nothing on a ground squirrel den full of propane
and the ejecta had a little football helmet on for the ride.
Frank "yah can't make this stuff up" Reid

On Sep 22, 6:44*pm, Giles wrote:
On Sep 10, 4:27*pm, DaveS wrote:





Was out on the Touchet last week for 5 days. Headed back ASAP. Fished
most mornings and evenings. Water levels up a bit as some of the
irrigation on the forks stops. Driving around Ive noticed some water
seeping back in the draws and my wheat farmer neighbor says yes, and
that they got a bit of a recharge up on the rolling paloose. Temps
still seem up a bit , and the fish still are clustered more than usual
below the oxiginated riffles. Caught many 6-8 inch cutts and a few
"rainbows" 8" to 10" or so. All on small stimulators in hopper tones.
Most interesting was dragging a 4" weighted black bunny leach thru a
few choice larger holes below riffles, fished with a steelie leader
and a 1x tippet, *In one of these I had wild assed grabs 2 evenings in
a row and breakoffs. Ive had this happen in warm water from turtles
but I am pretty sure these were fish. I am pretty sure the Dolly
Vardens, which do wildassed grabs to perfection, are absent from my
streatch of river. So my fantacies run to monster browns. We shall
see.

On the farm groupie side of things, we pulled the irrigation pump and
boom pipe out of the river, moved then picked up the pipe off the
alfalfa. Picking up 40 foot long, sun hot pipe at 66 years is more
than enough to put my farmer fantacy jones back in its box. The
swather was leaving too much so I helped replace some of the cutter
blades, and the fields got cut. The humidity and sun were such that
this 4th and final cutting was put up in 700lb bales 3 days later. My
lessee is tarping and holding most of this year's crop till prices
pick up. Most of the livestock has been moved to his new place in
Oregon and i notice the coyotes are getting more nervy at nite near
the few hogs that are left.

With this last alfalfa crop we are shifting to fall sown, dryland hard
red wheat. Should be a good crop because the field is moist and has
lots of nitrogen from the alfalfa. Things look good on leasing the
water right to keep the water in the river. Ive also made some
progress on marking out where some lines of hybrid poplar will go to
cool down some dry pasture and where there is enough soil on some rock
scabby areas to support survival of some more ponderosa pine. Ill wait
till first snow fall to seed some wild wheat grass into the CREP
strips. Its a small place, but the river front is 1/2 mile. If half of
what i plan and do works, *it will make a difference in summer river
temps and keep at least 70af in the stream at a critical time. Anyway
this is much more than ROFFians would want to know but for some
weirdness I do enjoy sharing these farming groupie and amature
conservation experiences.

Dave

I've been scouting, observing, collecting, eating, potting, grafting,
planting, thinning, pruning, felling, sawing, splitting, stacking and
burning American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra), Butternut (Juglans
cinerea), American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) and American Hazelnuts
(Corylus americana and C. cornuta). *At the moment only the first
listed is of great economic importance but the rest have been and/or
will be. *Meanwhile, all are of tremendous ecological
importance.....and/or have been and/or will *once again be. *Two are
critically endangered. *The property on which most of this activity is
taking place, (officially about 70 acres.....but topography renders it
more like 85-90 in reality) is a ****in' goldmine!

There's also some oak, hickory, black cherry, various
conifers.....um.....and some other stuff.

g.
who will happily provide more conservation details for those ROFFians
who want to know.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

For sure please do. Building up the stock of healthy, mature hardwood
stands is a concrete way for our generation to leave this country in
better shape.
Dave