Land Rehab Advice

[Hammsolo]

This video is super inspiring!

Fools and Dreamers: Regenerating a Native Forest

 

[Hammsolo]

It’ll be slow and steady, but we’re up for it. I’ll do my best to start sharing more information and photographs. Last year, in one day of hunting we saw elk, mule deer, whitetails and there are loads of moose.

I do have a battle ahead with a particular azzhole. He stole my neighbors generator, the batteries from a cell tower in the area, and is a notorious poacher. My neighbor used his avenues to get him arrested on the first two, but couldn’t connect him to the poaching last year. The four carcasses were on our land, and only had the tenderloins, backstraps and heads take….

I will not respond kindly.

 

[ZombieDog]

I second the notion of contacting and working with your local NRCS office and conservation district. I used to work as a soil conservationist and working with land owners to write comprehensive management plans and finding cost share opportunities to implement those actions is what we did and for most the favorite part of our job. Depending on your goals and what Farmbill programs you qualify for you may be able to get some help in controlling noxious weeds, improving wildlife habitat and protecting wetlands. There are also opportunities through the NRCS to put the land under a conservation easement where they’ll help restore it and keep it from being developed in perpetuity, while you still get to keep enjoying and recreating on it, usually a win win situation. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in that world but definitely worth dropping by the local NRCS office to have a chat. Good luck!

 

[Salmonchaser]

We borrowed a couple of signs from a military installation, no entry small arms impact area.
Your ground appears to be very similar to ours, should be on about a 25 year burn cycle. I would guess it's been a lot longer than that. Might consider prescribed burning.
I would thin your pines out some. We hate to do it but have learned the fill in quickly.
These are 30 years old, use to be a hay pasture. The creek is very thick brush, if it grows in Eastern Oregon it's in there. The other side of the creek is thinned wood lot, a meadow and then a little more thinned timber. 200 yards east, direction of the photo, is a five acre square of younger pine, 15 to 20 years old. Leaving that for now at 10 foot spacing with low limbs, winter shelter belt.
We have meadows/pasture mixed in with only one 90 degree corner on on pasture. We pasture two horses year round and this year we've three steers for three months. We use high intensity low duration grazing. Helps with weed control, and fire danger.
You have a beautiful place there, it'll take time but you'll always have something to do.

 

[Hammsolo]

I second the notion of contacting and working with your local NRCS office and conservation district. I used to work as a soil conservationist and working with land owners to write comprehensive management plans and finding cost share opportunities to implement those actions is what we did and for most the favorite part of our job. Depending on your goals and what Farmbill programs you qualify for you may be able to get some help in controlling noxious weeds, improving wildlife habitat and protecting wetlands. There are also opportunities through the NRCS to put the land under a conservation easement where they’ll help restore it and keep it from being developed in perpetuity, while you still get to keep enjoying and recreating on it, usually a win win situation. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in that world but definitely worth dropping by the local NRCS office to have a chat. Good luck!

More solid info, and I thought we were a bunch of meatheads. I‘ve seen a few waterfowl buzzing through. The grouse are thick, @Big Fin would go nuts. We want it protected in perpetuity.

 

[Hammsolo]

We borrowed a couple of signs from a military installation, no entry small arms impact area.
Your ground appears to be very similar to ours, should be on about a 25 year burn cycle. I would guess it's been a lot longer than that. Might consider prescribed burning.
I would thin your pines out some. We hate to do it but have learned the fill in quickly.
These are 30 years old, use to be a hay pasture. The creek is very thick brush, if it grows in Eastern Oregon it's in there. The other side of the creek is thinned wood lot, a meadow and then a little more thinned timber. 200 yards east, direction of the photo, is a five acre square of younger pine, 15 to 20 years old. Leaving that for now at 10 foot spacing with low limbs, winter shelter belt.
We have meadows/pasture mixed in with only one 90 degree corner on on pasture. We pasture two horses year round and this year we've three steers for three months. We use high intensity low duration grazing. Helps with weed control, and fire danger.
You have a beautiful place there, it'll take time but you'll always have something to do.

Thanks for the inspiration. I’ve only found a few pieces of evidence of burns, and I agree on the prescribed burns. I am going to lean on any expertise I can find.

 

[Gellar]

Thanks for the tips! Sweat equity?

Absolutely!

 

[hank4elk]

Cool deal!

