Late Winter Controlled Burn Strengthens Gamagrass Stand

Ben and Steve managed a mid February controlled burn in the gamagrass field. By early June the gamagrass had made a strong rebound despite an unplanned Spring grazing when cattle found a breach in the fence. 

By the third week of June the grass was seeding out and cows were allowed in for a brief treat. They grazed enthusiastically for a few hours before being closed back out so that they can be let back in a couple of weeks. Being a warm season grass, this stockpiles the gamagrass for the hottest and dryest part of the summer. It is also important not to graze it down too low (6-8 inches or less ) as the grass will be unable to recover and will begin to die off. One of the good things about gamagrass is the deep root system that allows it to survive the summer heat and helps control erosion. The grass has a very high proportion of biomass and forage production per acre. 

Mission: Declutter

 Kristi, Logan, Jennifer and Luke led the charge on a much needed de-clutter operation in the farm house. Luke brought his truck and hauled off two full loads while Big Red was filled up for Steve to haul off the following Thursday after the truck battery charged up. Logan hauled off a bunch of obsolete electronic stuff to take to dump after he got home.

Over the years stuff kept accumulating when people would bring it in and nothing was ever hauled away.  De-cluttering will hopefully help us keep things cleaner and more manageable. Keeping the window blinds and curtains open makes the space much brighter and more inviting.  

Cameron and Beth did a lot of work a year or so ago cleaning and pressure washing the porch and brought some cleaner for the siding.

This allowed Steve to paint the front porch and rails. The porch becomes a major outdoor space to sit and enjoy the peaceful view shaded and under cover, solo or as a group.

The two wardrobes were emptied of clothes and other things that haven't been worn or used in years, allowing better storage for some of the things that were kept. Beth has found a trundle bed that could possibly be swapped for day the bed if the mattresses would work interchangeably. A different comforter would be an improvement too! Since sleepovers are rare this is not a big priority at present.

 The hall was re-arranged to conceal the storage area between the Living Room, Kitchen, and Bath Room.

There is more to be done but it is already proving to be more enjoyable for day visits as well as overnight stays.

Projects in the near future include re-coating the metal roof, repairing, stabilizing and re-furbishing the Little House, some configuration of storage/tractor sheds, burning wood piles, and regrading around Uncle Maynard's little pond.

Another work in progress is to determine the house electrical circuits and properly diagram and label the old fuse box. Right now we can't take as shower because we can't figure out where the second 30 amp fuse goes for the 220v water heater circuit. I guess we could shower but cold water would be no fun. I hate to call out an electrician but if necessary...desperate times call for desperate measures!

Old Pictures taken at the Farm

Uncle Maynard and Aunt Lillie. Without these two the farm would not be in the family. They lovingly improved and maintained the place for many years before passing on the place to Fred Newton and Joe Newton. 

These pictures were found in Fred's house following his death and were most likely collected by his mother Maggie.

 

Snowfall and the Sugar Creek Winter Games

A massive snowfall blanketed the area over on Sunday night, January 9. Minor Hill reported 13 inches, the largest accumulation in the mid-state. Jim, Steve and Jennifer came to the farm on the following weekend and Beth, Cam and the girls came over from Huntsville on the Sunday.

After the snow the weather turned cold with temperatures barely reaching the low thirties. Early Friday morning Jim checked the thermometer at zero degrees. These pictures were taken on Friday.

Jennifer joined Steve and Jim on Saturday morning. She rode Gypsy while Steve and Jim tended to some burning brush piles and attempted some controlled burns of warm season grass without success.

Then came time for the Sugar Creek winter games, highlighted by the Puncheon Bobsled Team. Fashioning a sled from an old calf feeder trough, Steve, Jim , and Jennifer sledded down the hill while the cows looked on with mild interest.

These pictures were taken on Saturday the 14th, six days after the snowfall.

Organizational Challenges

As a general rule our family is not characterized as 'highly organized' and the farm has amplified these natural tendencies. With so much work to do and with different family members in and out at different times we have realized the need to take steps to help keep us organized for the tasks we need to accomplish and to make staying at the farm more enjoyable. Numerous hours have been spent looking for tools or needed materials. We recognized that storage was an issue from the very beginning but for the most part we've just been working with the hand we were dealt with when we took over the farm. Natural accumulation of clutter through increased use has compounded the problem to the point that we have begun a campaign to make the place more livable and functional for the benefit of the entire family.

