eckermanmichigan.com Blog

   Mark and I went out to Doug’s today to pick up Annie, and take a look around to see how things are going. Turn’s out they’re going right to the ground; the tree leaves, the rest of the rape and a lot of the chickory, and the bai…ah, the material. Mark volunteered to use a back-pack blower to remove all the leaves that have fallen over the last three days. The last time we were out there, none of the leaves had fallen and the rye was growing well on all the trails, and today the leaves were 5″ deep. If left alone, it would have smothered all the grass’s and would have made a racket when walked on. Doug had made another application to the test plot last night and most of it was still there. Mark had said earlier when he checked on the lower test plot, that all the material was gone, and they were starting to make a hole.

   While Mark was doing that, Doug and I took a walk looking for rubs and scrapes, finding neither. We could see in the leaves where a few animals had passed through, but all the runways were covered. We did see one branch than had been snapped ragged and Doug’ll be back to check that area again in a couple days to see if that’s a scrape location. We talked about moving my Habitat Observation Post because there was evidence of the runway developing within 4′ of the blind, and I’d rather be farther away than that. He also spoke of the flights of Heron’s he saw, gaining altitude right over his house, last night.

   He said there were three different flights, the first at least 50 birds, and the other two closer to 30, came in just over the tops of his trees. Evidently there was a lift that comes up off his ridge that took the birds several hundred feet, straight up. Once they reached a point where they were just dot’s in the sky, they headed off towards Traverse City.

   We also talked about planting sugar beats in an acre plot he’s got across the street, for next spring. I don’t know why they wouldn’t grow around here, potato’s grow like weeds in this soil. Not far from here, near Alba, there’s hundreds of acres of potato’s growing, so it’s a possibility.

   I’m still working on Eckerman 8, and I should have it done in a week or so guys. Honest.

   Mark and I went out to Doug’s yesterday and set up my Observation Platform. It’s situated under three spruce trees which overlooks a clearing adjacent to a creek. We’ve installed a bai….er test plot, for future studies of C’mere deer! and other nutritional augmentations. Since it’s going to be a very nice day, the chances of our test plots being raided by unauthorized fauna is pretty high and that has to be dealt with, with extreme prejudice.

   While we were there, we took a walk in the surrounding area looking for scrapes and rubs without any postitive results. Doug seems to think (read; hope) that the rut doesn’t start for another two weeks yet. I live in a location a little North of the 45th parallel and would very much like to hear if anyone else has seen any activity along those lines. Just click on the comment’s line below what I’ve written here and it’ll show up. Thanks in advance for any help you could contribute.

   I had talked to Doug yesterday about our problem discussed on my 10 October blog entry and today I decided to do something about it. At the bottom of that entry, I talked about the problems we were having with undesirable pilferage of our bai….er, test plots. It turns out that we were right! Those dasterdly little black bastards were indeed consuming material that were meant for our bambi friends. I sat in Mark’s observation platform taking notes when one of these ugly little creatures showed his black assed face so I did what any steward would do. From a range of 60 yards with 20mph winds, I placed one .22 caliber pesticide pellet into and out of, it’s brain case and thereby removing the villan. It won’t be wasted, most of it will be consumed and it’s rear most appendage will be used to catch dinner, in the spring when the creeks once again are open for fishing.

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   Mark and I set up his Habitat Observation Post yesterday and it worked out better than I’d planned. I called out there just before I left and I wasn’t suprised when no one answered, so I planned accordingly. We would take our pruners with us to clear as much undergrowth as we could, and move enough wood aside to set up his blin…post. I’d bought some bai…er, material but we’d leave it in the truck, and just carry the H.O.P. up. When we arrived, Doug was just pulling out of his garage with the mule, he was going to do some log cutting, so we loaded everything up. We were able to get a couple small trees removed, all the logs that were in the way, and the unit set up and staked down. The test plot was empty of all materials, and there hasn’t been any stump eating behavior’s demonstrated by the deer. We added some nice tubers to their diet as well as a ration of maize, but didn’t add any Ca’mere Deer!. One other thing we did this time, was to rake clean a 10′ circle around the stump to check for footprints. We should be able to discern which species is visiting the test plot, and their numbers. While standing at the test plot I looked towards the O.P. and was pleased to see how well it blended in to the surrounding area. Mark’s going to have a very exciting observation season. After finishing up with that, we headed down to the lower area.

   The poison ivy has finally died off enough for us to get to my O.P., and I like mine even better than Marks. Doug had located a small group of spruce, about 30′ tall and spaced 6 to 10′ apart. The H.O.P. will be placed within that grouping with the tree’s bough’s acting as both a screen and wind protection. It’ll face an open area, 60′ wide by 100′ long with a stream running 50′ in front of me, left to right. There is a small wooded area beyond that, and an open field behind. The test plot will be moved closer to my position, but not placed directly in front, it’ll be off to my right but within sight. Most of the traffic will be from my left and directly in front, walking in from across the field. Doug’s post will be far off to my right and he’ll be covering that field the first three days, and then to another position near the crops.

   The test plot was devoid of most materials, so we added our combination of materials to the plot, but didn’t add any Ca’mere Deer!. We suspect that it’s the partridge that’s eating up the maize as we saw one stairing at us and another flew off. We might have to post a guard on that location to allieviate the problem.

   As a matter of fact, Mark and I are going to do that today…

 

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