Substantially finished today! All the vines and briars on the ground are gone. In their place is a coating of ground up sticks like a chipper would leave, thanks to old D-R. I may cut a few more wild cherries from the former fence row later. Those gnarly wild cherry trees are a pain and a scourge. They tend to crawl low over the ground when covered by vines. Any tree not near vertical was cut already. Considerable muscle built over the project, and no power tools used other than a chain saw and D-R brush mower.
I now have a huge brush pile to dispose of composed of masses of vines, cedar limbs, wild plum, privet, elm, and thorny locust. I piled the brush on top of the nearly two foot deep flat of sludge from the pond, so no grass will be killed in case it catches fire.
If you decide to burn the brush pile, it will burn a lot better if allowed to dry and compress about a year. Burning fresh brush piles is a lot harder and often requires added fuel to get it done compared to a 'seasoned' brush pile.
Those old, tangled fence rows and brush piles sound like great quail cover to me....we are trying to get more of that at our place rather than less. Wish we had more of that problem here in W Central Illinois quail country!
I used to hunt quail here back in the 1960s and 1970s, but by 1982 or so, they had all but disappeared around here. They did not inhabit the kind of fence rows I had, as there wasn't a lot of Japanese honeysuckle around here then. The rise of fescue grasses and overgrazing, together with non native predators, contributed to their demise. Once in a great while I see or hear a quail.
That is too bad John. We certainly have fewer birds than when I was a kid hunting with my grandpa (mid-50s now). Of course, all the farm machinery was much less efficient then....every time they made a turn while harvesting there would be scattered grain all over the ground. These new combines are too good at grabbing every kernel/bean.
We have tried to manage and have a good amount of cover but the fescue is a constant pain and we have tons of hawks that love the taste of quail. We are still able to do a number of good hunts each year fortunately and are working on some additional habitat projects this winter and spring.
Also John....can you tell me how to attach the "I Subscribe" logo to the bottom of my posts? I can't figure it out in the "edit profile" or any other section of the forum. After all, I do subscribe to PB! Thanks.
If you decide to burn the brush pile, it will burn a lot better if allowed to dry and compress about a year. Burning fresh brush piles is a lot harder and often requires added fuel to get it done compared to a 'seasoned' brush pile.
I know waiting until it's dry and settled will burn much better. I have already burned six piles in the past two years. (This place was an overgrown mess, from many years of neglect.) None were burned green. The last one dried three months, but had a lot of big trunks and dirty stuff from clearing the pond area. I had to cut up the big trunks and re stack and re burn later, but it finally burned up. The current pile doesn't have anything in it over six inches, and most of it is briars, twigs, vines, cedar branches and dead wood. I think it will probably burn up ok after a couple of months. I need to get rid of it before spring. When burning, I keep pushing stuff in with a pole as it burns down and it eventually becomes a pile of ashes.
Before and after. In the before picture, only a little mowing had been done along the edge. The after picture doesn't really look as brush free as it is. In the after pic, my big brush pile shows to the right of center
