11 degrees this morning with wind gusts over 30 mph. No bugs!
Weather improved throughout the day. Got lucky, heavy snow just north of us.
Should wind up about 1/3 acre...

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I forget. Are you doing it yourself?

I get by with a little help from my friends...
My pond building budget is pretty sparse. But... The fish and the wildlife haven't complained. If they're happy, I'm happy!
This pond has been done in stages over the last year and a half or so. Very happy to be getting it done now so it can start coming to life. It'll be another year getting the forage base and structure in place before it's stocked. This one will be my bass/gill pond. It'll be warmer than the others. One for brookies, a yellow perch/rainbow pond and this one. But.... There MAY be another spot or two.....

Looks like an excellent location for a pond! Great views while floating about on a raft.

That's part of the plan! It is a beautiful spot. You can hear an occasional truck drive by on the road. But you can't see any sign of humanity from these ponds. The older I get... The better I like that. Wish I had better "before" pics of this spot, but it was so thick and brush choked, you couldn't take any.

Went back and looked... Found one decent before pic...

Looks like a great view. That track ho have a heater?

Tracy

Heat, a/c, stereo... Got to keep these kids happy and bailing clay!

Got a lot done today. Should finish by mid morning tomorrow then head up to expand the orchards.
View from the dam. Water level will be to the bases of the two trees. My car is in the background for scale.


Also expanded the RBT/YP pond...

Wrapped up the ponds by noon today then went up to expand the orchards. The pond in the background is the one that was extended. The one in the foreground will fill to just below the two trees in the middle. The pond wraps about 240 degrees around them. Lots of work left to do... But I'm glad to have this part behind me!

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Orchards ?? What grows there other than NYC ?

I always herd it is nice in upstate NY, I have considered making that trip. Can u see a southern boy, in a vet, top down with fishing pole flapping in the wind. if you ever see that, it might just be me

Tracy

NYC? Been in New York almost 53 years... But I've never been there. Most of New York is normal people. I've met some downstaters. Probably explains my aversion to NYC... If you ever make the trip please let me know, I'd be happy to steer you in the right direction!
The orchard we worked today is just behind my little brook trout pond, in the background here...

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Hollywood, I was just messen with u about NYC growing there, was talking about the population growing. Not like Ted Cruz, I think he was talking of the liberal government in NYC. So what grows in your orchard ? And when you see that vet with the top down and the fishing rod flapping in the wind, if you here ZZ Top playing on the radio, it will most likely be me, Wait !! it might be Led Zeplin on the radio

Tracy

Ted Cruz was spot on. I'm the New Yorker he apologized to, though it was unnecessary. It's the libs that walk around looking for an excuse to be offended, not us. I'll be behind Trump if he lasts. ANYTHING but Hillary! I've got about 50 apple trees in the orchard now and a dozen or so Dunstan chestnut trees. Adding more chestnut, pears, plum this spring. I'll have room for plenty more, just not sure what yet. Grape arbors will do well here. Pond is filling nicely, up a foot in three days. Probably a couple weeks to full...

Please, Gentlemen, no politics on the forum.

DL, we're cool No problem Hollywood, Thanks for the invitation to steer me in the right direction, in that part of the country. Seems like we have a lot in common, we pond builders

Tracy

ZZ Top or Led Zep.... Figured you couldn't be ALL bad!
Ha!

Hollywood, I am trying my dangdest to ascertain where you are located, but falling a tad short. If I would venture a guess it would be at the south end of one of the finger lakes, probably Canandaigua based on the long straight hill, possibly Italy valley or down near Naples. Am I close? A lot looks like that in the Finger Lakes region.

A warming climate has made orchard growing in this region fairly viable, except for last winter when I lost my nectarines due to the extreme cold. God I loved those trees! Beautiful flowers, amazing fruit!

I miss Miller's Nursery, I spent many a spring picking out apples and pear varieties, though not to the scale you have. Even with 8 producing trees, I have more fruit than I can deal with. I still have a few left to reach maturity.

I am still deciding if I want to make the investment and plant a full orchard of dwarf apples between the house and pond, but right now we are using it for a community garden through our church.