Examples of the problem:

One of the first steps, begun over the past year, was to repair the smokehouse for storage of large tools and materials. Jim came up with the idea of an attached toolbox shed to repair the back wall and give better storage of small tools. Steve and Jim built the box during the summer and they plus Janine have been working on the smokehouse as time has allowed. The photo at right shows the small tools relocated to the new toolbox shed, which is nearly finished. It's a start!

The photo to the left shows clutter in the kitchen. Plans are to create shelves on the wall to the left and above the washer to add organized storage space inside the farm house.

Despite the equipment shed built by Steve, Jim, and Logan the main house and little house porches tend to be catch-all point for equipment pieces and parts, building materials, horse and cattle gear, and various other tools and implements. Part of this should be improved by organizing the inside of the smokehouse as repairs are completed. Perhaps improvements at the equipment shed and/or the barn could offer solutions as well.

Longer range plans call for adding a bathroom with storage space at the rear of the little house. The barn has us perplexed as to how to repair or replace the existing structure. However this is accomplished, storage can be addressed there as well.

At any rate, simply identifying the problems is a step toward addressing them and good progress has been made in 2010 with the expectation of even better things to come in 2011. We will update with photos showing the solutions and improvements.

Tractor Debut at the Farm

Jim has completely rebuilt the engine on the '52 Ferguson tractor we bought a few years back. He brought it to the farm this weekend and put it to work right away on a water diversion swale to help feed water to the new pond next to Sugar Creek Road. It is still holding water after even after the late start in the rain season and the extreme heat this past summer, it did only filled about half way. With the diversion swale the area feeding water into the pond will increase greatly, which will add a lot of volume during the upcoming winter and spring rain season. We expect that the pond will completely fill next year (see below). The swale is pictured at right.

The tractor debut was short lived, however, as Jim had to load the tractor and haul it back to Clarksville on Sunday with a leaky transmission seal. He now has the tractor split apart in his basement again and is replacing the seal.

The picture at left shows the pond on Jan. 2, 2011. Water line is about 18-24" from spillway.

The Ice Cream Social

When checking on the place one Saturday morning in July every cow on the farm was found in the gamagrass field border area. It turned out that a Friday night storm had blown a limb across a fence which allowed them into the area a few weeks before we had intended. Rusty Walker had told us that the cows loved this grass so much it was sometimes called "ice cream grass" and this proved the aptness of the nickname. Even sweet feed could not entice all of the cows out by Saturday evening. Janine said that they were all having an ice cream social.

These pictures show how thick and tall the grass has grown in its third season after the prescribed burn in March. Click on the pictures for a larger view. You can also compare the growth from the previous post.

Gamagrass and Switchgrass

This marks the third growing season for our native warm season grasses (NWSG). It has been remarkable how the NWSG has flourished after the control burns. While no quails have been seen or heard, other wildlife has been utilizing the NWSG.

The photo above shows the gamagrass on July 5th. The photo at right shows some of the switchgrass in one of the field border areas at the beginning of the third season following a late winter controlled burn. This is about six or seven weeks after the burn.


Last week several turkey hens were seen exiting the gamagrass. The cows also broke through the fence into the gamagrass and had an unplanned feast. The gama seems to be rebounding nicely from the unplanned grazing and producing even more turkey foot seed stems. We are hoping that the seeds produce even more gamagrass and fill in for an even thicker stand. The picture below was taken in late spring after burning in March.

The gamagrass doesn't grow much the first year. We planted the gama at the first of April. The grass was cut each fall. The burning at the beginning of year three has caused it to flourish. It is shading out the competition.

This shows a couple of views of another NWSG field border area adjacent to a small pond.

Water, Water, Everywhere: Another New Pond

The drought a few years ago had raised our awareness of how precious water can be. Our newest hobby of control burning had also brought to light the benefits of surface water for fire suppression. We had dug one pond two years ago but had always felt another pond would benefit the north pastures. The current NRCS contract called for a bulldozer to clear the stumps within forest openings areas. Since the equipment was on site, we decided to have another pond dug. This pond when full will bring our total number of ponds to four.

"A somewhat controlled burn" Winter 2010

It's hard to believe it has been almost nine months since the last post. This year has been one of stutter steps and two steps forward, one step backward. We now have a donkey named Cocoa at the farm among our increasing renegade band of livestock. Maynard the dog has appeared and disappeared with all his funny but annoying and sometimes endearing quirks. Just last weekend we were going to create a series of wildlife clearings according to a USDA contract but got waylaid by a misunderstanding about a Bobcat we thought had been arranged for. Steve's nephew Stanton was there helping so we changed plans to take full advantage of his help.

