Could Use A Little Rain Hereabouts

 

“Least somethin’s growin’,” I said as I walked the struggling food plot. “Not sure what it all is, but it’s better’n nothin’... 

"Like to see a couple inches of rain over night too,” I added hopefully, looking to the darkening clouds in the southwest.

It was starting to rain and I was glad about it for if there was one thing we needed in Palmville above all others, it was rain.

I just had to look at a small section of the southwest-to-northeast, half-mile long food plot, among several other smaller food plots, that I initiated in April. 

 

I started spraying to control weeds

I found a guy on-line: Jeff Stergis of Whitetail Habitat Solutions, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE98PnALU8M that has been doing food plots, for deer, for over 25 years. 

With over 160,000 subscribers it seems he has struck a chord with a good many deer hunters, including myself. Best of all, he knows the northern tiers of the U.S., so his information is well-suited to this area. I've tried other food plot plans in the past, but his is well-thought out.

I figure it's a three year project for me, especially after the start of this year, and the long drought that followed it; just my luck. I tried to follow his instructions around his No-Till Food Plot program, but the drought impacted everything. The buckwheat smother crop I planted in early June, after the one rain we got, didn't germinate, so I decided to cut back on what I had planned to plant in the way of brassicas i.e., radishes, turnips and the like, as the drought continued and temperatures soared; it had gotten too late. Even so, I hand-broadcasted some canola (a brassica) in late July on one side of the food plots, and rye and oats on the other side in mid-August, hoping we'd be getting rain toward fall; we did get a couple good showers.

I had told myself I wasn’t going to look at the food plots for a month after the nice rain, but I’m too invested in them, considering all the work and money I've spent preparing the plots for this deer season. Another thing I started doing is creating mock scrapes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vup8oEIxRlM

 

Craig's Stand mock scrape

Josh's food plot, one of the ten less-than-an-acre food plots on September 7th, is hardly a going concern.

 Planting being done, I had begun doing some maintenance on the six deer stands I’ve built and named after our combined-family for just location identification. I could’ve numbered them instead, but each is a family affair, so it seemed natural to do so.

 

Steve's Stand, an oldie but a goodie. It needs new windows.

 

John's Stand needs a window enlargement and a new ladder.

Had to rebuild the door on Josh's Stand -- and repair a broken window frame due to my carelessness.

There are more deer stands to build or set-up, in the next couple years, for us to use when prevailing winds wouldn’t be right for the other stands. With more stands, we could shift around to be downwind of a particular area, than upwind of it.

I had finished Marty’s Stand work yesterday; the removal of one window/the addition of another; and Josh’s Stand the day before; a rebuild of its one-year old plywood door that had warped and needed straightening. In addition, when I carried a long 2x4 up the ladder, I accidently broke a window frame so that cost me extra time. Luckily I had brought a bottle of wood glue with me for use on another window; I had to ‘jerry-rig’ a ratchet strap around it to hold it tight, and it worked real good.

I added the left window on Marty's Stand and removed another.

Craig's Stand needs new legs and risers. Might need help on that one.

 

Next order of business is The Outhouse Stand.

I learned rain was forecast for the afternoon of September 15th, so I worked on John’s Stand until it started raining. The temperature began to drop. To avoid getting chilled after a workout with the gasoline-powered hand-held brush cutter, I put on the sweatshirt that I had left on the front seat of the truck. 

Leaning against the open tailgate, I drank a bottle of water and looked at my work with some real sense of pride, feeling happy I can still accomplish what I start out to do once in a while; thankful that I’m still physically able to do it, and that I possess the necessary tools, even if I can't reliably make it rain when I need it.