I purchased my fruit trees from either Miller or Starke Brothers. I'm sorry to see Miller go by the wayside too. I hear that they sold to Stark Brothers.

lIquidsquid, you're correct- southern finger lakes region. Nectarines sound intriguing..perhaps I'll try a few. Hard to invest too heavily knowing any winter could be like last. It's funny, this year everyone acts like we're in the clear because it's been so mild. On 1/16/15 I wrote in my notes "cold weather and a bit of snow in the forecast for the next couple weeks- taking a break working the place. It's been so easy on the wildlife this year, this is coming so late in the season it shouldn't affect them much"
I couldn't have been more wrong! The weather came in about the same time this winter...sure hope the severity and length of it don't approach last year! Got these projects done in the nick of time.
Esshup, on the recommendation of a friend that owns a 20,000 tree orchard, I went with Adams County nursery. My trees went in last April and are doing beautifully. I bought 5' tall 6"x6" concrete mesh in 150' rolls and cut ten 15' long sections from each roll. The 15' circle around each tree has kept the deer off. Too small an area to jump in, but big enough to allow unbrowsed growth of the trees. The cost was about $11 per tree, but without this there would be no trees. This orchard is located right in the middle of a hardwood forest. Should be some pretty good bow hunting down the road.

Deer have become a nuisance around here too. When I was a teen many years ago, a garden could be grown in the open. Now, every desirable planting has to be fenced, even yard flowers and shrubs. It's expensive and a hassle having too many deer. The hunting pressure has dropped in my opinion. I used to hunt them, but tired of venison. There are fresh deer tracks all-around my pond every morning. We need a couple of years of six month deer season, no limits.

Hollywood,
It is what I did with the fencing also, it works well! Just don't do what I did:

At a point the limbs of the trees are shaped to go over the top of the fencing, and you have trimmed the branches to an umbrella shape for strength (I am not doing the narrow row-form, but circles) you can them replace the larger circle of fence with one just large enough for the trunk plus a few inches. This will allow mowing under the trees without tangles in the fencing.

Don't quit while changing fencing mid-stream in the fall and leave even a single tree exposed for a minute. The deer wait in the bushes to come running out and rub their antlers all over them in revenge for years of denial. Two of my trees got nailed because I ran out of daylight and planned to finish them the next morning. Imagine my anger when I am eating breakfast to the sight of bark peeled off both exposed trees after just one stinking night. I think they hear my rebel yell in Tennessee.

The dwarf and semi-dwarf "free" varieties are massive producers, to the point you have to thin the fruit. I did not when I should have and almost lost a tree to the weight. I had to steak the darned thing up since it apparently did not have an even distribution of roots to support the weight. I've got a picture here someplace...

Must be nice being able to plant fruit tree varieties without being concerned about chilling hours.

Last February I put in six peach and six nectarine and those that had good root systems seemed to just jump out of the ground, now being seven to eight feet tall. Yesterday, I noticed that the buds are swelling and it's entirely possible that I didn't get the 200 to 400 chilling hours that the trees need.

Sure hope you guys do better.

Upstate NY ... We never even think about chilling hours!
I'd give up some fruit for less chilling hours in a heartbeat. Actually am just north of where peaches do well. Just a bit too cold for too long. I'm researching which can handle it. I guess they do some varieties in Canada, so should be able to source some. I have 240 Chinese chestnut germinating now to go in the ground as seedlings in May. Did 150 last spring. That along with the pear and plum trees and my walleye season is already shot. Will try peaches perhaps next spring. Need to retire!

Hollywood, thanks. I just e-mailed Adams County for a couple of their catalogs. A client wants to plant around 100 trees and this will help him decide on what to plant. I need to replace a few trees in my small orchard, and it will make for some interesting reading for me as well.

Thanks for the tips on fencing the trees. A client spaded in close to 100 4" dbh Oaks and Maples around his ponds and the bucks tore them up this Fall/Winter. We had the white plastic tree protectors around them last year, but removed them for the summer and they never were put back on.....

He's planning on putting in an orchard and it is surrounded by hardwoods. We had thought about a solar electric fence, but I will tell him about the wire cages too. The wire cages seem to be the ticket for the trees that were transplanted around the ponds.

I'm all ears for any other tips anyone can offer.

esshup,
I did use the white plastic protectors with some success, but even those get nailed periodically. I think the deer see them and think there is no bark left to be rubbed and move on, but ultimately are not as good as fencing to protect them.

