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Pushing the mowing back a few weeks will save some fawns.

Hay is ready to cut. But way too wet to get in the fields!

Happy Belated Birthday!

I’m aiming to get my first planting of sweetcorn in today. Up till now, we’ve had low temps in the 40’s, which is a no-go for corn, regardless of how much it rains. Hopefully, I can find a spot dry enough to plant, somewhere in the “higher” 1/2 acre that I’ve got plowed and disked one time. I’ll try going over it a couple more times with the disk this afternoon, then cultimulch, then plant the driest half of it. (2/3 72 day, 1/3 92 day sweetcorn). Near the end of June, I’ll plant the other half 1/3 72 day, 2/3 92 day). The primary reason that I put in the sweetcorn, is to draw out as many local coons as possible, so that I can trap and kill them before they put much hurt on my fieldcorn. I plant that fieldcorn only to keep deer (which provides the bulk of our family’s protein) on my ground thru December. We do harvest and freeze what sweetcorn the coons don’t get, plus give plenty away to family friends and neighbors. The coyotes have helped me out considerably on the coon control in recent years. They usually exhume the carcasses of the big male coons (mostly all that I’ve caught in my box and dog proof traps the last couple years) within a day or two and handle most of the female and juvenile coon harvest themselves. NY state allows landowners or lessees to trap and kill unlimited number of “damaging” coons without license or permit of any kind, however they need to be burried or burned prior to the opening of trapping/hunting season, in mid October. The furs are virtually worthless, so after trapping/hunting season opens, I just toss them out on the fields to feed the buzzards. Besides allowing the corn to go much further, eradication of the local coon population pays big dividends to the wild turkeys, as the raccoon is likely the top turkey nest predator. The state does not specify how deep to bury the carcasses. It doesn’t seem to matter how deep I go, the coyotes almost always find them and dig them up. As long as I can get a little dirt over the top of the carcass, that deep enough for me. Nothing attracts the racoons better than not quite ripe sweetcorn. They will usually start to hit it soon after it starts making eats. As soon as I see the slightest “damage” in the form of a nibbled or torn open ear, I’ll move in with the traps. The early catch, near the earliest sweetcorn, is always the heaviest. I bait my dog proof traps with dry cat food, and my boxes with peanut butter coated marshmellows. No furbearer is easier to trap than the coon. They can also be taken with a # 1-1/2 or 2 foothold trap, by covering the pan with tinfoil and placing it under shallow water. It’s rare that I get enough corn to eat any of it from my first early corn planting, since the coons get so much of it. Me and the coyotes usually catch up with them by the time my second third and forth plantings get ripe though. That works out good, because that later 92 day silver queen sweetcorn is my favorite for freezing.

Happy Birthday !

Beautiful night for thermal and the 1280 res S60R didn't disappoint. Ordered some HP pellets to try out next week for more explosive results. This mus gave me the slip a couple of times and thought I was shooting blanks. SJC

Have a wonderful day!!!!

My Farmer planted two weeks ago. In fact most fields around me are planted. Looks like this week coming up things will dry out. My trails and field areas I mow are all so long its going to be a bitch to do and when I can do it. Just too wet to drive ag tires on it.

Cold and rainy again! Driving around northern Livingstin county I can't believe all the fields that have not been touched yet. Robby

Happy Birthday Hock3y24! Have a great day!

Good advice!!