Ranch Visit, Spring Maintainance

We’re considering doing some significant work on a key spring at the ranch. The project will include installing a new spring box and a couple of modern troughs. Of the two troughs currently in place, one doesn’t work at all and the other won’t last too much longer. This work will insure a longer life for the spring and help spread the grazing more evenly.

This trough is working, but we'd like to install a new concrete trough.

The project should qualify for matching funds under the Farm Program. We’ll know for sure once the plans have been finalized and approved. The spring currently has no spring box, just gravel and a pipe. The second trough will be installed down the hill a few hundred yards. There’s plenty of water to handle two troughs. We may install some type of wildlife drinker as well.

We came upon a sow and two juvenile pigs not far from the spring.

This sow and juvenile has been spotted before. They're living near the spring.

Here's where they were rooting when we came along.

Although many people call this damage, I’m not sure it amounts to much. Maybe it’s beneficial.

Here's a track from the biggest of the three pigs, the sow.

My guess is that the sow was pushing 200 pounds.

On the way home we saw buzzards cleaning something up. Another Ranch Road victim?

Looks like a calf, but I didn’t get out to get a better view.

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September ’09 Mayberry Update

It’s now been over two months since the arial spraying at Mayberry. Since that event, Rob has followed up by mowing, flooding and spraying the stuff that didn’t respond to our initial attempts.

Here are a few follow up photos.

Burmuda grass is a tough customer, but after a couple doses, this grass looks like it’s on it’s way out.

If not for chopping with the aspergrass chopper, this marsh wouldn’t show water. After flood up it won’t take long for the ducks to use this pond.

The fragmite population has been expanding, but our spraying has hit it hard. Different plants take longer to show results and we’ve been hitting this plant multiple times to make sure it dies.

The Farmall Tractor is too small for plowing, but it’s okay for spraying and mowing.

We brought in the neigbor’s big tractor to plow through the dead cattails and it did the job. It won’t be fun walking through the big clods, but it’s a necessary evil.

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Aerial Spraying Results – 15 days after spraying

On Tuesday, June 16 2009 a helicopter spraying company hit our thick stands of cattails, tules, Bermuda and blackberries with a 3 quart to the acre mix of roundup.

Took a trip to Mayberry yesterday to view the results of the aerial spraying efforts. I found the cattails to be hard hit. Bermuda grass showed signs that it was on its way out. Tules looked sick, but not hard hit. The fragmities were somewhat hit, but may not have got directly hit by the spray so some were dying and others looked healthy. The berry bushes looked like they’d been fertilized.

Here are some photos.

This photo shows a healthy cattail patch vs one the was sprayed.

Here’s the area which we considered top priority. It looks like these cattails are done for.

This photo shows some smart weed that was not hit, tules that are sick but still green and cattails which were most affected.

Here’s some healthy bermuda grass that was not sprayed. It is a dark green.

Here’s some sick looking bermuda that was hit by spray.

My intention was to begin irrigation yesterday, but I decided to wait a few more days. I wouldn’t want to save any of the plants we want to kill. The cost of this effort was about $1,800 for the heliocopter and $3,000 for the materials. We’re hoping that the results are worth while, but the jury is out.

After we irrigate, we’ll do some disking and mowing to bring back some early stage vegitation.

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Aerial Spraying for Cattails and Other Problem Plants

There comes a time when habitat is out of control. At Mayberry we’re there. The  back breaker was the conversion of the island’s primary agricultural use to cattle grazing with summer irrigation.

With the ditches filled to the brim with irrigation water, our ponds remain wet all summer. We’ve been unable to disk or mow our ponds, to the extent needed, for years. Expanding unhindered, cattails are now so thick that a dog cannot swim through them, let alone a hunter on his feet.

We no longer plant grain and have used cattle, sheep and goats to control the plants, but that has converted much of the property from broadleaf to grass, especially burmuda grass, which is thick and untilable.

Acres of habitat are not usable to us or wildlife. The only solution, aerial spraying. A heliocopter is the best tool for this job. Hiring the plane for two hours at a rate of $1250 per hour is not cheap, but it is a solution.

To kill the unwanted cattails, tules,  berries, and fragmities along with some additional burmuda grass control took about 3 quarts of roundup per acre, covering about 95 acres with a material price totalling about $2,100.

Reloading material.

Out the door, that’s approximately $4,600 and some change. We hope that in about two weeks, we’ll be able to assess the kill and begin the next phase of the process. It will include some chopping, some plowing, maybe some planting and definitely some irrigation to bring on some of the desirable duck foods like watergrass.

It will be an interesting process – setting back the succession of plants and hopefully rejuvinating the habitat.

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More on the California Pheasant Crash

Ed Smith has a long history with pheasants and he is one of the most knowledgeable people in the country when it comes to producing pheasants. We spoke by phone today and he commented on the current pheasant decline.