If in a pinch, you can run steaks (not the meat) in a quadrant around the outside of the tree trunk so that the antlers don't fit. If they get hung up in branches and sticks, they wont bother. It is those bare 6 foot + trunks they cannot resist!

If you plant your trees in a mostly unmowed field full of mice or rabbits, it is also a good idea to put metal window screen slightly below soil level up the trunk a good 6 inches. It keeps mice from kicking back under the snow in a freshly dug bungalow with a supply of tree trunk food. Just don't tie it tight and girdle the tree, but spiral it on so it can expand when you forget to loosen it up mid-summer. Some fruit varieties really draw the critters in!

Another option perhaps....FWIW I started planting trees here at the new place in 2012 and have been using 5 foot tree tubes with good success. We have lots of deer and they haven't bothered any of the trees. The tubes I purchased were also advertised as making the trees grow faster and I think that claim is actually true for most variety of trees I've planted. For example, I now have 10 feet tall Catalpa trees, that I started as seed in my basement in April 2012. Also have 15 to 20 feet tall maples, sycamores and birch that were planted as little 8 inch seedlings in 2012.

On the flip side, our orchard is all semi-dwarf trees and the tubes are too tall for them as I think they inhibit the branch growth that low. The deer enjoyed browsing on them last spring. I think I'll try the wire ring idea this spring.

If it's just rubbing you are concerned with, a simple inexpensive fix I found is to loosely tie a 1/2" , 5' tall metal conduit to each side of the tree. Buy a 10' , cut it in half, gently push a half into the ground on each side of the tree and tie it in place. They only have to be in place a few months, during that season. Must be the metal is just too weird for them, never get a rubbed tree this way. I know all too well how opportunistic they are. Left one of my prized chestnuts unprotected... Just one night... And the $&@/ rubbed it bad. Five billion trees that size there...and they did my chestnut. The only reason I can come up with is that it smells different. "I'm the only buck on the mountain that smells like chestnut... I'm getting lucky for sure!" Only thing that makes any sense. Just got my seedling containers in today!!! Picked up peat moss, vermiculite and perlite for the potting mix on my way home. Will be spending this wintry evening sorting and starting the early risers of the 240 chestnuts I have in cold storage. I looked this morning, about 1/3 have germinated already.

Germinating Chinese chestnut getting ready to go in its grow pot. Will be 15-18" tall with leaves the size of a dollar bill by April. I started planting in April last year but will wait til late April/May this spring. The ones I put in later last year did better. I also need to be more careful to properly harden them off before establishing them. It was very cool having little green lives indoors last year in the dead of winter. Hope springs eternal!

Here is a link to an upstate (Ithaca) based nursery stock supplier a friend sent me this evening. I may try a few of their peach trees to see how they take.

http://shop.cumminsnursery.com/

FWIW if you are looking for a species that is hard to find or just want to browse, Reeseville Ridge Nursery has the most impressive species list I have ever seen by a long shot. Darrell Kromm is the owner and I have bought many trees from him. Great trees at great prices has been my experience.

Nice find on the Nursery!!! I love Ithaca, so it is an excuse to visit. Lots of beautiful places around there to hike.

I do have some peach, they do pretty well tough they are prone to bores and weaken unless you spray periodically. I don't like doing that if I can help it, so my peaches suffer.

I too have been working with full American Chestnuts here and there, but having terrible luck. They do NOT like my very basic (limestone) soil. The Chinese chestnuts and crosses do OK, but only the full Chinese seem to thrive. The only CC bearing nuts came with the house, and must be getting fertilized by a wild tree someplace that I have yet to discover. I won $200 for a large wild one several years ago I found, but it is nowhere near our house.

I have about 200 CC nuts naturally chilling in the front garden, but I think I may have dehydrated them by keeping them in a bucket too long. I got tired of eating them as they are not as tasty as the AC. They are probably crosses, so I may try getting a few to grow to replace the full AC that died.

The gentleman I won the finder award from works with a team working on making blight-proof AC varieties via genetic splicing. Back when I met with him, he assured me that it would be successful and there would be no problems introducing them into the wild. That all blew up last year when it was exposed to the anti-GMO crowd. My gosh that anti-GMO group is feisty! It is probably the most promising way to get AC back into the ecosystem though.

edit: This is the tree I found:

Squid, you're a chestnut guy too? No way!

Thanks guys, another link to add to the list!

