John- 5½ acres is a lot of work! Fortunately, the original family was thoughtful in their land use and left about ½ the property untouched. As our needs are different than our neighbors (cattle ranchers), we have the luxury of continuing that original plan. We have a lot of cleanup and some selective thinning (removing diseased and dead trees) ahead, though, as it looks like the property was neglected for the past few years. We’ll also be re-digging/cleaning out a couple of small stock tanks (.15 acres, .2 acres) that we discovered on an old satellite picture as they are now shallow depressions (silt runoff?). There is also a ¼ acre tank that the last owner dug that I am not sure what to do with as he dug it mid way on a hillside on the high side of the property. I am not sure what he was thinking as there isn’t much watershed in that area and it looks like something from an unnatural depiction of the lunar landscape. We’ll figure it out, though..
If the cattails get out of control or you decide to go with another plant, would you be open to goats? I’ve used goats for 20+ years to do selective thinning/clearing and have been happy with the results. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but they are rugged, quick, able to access areas that are either too steep or too thickly overgrown for conventional methods, and will re-seed and fertilize the area if you add your seed to some grain and feed it to them. The limiting factor is seed size – the seed must be small enough to pass thru rather than being digested). Best of all, they can be trained with a minimal amount of effort to respect a hot net and their manure resembles a juniper berry (no cow pies to worry about). Although I’ve not used them for cattails personally, cattails are on their “candy” list. Just a thought…
Thank you for the pole information – I updated my notes. I am curious to see how your pond evolves. Will you keep us updated? Many thanks!