According to Ed, the spring of 2008 was the driest on record and the record goes back to 1919. With no recordable rainfall after March 1, 2008 the lack of moisture assured that all pheasant nesting failed, unless aided by irrigation. 

At Little Dry Creek, Ed and the refuge staff managed several brood strips and they were productive, but brood strips are labor intensive and therefore cost prohibitive on public lands on a large scale.

Ed’s method of creating brood strips is very effective. He has worked with land managers in other states (Montana for one) as well with clear success. We have modified his program on our farm to fit our limitations.

In a nutshell, the brood strip is created by clearing annual grasses (disking, flooding or spraying herbicides) and then creating a method to irrigate the strip to promote insect life. The pheasants nest near the strips and the chicks live along the strip during the first critical months of their life cycle. During this time frame they are dependent upon insects for food and overhead cover from broad leaf plants to minimize predation by birds of prey.

For more detailed information about creating brood strips give Ed a call. He will be very happy to hear from you. His number is (530)868-1313.

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The Pheasant Crash

A comment on my post about the weekend hunting asked my opinion on why there are no pheasants in the Central Valley. The question is very appropriate and to say that the pheasant population has declined dramatically is an understatement.

Pheasants are survivors. They live in diverse habitats and under good conditions they thrive in California farm lands. However, they require habitat. At one time, corn and rice farms provided habitat for pheasants. As farming became more efficient, ground was occasionally set aside for wildlife and pheasants could nest successfully.

Farming is now so efficient that almost no ground is left unfarmed. Roundup ready corn can take direct application of herbicides that kill all other plants. No habitat exists between the corn stocks.

I don’t have as much experience with rice, but with rice and corn prices skyrocketing last spring, farmers stepped up their efforts to plant every square inch of land.  As hunter landowners, we take steps to promote habitat. Our fields are nearly 100% natural and we manage for maximum wildlife habitat. Therefore we should have large numbers of pheasants -right?

The answer is no we don’t. We are somewhat confused by the lack of pheasant production on our 300 acres, but at least we have enough pheasants to make hunting reasonably worthwhile.

Why don’t we have more pheasants? The weather in California can make things difficult for pheasant chicks to survive and survival of pheasant chicks is probably the most critical link in the life cycle of pheasants. Chicks need to be able to maneuver through the field in search of bugs. Bugs are critical nourishment for the birds during the first few months of their development.

Bugs only live in ground that has moisture. Once the ground drys up, the bugs go away and the chicks starve. However, cover is also important. If the chicks don’t have cover over their heads, they fall prey to avian predators – like the marsh hawk.

Therefore the critical link in springtime is to have habitat with moisture and leafy upland plants to hide the birds from predators. This annual grasses don’t do the job. If the annual grasses take over, that will also break the cycle and reduce the number of successful broods.

Therefore, management of pheasant habitat is critical to optimum success. Farming does contribute, primarily by disking or otherwise killing annual grasses and making a place for br0ad-leaf plants to grow. Farming also can irrigate areas to create insect life that is critical. Where farming may have once been a net positive for pheasants, it now almost a total negative.

The reduction in the number of pheasant hunters is also a problem. The loss of hunters reduces pressure on farmers and landowners to manage the ground with pheasant in mind. We’re losing on all fronts.

What can we do? I believe that hunters should own more ground and manage with hunting and wildlife in mind as a viable by product of good land management.

Education of landowners and people who like to see pheasants is very important.

The California Department of Fish and Game is aware of this issue and can be responsive if querried. Ed Smith, retired from Fish and Game is an expert on this subject. Since his retirement a few years ago, he has spent many days afield with landowners and pheasant hunters educating them about this isse. He is the source of much of my knowledge on this subject.

Ed’s approach is to clear a path to remove annual grasses. Then create a way to irrigate the path such as making a ditch line. Then water is run down the ditch on a weekly basis to provide moisture for chicks. Once the annual grasses are prevented from taking over, the warm spring weather will allow broad leaf plants to grow along the ditch providing cover for the pheasant chicks.

It’s not as simple as it sounds, but it does work. That’s why we still have some pheasants on our property. I’ll post Ed’s phone number once I locate it. When his process is managed carefully, it can produce a boat load of pheasants.

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The Goats of Mayberry

 

The goats are in and they’re doing their job. As many at 1,700 goats have been grazing on our duck club and they are removing much of the vegitation choking our duck ponds.

 

This is Walter the Peruvian goat herder. Talks about as much English as I do Spanish.

 

Walter says the great Pyrenees guard dogs make short work or coyotes if they bother the goats.

 

 

Here they are in action thinning down our thick stands of cattails and alkili bull rush.

 

Here’s one of our ponds as it is rising. Water shows much better after grazing – should attract ducks.