On Friday we experimented with controlled burns as a means of clearing and maintaining our pasture and wildlife areas. The first was on a pasture area and can better be described as a "somewhat controlled burn". The Minor Hill Volunteer Fire Department only had to be called out one time. It was quite exciting and a bit exhausting after the adrenaline rush. Actually the burn was tentatively under control by the time the truck arrived but it was nice to get some water sprayed over the last bit just in case. In retrospect, the burn accomplished its purpose very nicely and even included the field border warm season grass area, though that was not our intent. We learned some VERY IMPORTANT lessons about advance containment and wind shifts,then tried our hand with better success at the warm season grass area next to the new pond. Rains Saturday night and dense fog on Sunday kept us from continuing with our controlled burn practices.

Logan and Stanton in the field before the burn.

Looking toward the burn area across the pond.

A couple of weeks after the burn.

Tanner is arranging for a dozer in a week or two to create the wildlife openings we were going to work on last weekend. More to come on that.

NWSG Control burn in early evening.
(note back burn in foreground)The warm season switchgrass area before the burn.

Spring 2009

Winter and early spring has been a time for clearing brush piles and planting American chestnut trees in coordination with the Tennessee Chestnut Association. Almost 100 trees were planted, with about a tenth of them being "control" species from a nursery in east TN, and half of the remaining being descendants from a surviving tree in Marshall County and the other half descendants from a surving tree in Sumner County. Trees have been marked according to geneology and will be bred for blight resistance in the hopes of developing a blight resistant strain of native American chestnut in Tennessee. Check out the website for the TN chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation: http://www2.volstate.edu/tnchestnut/Jim%20Newton%20Giles%20County%20Orchard.htm .

Chestnut trees have returned to the farm for the first time since being eradicated by blight in the 1930's. The trees were planted in a ridgetop clearing near the Smith's property boundary. Most of the clearing took place during a cold weekend in January with the planting in late February. Jim, Steve, Jennifer (and friend Hannah), Janine, and Clint Neel worked on the planting. Hill Craddock from UT Chattanooga brought the trees and got the planting started and Jim, Ben, Clint and Steve did the planting.

The cattle and Gypsy have made it through the winter with a minimum of hay. Grazing was feasible for most of the winter months by the use of rotating paddocks and the grass emerged fairly early with some warm days in February and March.

The new pond is filling up nicely. It is probably about a foot or two below the spillway after a lot of rain in the past week or two. Some additional length in the water diversions should help keep it filled. It will be a great asset for grazing in the back pasture areas and the setting is really nice below the NWSG field border and above the hay fields.


Jim, Fred, and Steve and Jennifer were there on Palm Sunday weekend with Beth and her girls (visiting from Kansas on Spring break). The girls had a great time roaming the fields and hills, and Taylor got her feet wet on a hike with uncle Steve.


With the wet weather, we started burning the fallen hickory and oak tree piles between the house and the road. Jim stayed all week taking care of the cemetery , relaxing, and tending the fires, which have just about taken care of the logs and the stumps. Good Friday was a day of severe weather with extremely strong winds which indicated shear markers shortly after passing over the farm. These storm produced pea to marble size hail. Joe Newton's barn along with several others were destroyed or damaged in the community.

The winter and spring has brought some new opportunities to enhance the farm and connect with the community. Hunting season produced some nice bucks for Tanner and Chip with rifles and Chris with bow. The wildlife management strategy is to create an area of sanctuary and cover with stands on the outer perimeter in the lanes of travel. Turkey season is now underway.

The native warm season grass seems to be progressing as intended. Jim mowed the area of gamagrass and new shoots are already appearing through the thick dormant bermuda that was present previously. This in encouraging since the gamagrass seed had just been put into the ground at the same time last year. The bermuda was not eradicated last spring because it was still dormant when the field was sprayed prior to planting the gamagrass. It is expected that the gama will shade the bermuda as it grows. Controlled burning will also help control the bermuda and weeds once the gamagrass is more established. The switchgrass is also becoming established even though weed competition exists. Controlled burning will help these areas as well.


The ponds are in good shape thanks to Jim's maintenance work on water diversion and clearing combined with heavy spring rains. The main pond is running over at the spillway and the surface area of the little pond is much larger than recent years. The new pond in the hayfield should be a real asset for maximizing the rotational grazing this season.

Jennifer (with Jim's help) is doing the yardwork and maintenance at the Noblit Cemetery. She is planning to use the money she earns for a horse corral. Gypsy has made it through the winter nicely staying in the front pasture area with access to the pond and the barn shed. Jennifer has had several friends spending the weekend on a number of occasions.