$6,000!!!!!! IS that all? I was having sleepless nights over $6,000?? I was thinking $20K!! Fencing is going to cost more than that. Wow! What a relief.
Thank you so much for the incredibly detailed reply. Today we visited the NRCS and the "Pond" person was out, we did leave our number and hope he calls soon. We asked about other programs and were told that there were 104 people ahead of us. But we were told we do qualify for WHIP, EQUIP and LIP. We also signed up with the USDA to get a farm number and stopped by the County Extension Office to talk about eradicating 7 acres of prickly pear cactus and returning it to pasture or grassland.
We came away with 10 soil sample boxes and a ton of brochures.
Our wants for the property are simple. To improve it aesthetically for our own use while being good stewards of the land with minimal damage/intrusion to the existing wildlife and ecosystem. If at some point in time we can find a way for the land itself to offset some of the costs involved that would be great too.
There is a rather large population of Gopher Tortoise on our property and while they are not yet considered threatened or endangered in our county, we do plan to try to preserve and improve their habitat. Anyone got experience with them?
There's no way I can end this without telling you about our Sunday. It all started with our first hostile wildlife encounter(and of course we left the gun home). This critter tried to come up the bank after us.
Meet our little friend.
So, I send hubby off to find an armed neighbor while I keep an eye on the snake. The first neighbor did not keep ordnance in the house (what???) so he went to the second neighbor, thinking it was Pete's house whom we had already met. Pete owns the annoying jackass who is the bane of existence for the whole neighborhood. This crazy jackass will not stay in his pasture and tears out fences, grazes in everyone's gardens and poor Pete has not been able to catch him since he bought and turned him loose two years ago. Turned out it was not Pete's house it was Mr. Smith's house and my was he a hoot. He's about 80 million years old, grizzled, thin as a rail and the old type of southern gentleman who wears his jeans starched with a crease and has a pack of Swisher Sweet cigars in his shirt pocket. Mr. Smith wobbles out of the truck, shotgun in hand and introduces himself as Catfish. While walking him across the damn I thought he was going to fall over, he was none too sure on his feet and stumbled several times. He is so frail the gun looked like it weighed more than him. When we got to the spot where the snake was, he kept squinting and saying he couldn't see it. This snake was at least 6' long and as big as my forearm! Then, without warning he says "Oh, I see em.", and blammo, blows his head clean off with one shot! We were really having our doubts about his eyesight and aim and darn if he did not surprise us.
After dispatching the snake we all sat down for a neighborly chat. The jackass came up in conversation and Catfish told us he had offered to shoot it for Pete but that he had declined. Pete's been trying to give him away for a year. Anyone who wants this varmint is free to have him, the catch is that they have to catch him.
Anyone want a rogue donkey?
I'm telling you this is going to be quite the adventure. I'm so glad that I found this warm and humorous forum to share it all with. Thank you all for the help.
Oh and Bob, do you really want to meet the VFD?
Arson article Catmom there are some LMB and I have seen tadpoles and turltes. There is no house on the land yet except for the MM. We are going to build a two story barn and convert it into a house. We already have plans and hope to start by midsummer. Wish us luck and you know I will post pictures.