 

Not many ducks around yesterday, but a few sat on the edge of the flooded pasture to the north of us.

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Partition – Ending Co-tenancy

The situation

Ten parcels of ranch property owned by one partnership with about 25 members, one LLC with three members, a family trust with 20 heirs and four individuals including one who was deceased and still on title.

 

That was the status of our ranch in year 2003. We owned an undivided interest equivalent to 949 of the 2,540 acres and we owned different portions of each parcel. It was a mess.

 

Our first attorney couldn’t even get out of the box before he admitted we needed somebody else. Our second attorney got us half way there and decided to retire. Our third attorney took over and completed the job.

 

Now it’s over. All that’s left is to sign a few deeds. The judge signed a stipulated judgment (what all the parties agreed to through mediation) and  that agreement is on its way to the Alameda County Recorder’s office.

 

Why choose the partition route?

Partition is the last thing one must do to resolve untenable property ownership. All other options should be explored first. For ten years we attempted to work out an arrangement to have co-petitioners in a partition suit so we wouldn’t have to take everybody on by ourselves, but that attempt failed and in the end we were forced to go alone.

 

What’s the legal basis?

In general, every co-owner of property who owns property in co-tenancy and doesn’t have some type of partnership agreement has the right to sue for partition. If the property can be subdivided and distributed to co-owners (in kind distribution) the law says that’s the best resolution. If the property cannot be divided up into appropriate parcels, the law says you sell and divide up the money proportionate to each ownership interest.

 

We evaluated our situation. Although some said it could be done, we decided that there was no way to subdivide the ranch. The parcels ranged in size from 20 acres to 640 acres. Zoning laws did not allow parcels to be split. Ownership interests couldn’t be fit into the existing parcels without major ownership changes.

 

We held firm that the ranch would have to be sold.

 

Why didn’t we leave things the way they were?

One family group owned 5% of the ranch. They had at least five people hunting and each could kill two bucks. They showed no interest in conservation of the deer herd. If all the owners killed deer at a proportionate rate we would be taking more than 100 bucks per season. The ranch didn’t have 100 deer on it, let alone 100 bucks. Similar issues existed with at least one other owner.

 

The ranch was (and still is) suffering from disrepair. Since nobody claimed the ranch as their own, nobody took responsibility for doing the little maintenance things that are necessary to keep things working properly. Ponds dams needed work, fences were patched with temporary fixes, gates were held together with bailing wire etc. The few buildings on the property were ready to fall down.

 

Once we initiated the action, all the partners had to respond to the law suit or default on the action. If they defaulted, they would have no say in the outcome and would be forced to accept the judge’s decision.

 

Just getting the case ready for and in front of a judge took about two years. Once we got a court hearing, we then went through a year of delays as attorneys for the defendants sought extensions for any or no reason during the first few court dates.

 

Finally, mediation was scheduled for the spring of 2007. Getting meetings arranged took a few months, but the mediator was efficient and knowledgeable. He made it clear to each owner that if a mediation solution could not be reached that the ranch would be put up for sale. At least one of our co-owners was so angry with us that we thought the mediation might not be successful.

 

However, ultimately everybody realized that there was a solution to fit all. We bought out two owners of a total of 400 acres. Another co-owner bought about 250 acres. We agreed to take four parcels that approximated our ownership share and others did the same. We gave some property to another co-owner.

 

One year after completion of the mediation, the suit is over. After about four or five years of effort, the ranch will have four ownership entities. Everybody is better off. The guy who owned 94 acres and hunted on 2,540 may not have as good a hunting scenario, but he now owns 160 acres by himself and he got it without paying anything for the additional acreage.

 

Along the way we had to resolve ownership by one co-owner who was deceased and we gave another individual a five-year right to use one of the cabins on the property. Another individual received five years grazing rights on a section of ground.

 

Instead of 949 acres co-owned and unmanageable, we now have 1,300 acres we can manage as we see fit. I haven’t calculated the legal fees, but we paid attorneys two to three thousand dollars a month for several years. Whatever it cost, it was worth it.

 

Create a functional partnership agreement

The best way to prevent this problem is to enter into a partnership or co-tenant agreement whenever you become co-tenants with anybody. The partnership agreement must describe the process for selling whenever an individual wants to opt out of ownership. Keep in mind that not all partnership agreements are fair and equitable. I’ve seen some agreements that left the co-owners with fewer rights than they would have without an agreement.

 

Please keep in mind that I’m not an attorney and the purpose of this information is to give you the benefit of our experience. However, before you take action on your own, hire an attorney to tell you to resolve your issues. A good attorney may appear to be expensive, but in the long run good legal advise can be invaluable.

