Normally it would be a walk around the woods but I was one a mission that required the BX25. I needed to recover my Sooper Dooper Elite High Tech Tree Stand! The Tree it was against blew over in a storm about 7 years ago and with the health issues I was having at the time got left laying on the ground still chained to the tree until Yesterday Morning. It is heavier than I want to pick up and carry now days and had to be maneuvered through the trees. The BX was the solution to that problem and part of why I love having a subcompact tractor with a loader! One of the short pull and lift chains I keep on the BX worked perfectly. And 20 minutes later the tree stand was extracted from the woods. I needed it out in the open where I could inspect it and work on it if anything needed to be welded or repaired. I am not a pro welder by any stretch but good enough to make a bead and it hold. The welds were all strong if not purdy and perfect Really the only thing needing replaced is the Marine Plywood floor. I don't belive I would trust sitting in my chair next to my little table on the old floor I do need to beat the chain binder back together the U bent out when it crashed and came off but that is a easy mini sledge fix. The pipes have flanged extensions that make them 7' tall. I recovered the roof after it fell a piece of plexi glass on a steel frame and more flanged pipe that slide down on the extension pipes. I just wrap around the sides with that cheap camo burlap. I cut 3 windows 24x24 front, left and right to watch and shoot from and leave uncut on the top. I sew velcro strips on the bottom to hold the window flaps up. I built this from a TV antena tower salvaged from a old house I tore down, scrap metal pieces from the pile and the pipe was left over cut offs from chain link fence job in 2004. 2004 is also the year I built it and first used it. Making it 19 years old this year. It cost a few welding rods, a chain binder and a 10' log chain with no ends to build. Just stand it up next to a stout tree, go up carefully and hook the chain to the eye bolts in the floor frame snap the binder down tight and it is a rock solid stable platform. Not real mobile due to the bulk and weight but very effective as a long term fixed position tree stand. I noticed while extracting the tree stand a colony of kind of rare mushrooms here had popped after the rain yesterday. Tooth Coral Mushrooms both Edible and medicinal. They require a pretty narrow set of conditions for the spores to pop but when they do they grow FAST. A pecan tree that got blown over in a storm 2 years ago. It is in a location that would make it harder to skid out than it is worth and it is wise to leave as many as you harvest the feed the saplings that will grow up and compete to replace it. PoP Enjoying the morning outing in the woods. Lots of old stumps and logs on the ground that predate my arrival here by decades. I love the network of trails I made through the woods, All total if you walk every trail that snakes around in the woods... you will have walked 1.7 miles. I try to walk them all 3-4 days every week. It is pretty good scenery and totally quiet except for all of natures noise. I only take motorized equipment into the woods to mow the trail vegetation down a couple of times a year and when there is work I can't do by hand. I just ain't big enough or strong enough to skid those logs out by hand I get a lot of Krap from the City Leftist that "You are murdering your woods!" People that have large mouths and very little knowledge. Managing a healthy woodlot requires the removal of trees to thin it out enough for the saplings to grow! I also only cut down diseased, dead, or dying trees. I am doing anything but murdering my woods. They are diverse full of life and healthy overall. I have 7 Great Horned owls that nest here every year sometimes more. A Osprey decided to nest on the edge of the woods in a standing dead Red Oak top this year, A truly impressive Raptor even it it did catch and eat several of my $1.35 per large mouth bass LOL. 3 Red tailed Hawks, 4 Peragrin Falcons, No less than 50 wild turkeys that roost on the woods edges nightly. largest count was 53 deer crossing the property through the woods trails in the evening and in the dark. Countless snakes, lizards, salamanders, frogs, toads, box turtles and a entire empire of squirrels and chipmunks not to mention the cute but destructive meadow mice and yes you are seeing very old and very large Ginseng plants scattered around the woods in the pics. The oldest seng plant I have collar notch counted is 127 years old. I just finished picking the ginseng berries a few days ago and will stratify it in sand over winter and sprout it in the spring and move it to the ideal locations in the woods in May/June to give it the best shot at surviving and to grow old. Have Firearms and a Backhoe, I will shoot and bury anyone that messes with the Native Ginseng plants under my protection I also have a few Goldenseal patches I was allowed to scavenge and move here from logged out properties that would have died in the sun of the clear cut logging. I use the resources from my woods and manage them all carefully and very sustainably. Whether it be the trees for logs, the wildlife populations or the medicinal and edible plants. It is in no way in my long term interest or future generations for me to MURDER MY WOODS I hate seeing old growth woods clear cut and left looking like Mordor.
Gorgeous! You are definitely correct about thinning the forest to make it healthier. When I got my property, it had an overabundance of Lodgepole Pine, people around here call them 'the weeds of the forest.' The forest hadn't been touch for at least 50-60 years and it was a real mess. We had a major windstorm, and all hell broke loose. Had one destroy the roof on my garage, over 50 trees down as these Lodgepoles' roots grow out not deep; furthermore, they were strangling the white fir and the rest of the pretty trees so... I declared war on them and it took me 6 years to get them all out. Now, I got new White and Red Fir popping up everywhere and the mature ones have a much better chance of surviving the bark beetle which goes ballistic when trees are too thick. I got a lot of neighbors now that have loss their entire properties to bark beetles simply because they refuse to maintain their woods. So, yeah, you're definitely doing the right thing and should tell your City Lefties to pound sand since they haven't a clue what they are talking about. BTW the way, I turned all my Lodgepoles into firewood and that's what I heat the house with during the winter.
I'm glad your changing out the plywood man. It's tough pulling a splinter out your ass using a mirror and tweezers?
The only trees the big black and medium black bark beetles bother here are the dead ones and they go to work on them fast. Once they loosen the bark up and you roll it off they leave the logs alone. The bigger issues with our trees are the parasitic molds that cause the blights. Thinning the dead and dying standing ones out has made a huge difference in that regard allowing a lot more airflow and sun into the woods. I like to keep it around 50/50 light/Shade in the woods for the woods plants. When I bought the place it was 70% Shade 30% light just knocking the diseased trees down got some air flow going and despite being on the last leg the diseased trees still had massive light blocking canopies. 16 Years later I believe we have achieved a very good balance of healthy old. middle aged, and young trees. Still 3-4 acres in the original woods to clean up and I have not even started on the West side of the property. A whole different kind of woods on the West side, with Elm, Ash, River Birch, live Oaks, Pin Oaks and cherry. The woods and the humans both benefit from a symbiotic relationship that is approached with a balanced management plan. The woods get more air flow and light and that greatly reduces the parasitic molds, I get firewood, lumber and cool shade and we both win.
I pull my rocking chair up in it and a coffee table and pull the camp stove propane cylinders and coffee percolator up. The aroma of percing coffee seems to draw all of the deer in to hang around the stand. They also seem to enjoy the pieces of coffee cake and day old donuts I toss down for them.
In thinking about it, one thing I wish had done differently on the tree stand is to have put the antena tower section on at a bit of a angle instead of straight up and down. 20 years ago at 35 years old the straight up climb was not even a thought, today at 55 the knees doth protest!
