Buffalo Dan's Bison

Lespedeza cuneata up close.  It's currently on the verge of flowering which is the right time to strike.  Lespedeza cuneata is an invasive species from Asia and Austrailia that can now be found in much of the eastern US and Canada.  When young it can be mowed for hay or grazed, but, as it grows older, it develops of tough coarse stems that animals avoid.  Although I have found evidence of the bison eating the young plants in small amounts (I've also found evidence of one trying to eat an old shotgun shell), they seem to almost exclusively eat grass.  This has led to an unfortunate imbalance in parts of our pasture in which, free of any competing grasses, the Lespedeza forms dense stands that shade out the remaining grasses. One of the stands of Lespedeza in our high pasture before To combat this issue I purchased a used sickle bar mower and layed waste to the stands of Lespedeza. Afterwards.  With the Lespedeza cut back the grasses should now have a fighting ch

Before I left my previous job a few people had suggested that I start posting a Bison Joke each week to help broaden my audience.  I agreed that it sounded like good idea, but stated that I'd only ever heard one bison joke in my whole life:          Q: What did the buffalo say to his son as he left for college?      A: Bi-son. This bison joke has been told to me by several people and it's popular online, so I'm not sure who should get the credit for it. If anyone out there has a different bison/buffalo joke that they would like me to add to the blog please feel free to submit the joke in the "Bison Joke Submission Form" on the right side of this blog.  Please be aware that I am trying to keep this blog as G-Rated as possible, so no dirty, racial, or slanderous jokes.  

The ACR ResQLink, purchased at REI for $289. Because I'm often alone and the ranch is very isolated, Jess has pursuaded me to purchase an emergency rescue beacon.  About half of the ranch has cell phone reception, but Jess was worried about a scenario in which I was severely injured in a location without reception and unable to move to a location with reception.  We did a lot of research and decided to go with the highly rated ACR ResQLink, which I will carry with me on an arm band.  Frankly, I would recommend it for anyone operating in an isolated location.  Hopefully I'll never need to use it.   To ready the device all you do is unhook the wrap-around antenna, which then swings up revealing the activation button.  Once you press that button, you pass the point of no return.  An emergency signal is transmitted and your nearest SAR team is mobilized.  You can only use these devices in the case of a truely life or death emergency in which you are unable to contact emerge

The other day I tried out a Stihl tri-blade brush knife on my brush cutter.  It looks not unlike a giant throwing star and did a good job on a patch of tough-stemed Lespedeza that was taking over parts of the pasture (below).  The brush knife is good for wide open areas, but for areas with more fragile infrastructure, such as the fencing below, I still use the plastic PolyCut mowing head.   On a different note, I've installed a 10 gallon water pressure system, which has been immensely helpful for showering, washing dishes, etc.  The apparatus, which I'll admit does look like some kind of postmodernist rendition of a guillotine, consists of a welded steel box with a garden hose attached that can be raised and lowered on a pulley.  This allows me to fill the box with rain water and then raise it to create pressure in the hose. 

Now that I'm full-time ranching, I've been working towards two major priorities: 1) finishing the perminant fencing around the entire property, and 2) expanding the pasture.  Thanks to the tractor, the first goal shouldn't be a problem.  With the front end loader I can clear trees from about 1,000 feet of fenceline a day and the auger makes post installation relatively easy.  However, my second objective is a little more difficult.  In the above image you can see the western edge of our upper pasture currently fenced in with high-tensile electric fencing.  You can also see a portion of a thirty acre section largely covered in saplings (the red line represents the property boundary).  Using the tractor to clear this is a daunting task.  I made a stab at it the other day which you can see in to image below.  That was a whole day's work, so I bet you can guess what I'll spending much of my time doing for the next month or so. 

A photograph taken in early spring showing one of the many holes punched trough briars by the bison.  If you've ever startled white-tailed deer while walking through a forest, you're familiar with their graceful bounding.  Typically they will dodge and duck around each tree branch with their slender bodies making little noise and, if you're not careful, you may miss them altogether.  Now imagine the exact opposite and that would be a bison.  Like some wooly juggernaut with horns the bison walk or run through briars, brush and small trees like they don't exist.  Often, when the bison decide to cross between pastures the crashing of brush and breaking of branches is loud enough to be heard 50 yards away in our camper. Sometimes, when they emerge from the forest, vines and branches will stay tangled in their fur.  I once saw a bison dragging a 30 foot long briar vine.  When this happends they don't seem to care much and it eventually just falls off.