 

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Ducks, Deer and Wildlife Conservation in Alberta

 

On a recent hunting trip in Alberta, I was surprised to learn that in Alberta, the government does not permit land owners to lease hunting rights to other people, in other words the hunting rights cannot be segregated from the land and sold to somebody else on a periodic basis. However, my guide could hunt on any landowner’s property by gaining permission and, because the landowner had no way to generate income from hunting, the likelihood of getting permission was (unlike California) very good.

Some landowners would turn down requests for access because somebody had abused them in the past and others were apparently opposed to hunting. In some cases people just didn’t want outsiders on their property. However, many of the landowners where open to letting us hunt and I was able to see many great mule deer bucks on private farms. I failed to bag the trophy I was looking for – but that’s another story.

(Caption: This young four-point buck walked by within archery range, but I couldn’t use my tag on this one.)

It appears the lack of hunting leases works in favor of the blue-collar hunter who cannot afford to pay for access to land. However, I had to wonder if it wasn’t working against the wildlife. For example, if hunting leases were in place, the financial incentive would create motivation to improve or maximize wildlife habitat.

One of the main incentives for draining potholes and plowing every possible square foot of land is to maximize farm income. If, on the other hand, if farmers could generate income through hunting leases, the potholes and bush patches would be a source of revenue via the expansion of wildlife populations and hunting opportunity.

I recall this issue coming up at some point in the past when a waterfowl hunter explained to me why Ducks Unlimited invests so much money in protecting potholes on the Canadian prairie. DU works to encourage landowners to place conservation easements on the land and in some cases purchases conservation easements and develops potholes. After traveling in Alberta, the value of DU’s habitat work is much more clear to me.

One of the likely ways to overcome the lease issue would be for hunters to purchase Alberta ranches to gain the right to hunt and also improve the hunting conditions with habitat improvement. Unfortunately, non-citizens must have a guide while hunting big game in Alberta, limiting another avenue for wildlife habitat improvement.

When I mentioned this to my Outfitter in Alberta he suggested that there is a way to form a partnership between non-resident alien hunters and outfitters. Such as partnership might be one way to own land in Canada and create a way to hunt there on land that you improved for wildlife yourself. Although possible this type of arrangement would require a great deal of thought, legal research and expert council. I found out later, discussing this issue with an Alberta real estate agent, that hunting waterfowl and upland game does not require an outfitter and also that there are many ways to set up trusts so that non-resident aliens can enjoy the benefits of land ownership.

In the meantime I’ve heard stories about some great sounding waterfowl hunting trips to Canada at a reasonable price. Maybe next time I’ll try a combo trip – mule deer and ducks. For now, it looks like you don’t need to own land in Canada to go and have a great hunting experience.

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Cat Fight

The racket emanating from the quarter-mile away brush patch was drawing attention from flocks of crowing crows joining in the ruckus like a Las Vegas crowd at an Ali -Fraser boxing match, but the seats were free. Screaming and growling two big cats were having it out.

I stood by the ranch gate, a witness to something I’d heard before, but not at this magnitude. Two mountain lions were fighting like giant back-yard tomcats, but with more volume and power. They also have reasons to do more than just growl. Imagine your back yard catfight with the sounds moderated to the roar of a lion. And, as with your pet, these cats can go at it so viciously that it makes you feel like your hair is standing on end – and maybe it is.

This battle I’m speaking of took place at 9:00 AM on a sunny Saturday in May, almost two years ago. We were on our way to picnic, fish and shoot varmints at our ranch. I was driving my truck at the rear of a five or six truck caravan. The other vehicles had passed without noticing the battle.

As had been the case with my previous mountain lion screaming-roaring experiences, I never saw the cats, but there was no doubt about what it was.

I have watched bobcats having this type of encounter. While deer hunting a few years ago not very far from where the big cats fought, I observed a pair of bobcats approach each other cautiously about 50 yards away. They stalked towards each other slowly until they were face to face only a few inches apart. With backs hunched and back hair vertical, they began to growl, wine and moan making sounds similar to the big cats, but at a much higher pitch. The sound of cats fighting is unnerving.

Most people never hear or see a mountain lion, but these big cats live in our East Bay oak woodland, oak grassland and chaparral habitat in healthy numbers. We place trail cameras on our ranch to monitor wildlife activity and mountain lions are photographed regularly.

As long as we have healthy Columbia black-tailed deer populations, we’ll also have healthy mountain lion populations. Unfortunately for the cats, deer habitat is dwindling and the fate of the lions is tied to the deer. It seems ironical to me that our wildlife agencies have shifted much of their wildlife management efforts to protect endangered species without assurance that our large predators are included in the safety net.

More and more endangered species mitigation is taking place in and around urban areas where the habitat is fragmented and impacted by human activities. Too many agendas are being created and pursued in the wildlife arena and they conflict.

Habitat is much more effective for protecting wildlife, endangered or not, if it is maintained in large chunks with diverse qualities. It’s time to see the forest.

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