The Piling of the Brush
I built a brushpile today, or at least made a good start. It’s not going to be a shabby little worthless brushpile either, it will be a thriving wildlife community in a couple of years. I started it with 3 pieces of honey locust trunk, about 8 inches diameter by 5 feet long. That will keep the whole thing from sinking completely to the ground as the brush rots and keep some passages open under the structure. Most of the body of the pile will be hedge, which means it will last for decades. There is a red cedar tree at one end which will prosper in the coming years since the taller trees have been wiped out. That will make for good bird cover when the winter winds blow and the lower branches will touch the ground providing the same bit of cover for ground dwellers. At the other end, about 30 feet away is a hedge tree that has been cut ground level and is sprouting back. That tree will be a thorny mess in a few years and will provide secure nesting for anything that wants to use it.
I will digress briefly to praise the wonderful Hedge tree, also known as the Osage Orange, or Bois-de-Arc (literally, “wood of the bow” I think, and pronounced Bow-Dark by the distinctly non-French hillbillies around here.) I am cleaning up tornado debris, which is 2/3 Hedge in the approximately 1 acre area directly in front of my house. Hedge is sometimes used for exactly what the name implies, and with a bit of pruning to encourage lateral sprouting, it will become an impassable fence in a few years. It makes the best possible fence posts, as it will easily last 75 years in the ground, 3 times as long as a standard preservative treated post. As firewood, it burns clean and hot with little or no creosote release and ash buildup. It is far better than oak or hickory in my estimation. The green seed balls repel all sorts of bugs if you put a few in your basement. Only problem is that it has vicious thorns, not nearly as long as honey locust, but more of them. I’ve learned not to mess with a hedge tree without very heavy gloves, helmet with face screen, and Kevlar chainsaw chaps. My ongoing project will be to cut up the trees blown down to clean up the mess, build brushpiles, get firewood for house and shop, and accumulate fence posts for my eventual goat pasture. No hurry, since the Hedge will not rot for decades.
Anyway, back to the pile. I’ve been building brush piles since I was helping my dad at the age of 10 or 12 years. A slowly rotting brush pile is an incubator for all kinds of bugs and worms. Mice, rats, and shrews gather and eat the bugs and worms, snakes, possums, and weasels eat all the preceding, rabbits and groundhogs will burrow and nest under the pile, then foxes, coyotes, and bobcats will skulk around and try to catch and eat all the above. I will eat the occasional rabbit, but will decline the rest of the menu unless times get a lot harder than they are now.
The virtue of brushpile construction was drummed into my skull several times in the course of my primary and secondary education, usually as part of the hunting safety courses that used to be a standard part of 4-H, Boy Scouts, FFA, and high school. This often involved, (gasp), “guns in school”. For what it’s worth, most of the guys at that time also carried a knife that was sharp enough to shave with. Oddly, we did not slaughter each other. People weren’t any smarter back then, but they had more sense. (Old codger moment executed. Please excuse.)
In addition to being instructed in how to use a rifle or shotgun without killing anybody, we were taught how to maintain habitat so there would be something to hunt. That involved leaving some crop residue in the field, leaving some brushy cover, building ponds, and of course the ubiquitous brush pile whenever possible. Wildlife will exist without any human input whatsoever, but not to the degree that a lot of people might think. Particularly in an intensively farmed area, there may be little suitable habitat for any wildlife larger than a mouse. Even in the total absence of humans, many natural landscapes do not support a great variety of animals. A mature pine forest for example is very sterile compared to a well managed farm.
I also try to leave some brush lying on the ground during the cold part of winter. Rabbits and mice are hard pressed to find anything to eat right now, and it is surprising how much bark they will remove from the upper part of a tree if is on the ground within reach. The bark near the ground is thick, course, and I assume not very palatable, as would have to be the case if a tree is going to survive. A medium sized honey locust top will be nearly stripped of all bark up to a foot from the ground within a few days.
It will no doubt surprise and dismay those who have bought into the Disney/PETA model of nature, but there is a lot of suffering and death going on in the woods right now. When the temperature gets cold and snow covers up the food, the whole survival of the fittest thing plays out in a big way. Those who are not the fittest are currently in process of dying of starvation, freezing, or being eaten alive by starving and freezing predators. Almost all those rabbits that were playing on the lawn last summer are either dead or dying, and those who are fated to survive are suffering greatly. Wild animals do not die in hospital beds surrounded by friends and family, listening to soft music. Keep that in mind the next time your friendly neighborhood vegetarian starts to lecture you on the morality of eating the little beasts.
It means nothing in the great scheme of things, but the survival rates will be a bit higher at the Tick Ranch. I’ve gone through about 150 lbs. of sunflower seed, cut a good number of locust sprouts to the ground, and piled up a bunch of brush. Next year, I hope to get some small grain plots in the cleared areas. In return, I expect to eat a few rabbits and quail and a couple of deer. Apologies to the animal lovers, but I will take them more seriously when I see some of them building a brush pile.
For what it’s worth the short-legged semi-beagle dog has been named Charlie, and has been a great help in my woods work. He goes with me in the worst of weather, and he stands and watches with the best of them. I am confident that if I should suffer a horrible chain saw accident, he would be a great comfort as I bled to death.
