More clearing, the WAR against Yaupon Holly

This weekend, we changed tactics. While I firmly believe that pulling out the Yaupon by the roots is the best way to control the Yaupon, it is just taking us way too long.  We've changed our strategy.  Now we are going to cut it off at ground level and fight it with mowing, burning and herbicides when it returns.  Here's a couple of before and after pics of some areas we recently worked on.

This view is 180 degrees from the previous two pics, basically turning around and looking the other direction.

Controlling Yaupon with Herbicides

Herbicide; it's a bad word out in the world. It is generally frowned upon to use herbicides in gardening or farming by the general public. But . . . when you are trying your best to get control of an out of control situation, sometimes, herbicides are the answer.

Brenda and I have not used herbicides, yet on or tree farm, but we are giving it some serious consideration.  We don't want to make it a part of our long term management of the forest, but we believe it has it's place in the short term to help us get our Yaupon under control.

In my search for answers, I came across a May of 2004 Master of Science Thesis titled "Managing Invasive Yaupon Holly in the Texas Post Oak Savannah" by Stephanie Dupree.  Here's a link to her thesis.  It's a PDF download.

https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/ttu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346/17093/31295019526226.pdf;sequence=1

Who knows, soon you may see us fighting the fight with a pack pack sprayer. Triclopyr might be the answer.

Native Invasive - Yaupon Holly

Because of inattention and the interruption of the fire cycle, the understory of our woods have become overgrown with brush; mostly Yaupon Holly. It is so thick it is classified as a "native" invasive species.  Yaupon Holly is native to East Texas, but at this level, it's acting just like an exotic invasive.

Yaupon Holly is a shade tolerant plant. It can thrive in shade or sun.  Pine trees on the other hand are shade intolerant. They need lots of sun to reproduce.  The shading of our forest floor from the overgrowth of Yaupon Holly has interrupted our pine trees reproductive cycle.  It has also shaded out the natural grasses and forbs that increase the nutrition of the soil.

The Yaupon Holly has got to go.

Brenda and I have been working most weekends on eradicating the Yaupon. I love the definition of eradicating; "To tear up by the roots."  That's what we've been doing. Pulling the Yaupon up by the roots. Here's a picture of some of the Yaupon roots we've pulled up.  This is just one pile.

Pulling is hard and slow work, but it's the best way we can think of right now. Cutting would be easier and quicker, but the Yaupon would come back and it would come back quickly.  So, pulling it up by the roots is what we do.

 Brenda and I have been working in what we call the "cabin site" for most of 2018. As you can see, we've opened up quite a bit of space.  There's a lot more cleared off to the left of this picture. In the background you can see the wall of Yaupon that still needs to be removed.

Below is a picture of where we've started to cut our new wood's road that I talked about in a previous post.

I wish we didn't have to cut a new road, but we do, so that's what we do.  We work a little bit in each area; a day working the cabin site; the next day working the new road. Slowly, but surely it's getting done.

One of the things you'll notice in the picture to the right is that there are no pine tree seedlings. None.  Below is a picture of what happens when you open up a space and let the light in. Lots and lots of pine tree regeneration.

A week in the woods

Thankfully, the weather cleared up and it was a beautiful week for working in our woods.  Brenda and I spent Monday (3/12) to Friday (3/16) at Turkey Creek Timber. We got a lot done, but there is a whole lot that we still need to do.

We've decided to abandon our worst wood's road. It's that main road that takes us across Turkey Creek and to the "other side".  Unfortunately, the erosion is just too extensive.  It will take a huge amount of work to "fix" the trail and quite a bit of money.

 We've decided to cut a new road that is parallel to the abandoned road. We will pile up the slash from the new road onto the abandoned road to help stop and hopefully reverse the erosion.

You can see from the image to the left that some brush that was left on the road a while back has help to catch and retain dirt that eroded from a water bar that I built. We're hoping to help that process.

We put logs into the deep erosion cuts and piled up branches on top. We also chipped up a lot of the branches and the wood chips were added on top of the logs.

What we want to happen is for the piled up branches to catch the leaves  and to help create a dam that will slow up and even pond the runoff water. This will help let the eroded soil from further up the trail to settle out and fill in the deep cuts that have formed in the road.

Grand Kids visit

One of the many blessings of owning forest land is getting to share it, especially with your grand kids.  These are my daughter's grand kids Isaiah and Cara.  A couple of sweet bundles of love.  This is Cara's first time to our forest.

I found this quote while reading an NPR article this morning. I really like it.

"It's not as if I did it alone. You plant one or two trees, and they have to seed. And once they seed, the wind knows how to plant them, the birds here know how to sow them, cows know, elephants know, even the Brahmaputra river knows. The entire ecosystem knows." - Jadav Payeng, "The Forest Man of India"

I see this all the time when I walk my little forest. It is amazing how many little seedlings there are.

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/26/572421590/hed-take-his-own-life-before-killing-a-tree-meet-india-s-forest-man

Roof!

We've done it. The Turkey Creek Timber, on site office now has a roof!

It's one of those jobs that I didn't want to do. Mainly, it's because I've never installed a metal roof before, but also because the roof is a 6/12 pitch; it is very easy to fall off!

I watched a lot of YouTube videos, spoke with several people and lined up two of my adult children to help. So, on Sunday March 12th, 2017, we started the metal roof install. Here's a picture of all of us working on the back side.

We made a few mistakes in the beginning, but we finally figured it out. I had to backup the screws along the bottom edge as they weren't catching any "good" wood. The bottom edge is screwed down four inches from the edge. It also took a couple of sheets before we figured out a good pattern for screwing down each sheet.

It was a beautiful day. The temperature was great for working outside.

We got about half of the back roof done before Abram and Dean had to head back to Houston. Brenda and I were here for the entire week (Spring Break), so we worked on it a little bit each day. By Tuesday we had everything done except for the gable ends and the ridge. The ridge was last.

Brenda was a great help. She worked from the scaffolding and I worked on the roof. But, when it came time to secure the ridge; it was Brenda time.

We made a repelling seat harness and secured two safety ropes, one for each side of the roof. Thankfully, Brenda never had to test the setup. We did test it before she ventured up on the roof, so we were pretty confident that it would work. Here's a pic of Brenda "screwing up" the roof.

We are so very, very happy to finally have a finished roof. One more of those nagging "unattended to task" that's finally been attended to. Here's the finished roof.