 

[Salmonchaser]

Fair warning, just when you think you have it done, you'll be working harder. The privacy fence is because we had a bunch of dead stuff along the creek, close to the house. The fence is 200 yards from the road and it's near 300 to the near neighbors. She didn't like seeing headlights after I hand piled and burned all the dead stuff. Built the fence last summer, things grew back and now you can't see the fence from the road

 

[BackofBeyond]

Fair warning, just when you think you have it done, you'll be working harder. The privacy fence is because we had a bunch of dead stuff along the creek, close to the house. The fence is 200 yards from the road and it's near 300 to the near neighbors. She didn't like seeing headlights after I hand piled and burned all the dead stuff. Built the fence last summer, things grew back and now you can't see the fence from the road

but it's a good looking fence.

 

[timberman56]

google "conservation easement'' if you want it protected 'in perpetuity'

 

[LuketheDog]

My wife and I recently purchased 40 of heaven in Montana about 25 minutes off of my hometown, Anaconda. This was a huge blessing due to the fact that I purchased it for pennies on the dollar from my Mom’s friend, with the agreement we would conserve and improve the land for native species. It is a dream setting.

The land sits at the very end of a two track leading into huge expanses of public land. It is primarily the lower area of a bowl filled with a large creek, beaver ponds, and riparian habitat. There are loads of aspen groves and fields, but there are lots of noxious weeds to deal with.

Our goal is to make our land prime habitat. We also are in contact with like minded neighbors, all 40 acre parcels or larger, and dream of getting them all on the same page. I am in contact with RMEF, and local government groups about weed control. I also want to support the rehabilitation of the adjoining public land. I am open to any and all ideas. Who could support this? What should we do? Tips, tricks, strategies? I am looking into bugs, sprays, prescribed burns… The aspen grows are in okay shape. There are loads of standing dead, and blow down.

This land will continue on after us also. We will do what it takes legally to make sure it is never subdivided, or developed. We will be building a cabin and small shop in a quite hidden location. There is a spot overlooking the bottom of the bowl that is tempting, but that wouldn’t walk the talk.

Beautiful piece of land!

 

[MThuntr]

The forested Ecological site descriptions for the area are tragically incomplete...my bad...we spend so much time outside of that area (just got back from our primary work in the Salmon Challis) I don't have them drafted. Based on web soil survey you might be able to pull a report call Montana Habitat Type (forest service) that will have some descriptions of potential.

NRCS has an office in Deer Lodge if you want to talk programs and money...I'm the guy in Dillon Soil Survey who is supposed to have the technical stuff done so the offices can interpret on the ground conditions on how to apply those programs but I'm way behind.

 

[junkie]

Be careful of conservation easements. You lose full control over what you can do or plant on your property. You still own and it can’t be developed for houses like you want but changing the structure and plants is a process

 

[Hammsolo]

The forested Ecological site descriptions for the area are tragically incomplete...my bad...we spend so much time outside of that area (just got back from our primary work in the Salmon Challis) I don't have them drafted. Based on web soil survey you might be able to pull a report call Montana Habitat Type (forest service) that will have some descriptions of potential.

NRCS has an office in Deer Lodge if you want to talk programs and money...I'm the guy in Dillon Soil Survey who is supposed to have the technical stuff done so the offices can interpret on the ground conditions on how to apply those programs but I'm way behind.

You sound very busy. I am prepared to do the necessary work and apply the necessary resources to make this happen.

 

[Hammsolo]

Be careful of conservation easements. You lose full control over what you can do or plant on your property. You still own and it can’t be developed for houses like you want but changing the structure and plants is a process

Timing.

 

[kansasdad]

Use your OnX / Gohunt to mark where you are taking your historical photos, and note what zoom your camera is set at as you take these photos. And maybe even flag those locations for future locator help. Getting the same location/camera settings will really help you reproduce the view and help you see the seasonally relatively small results that will show large changes over time.

Good on you for involving the neighbors, and a pox on your one cretinous poacher neighbor.

 

[Straight Arrow]

Be careful of conservation easements. You lose full control over what you can do or plant on your property. You still own and it can’t be developed for houses like you want but changing the structure and plants is a process

Generally conservation easements aren't available for small tracts under half a section, unless to protect from development of some very special place.
You don't lose control of anything because you negotiate and agree to the terms and conditions of the easement. However, you are wise to seriously consider longterm impacts of those terms because typically the easement is for "perpetuity". You only lose "control" of that which you agree to lose "control".

 

[Hammsolo]

A sea of knapweed on “the point,” a sick tree, and weeds to identify. Thoughts?

 

[kwyeewyk]

3rd pic maybe some kind of toadflax? 4th maybe American winter cress (a native)? 5th maybe curly dock? 6th looks like Canada thistle.