In general I am a tree guy as landscaping architecture was my first career of choice, but my liver couldn't take the schooling. I got a little bored at it and decided I liked electrical engineering as it paid better and wasn't seasonal in NY. Then I could afford my own place and play on my land rather than working on other people's. Looking back it was a wise choice as I would have been a pretty lousy landscaper.

It is immensely frustrating being a tree guy. I have lost quite a few unusual specimens over the years due to trampling, eating, rubbing, drought, deep freezes, lightning, pests, etc. I had some pretty cool beech varieties until mice decided they were tasty, some interesting birch until drought, and now I am loosing my white pines and scotch pines to (I think) Sirex wood wasps. Inexplicable sudden deaths of otherwise healthy trees. I cut up and burned up a dead one this past weekend to eliminate larva. It was a big tree and my back is feeling the love...

Texas lost a lot of huge oaks due to drought. TPWD expects, even with our floods, to have dying post oaks for 10 years. Some on my land had to be a century old. What surprised me was losing a lot of cedars on a spring fed creek when the spring dried up.

DD1
We are loosing big oaks and hickories in alarming numbers, sure hope the worst is behind us

Pat, I think the root damage caused most of the die offs. And, the plentiful rains can't help a weakened root systems. I am still losing cedars of all sizes.

DD1
I blame the youpon draining all the nutrients and water from the soil. What is your thinking on the cause of the root damage?

I haven't lost any hardwoods, but this year I noticed random dead pines about 6" in diameter or thereabouts. They are no where near one another....just one or two on the east side and the same on the west side of the property...not a piece of bark left on them...not sure if it's some kind of blight or something....everything out at my place is in really good shape otherwise. Not sure what is going on.

Pine bark beetles maybe
At one time they were bad in east Texas

Pat,
I'll have to investigate further. I had planned on cutting them down and cutting them up to burn right after hunting season was over. Now, it rains every weekend. I may get with the TAM Forest Service. Those little rangers running around like that sort of stuff.

Pat, it was all caused by 5 years of drought. My almost 2 acre pond became about 1/4 acre of muddy water.

Seems no matter where in the country we live, there are major changes going on. We have an infestation of Emerald Ash Borers. Pretty much guaranteed devastation for any Ash tree locally. This three acre section was adjacent to the small orchard I established. It was 90 percent Ash. Decided instead of watching them finish dying then the whole section becoming a jungle of Sumac and briars to level the area and expand the orchard...

We are going to let our ash trees die slowly to provide wildlife habitat. They say a dead tree actually provides more habitat than a live one.

We are losing all the ash trees around our place. We now have more woodpeckers around than just about any other bird.
Up in NE Missouri where we are we had a pretty bad drought that ended last year. Still see a lot of dead dying oaks in the woods. Pretty sad, because it looks like it didn't have any effect in the maples. Pretty to look at, but useless for wildlife.

On my eighty plus acres there are plenty of areas where this will be the case. After establishing the small orchard it was incredible the draw it is to wildlife. The one thing I didn't have up there was open area where the nutrition is at ground level. I'm using clover and chicory as ground cover. Deer and turkeys are loving it. Different bird species are showing up and staying. This creates quite an increase to the edge habitat that wildlife thrives on. Right now it looks like hell on earth... But that will be temporary. Diversity, transition of different types of habitat... They seem drawn to that.

Dave, I've never seen so much unseasoned oak split, sitting on the roadsides, ready for sale. Lot's of trees still dying, and no slowdown in the foreseeable future.

Hollywood and others, thanks for a great turn on this thread. Very informative.

Hard maples are premium timber, so I assume you have soft maples.

Hollywood, your telling me the deer in NY eat chicory and clover up there , I use the same for ground cover around the pond. I do it for the deer, turkey, bees and to stop erosion on a hill At the pond. I have to water mine in the summer. Gets pretty hot and dry here in the summer. But not much snow, maybe an inch or so each year. And like others here, I have lost some big oaks and seeing the same in some of my Pine forest. I had a forestry guy out, my thinking was pine beetles, but nope, it was drought.

Tracy

You're telling me... You got hills?

Ha!

Heck, our button bucks would have to stoop down to look at your ten pointers...

You may be right about that lol

Tracy

Hollywood, I know u have herd EVERYTHING is bigger in TEXAS

Tracy

I believe it. I've met some of your women...