And finally, a guinea update. All five flew up into a tree about 30 feet from the ground 3 nights ago and refused to come down and go into the coop. It was about 5 below that night, and the next morning all 5 were still in the tree squawking from time to time. Next night, cousin Jeff got a ladder and climbed up high enough to snag one and put it in the coop, but the other four spent another night in the tree. I think they all came down today and went in the coop tonight. We have much to learn from these mysterious birds, if only we can figure out what the hell it is.
I will digress briefly to praise the wonderful Hedge tree, also known as the Osage Orange, or Bois-de-Arc (literally, “wood of the bow” I think, and pronounced Bow-Dark by the distinctly non-French hillbillies around here.) I am cleaning up tornado debris, which is 2/3 Hedge in the approximately 1 acre area directly in front of my house. Hedge is sometimes used for exactly what the name implies, and with a bit of pruning to encourage lateral sprouting, it will become an impassable fence in a few years. It makes the best possible fence posts, as it will easily last 75 years in the ground, 3 times as long as a standard preservative treated post. As firewood, it burns clean and hot with little or no creosote release and ash buildup. It is far better than oak or hickory in my estimation. The green seed balls repel all sorts of bugs if you put a few in your basement. Only problem is that it has vicious thorns, not nearly as long as honey locust, but more of them. I’ve learned not to mess with a hedge tree without very heavy gloves, helmet with face screen, and Kevlar chainsaw chaps. My ongoing project will be to cut up the trees blown down to clean up the mess, build brushpiles, get firewood for house and shop, and accumulate fence posts for my eventual goat pasture. No hurry, since the Hedge will not rot for decades.
Anyway, back to the pile. I’ve been building brush piles since I was helping my dad at the age of 10 or 12 years. A slowly rotting brush pile is an incubator for all kinds of bugs and worms. Mice, rats, and shrews gather and eat the bugs and worms, snakes, possums, and weasels eat all the preceding, rabbits and groundhogs will burrow and nest under the pile, then foxes, coyotes, and bobcats will skulk around and try to catch and eat all the above. I will eat the occasional rabbit, but will decline the rest of the menu unless times get a lot harder than they are now.
The virtue of brushpile construction was drummed into my skull several times in the course of my primary and secondary education, usually as part of the hunting safety courses that used to be a standard part of 4-H, Boy Scouts, FFA, and high school. This often involved, (gasp), “guns in school”. For what it’s worth, most of the guys at that time also carried a knife that was sharp enough to shave with. Oddly, we did not slaughter each other. People weren’t any smarter back then, but they had more sense. (Old codger moment executed. Please excuse.)
In addition to being instructed in how to use a rifle or shotgun without killing anybody, we were taught how to maintain habitat so there would be something to hunt. That involved leaving some crop residue in the field, leaving some brushy cover, building ponds, and of course the ubiquitous brush pile whenever possible. Wildlife will exist without any human input whatsoever, but not to the degree that a lot of people might think. Particularly in an intensively farmed area, there may be little suitable habitat for any wildlife larger than a mouse. Even in the total absence of humans, many natural landscapes do not support a great variety of animals. A mature pine forest for example is very sterile compared to a well managed farm.
I also try to leave some brush lying on the ground during the cold part of winter. Rabbits and mice are hard pressed to find anything to eat right now, and it is surprising how much bark they will remove from the upper part of a tree if is on the ground within reach. The bark near the ground is thick, course, and I assume not very palatable, as would have to be the case if a tree is going to survive. A medium sized honey locust top will be nearly stripped of all bark up to a foot from the ground within a few days.
It will no doubt surprise and dismay those who have bought into the Disney/PETA model of nature, but there is a lot of suffering and death going on in the woods right now. When the temperature gets cold and snow covers up the food, the whole survival of the fittest thing plays out in a big way. Those who are not the fittest are currently in process of dying of starvation, freezing, or being eaten alive by starving and freezing predators. Almost all those rabbits that were playing on the lawn last summer are either dead or dying, and those who are fated to survive are suffering greatly. Wild animals do not die in hospital beds surrounded by friends and family, listening to soft music. Keep that in mind the next time your friendly neighborhood vegetarian starts to lecture you on the morality of eating the little beasts.
It means nothing in the great scheme of things, but the survival rates will be a bit higher at the Tick Ranch. I’ve gone through about 150 lbs. of sunflower seed, cut a good number of locust sprouts to the ground, and piled up a bunch of brush. Next year, I hope to get some small grain plots in the cleared areas. In return, I expect to eat a few rabbits and quail and a couple of deer. Apologies to the animal lovers, but I will take them more seriously when I see some of them building a brush pile.
For what it’s worth the short-legged semi-beagle dog has been named Charlie, and has been a great help in my woods work. He goes with me in the worst of weather, and he stands and watches with the best of them. I am confident that if I should suffer a horrible chain saw accident, he would be a great comfort as I bled to death.
And finally, a guinea update. All five flew up into a tree about 30 feet from the ground 3 nights ago and refused to come down and go into the coop. It was about 5 below that night, and the next morning all 5 were still in the tree squawking from time to time. Next night, cousin Jeff got a ladder and climbed up high enough to snag one and put it in the coop, but the other four spent another night in the tree. I think they all came down today and went in the coop tonight. We have much to learn from these mysterious birds, if only we can figure out what the hell it is.
posted by tickmeister at 7:20 PM
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