Nope, sugar maples. A few very nice 30"+ diameter trees. Lots in the 12-18". But hundreds and hundreds in the 4"<
I've always head sugar maples are the end of the line for a hardwood forest evolution. They will eventually take over the oaks and hickories. Leafing out a bit earlier, and providing so much shade. However they produce no nut crop for wildlife. So that a hard maple forest will be game free, as far as deer are concerned.

Sugar maples and other hard maples are worth big bucks where I am at. Also very good for wildlife.

http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/landownerfactsheets/detail.cfm?genus=acer&species=saccharum

Interesting. I have some points to make with the forester when he comes back. He's been telling me to cut out all the smaller ones, if I want to get more deer..

My experience is that you may want to leave it alone with the forester, or just say that some web sites suggest these trees make good brows for deer, and then see how he responds. I find some foresters do not like to be challenged.

I'm not a real "in your face" type guy. I'll just mention it.. If I can get him to come back out. I'm not a big land holder.

It only takes a few acres of prime habitat to draw in deer from the area. Food, water, cover, and a feeling of security. A couple acres of evergreens can hold a good herd of deer during daylight hours if this is the best cover in an area.

Project is filling nicely, gaining about 3 inches a day. Couple more feet to full...

Hollywood, that makes me sad about the ash. A good 80 percent of our trees are ash, so between the sirex wood wasps and the EAB, I'm not going to have much left. The American Elms are long gone.

I do tend to my land for maximum habitat by cycling mowing and clearing and keeping some areas wooded. I only have 16 acres so I can more or less keep up with it, but this past year it got away from me. I do most by hand and the rest with a brush blade on a weed eater and a crappy Ferguson tractor on loan from church.

We have an amazing variety of birds that we enjoy watching and that is a lot of the motivation on cycling the habitat.

A few years ago some birders came here to see a barn owl I spotted, and they about passed out from ecstasy. Prime habitat for sure!

I do tap the maples for syrup so they are of good use. I will probably convert the ash to heat, but it will be too much to use.

In Rockford, Illinois near me the streets are/were lined with ash. The city paid to remove, IIRC, 7000 in 2015 to prevent the spread. All destroyed. Keeping for firewood was not allowed. Can't say I disagree with that decision but what a shame. My sis paid almost $1K to have a dead one cut and removed at her place in a Chicago suburb. Same thing, has to be destroyed, can't keep it for firewood.

Hollywood, Thanks for the laugh and the smile this morning, that was funny. Thumbs up

Tracy

Glad you laughed! The gal I mistook for Hoss Cartwright was NOT amused...

Ouch! Lol

Nice steady fill, coming up steadily. Near 0 lows have slowed the incoming water and it has more area to fill. Probably about an inch to 1.5 a day now.

About four inches from the top. Will be flowing out by the time I'm back from vacation. This started out as a small bait pond, as I'm sure many do. Then... You stare at it too long... See something better... Start digging again... This time- I'm done!

Damn, that is looking good!

Thanks! Planning a small deck on the flat to the right, another by the trees. Dive in, swim across and back out. Raft somewhere in the middle. FHM and structure this year and stock it in the fall... Be a pond before long!

Glad I stretched this one while I was at it. Added enough to increase its potential...

Back from vacation to a full pond. Got this pic before the snow started. Sub zero on the way... But I'm dreaming of a nap on a float here...

wow! very very nice. A great ice skating spot!

Very nice shape and backdrop!

Thank you! I'm pleased with it, theres only so much you can do given the terrain I'm working with.

Came back from vacation to find my germinated chestnuts are now little seedlings. Got 140 in the dirt so far, thought I'd have 250 this year, but the germination rate seems less than last year. Probably wind up with 200 to plant this spring.

Two weeks later... Little chestnut trees grow quickly! 197 potted so far, might get another 20 by the time the rest germinate.

They certainly like your conditions! I would need to move about 10 miles to my south to get more acid soils which they prefer. Good luck with keeping those pesky deer off of them!

This will be my fourth spring adding chestnut trees. Browsing hasn't been an issue at all... But they will walk past five billion other trees to rub these. It's got to be because they smell different. Like they'll get lucky because they're the only buck on the hill that smells like chestnut? Stopped up after work tonight. About a dozen deer in hitting the turnips, most I've ever seen together here... Was great to see!