Buffalo Dan's Bison

One man's quest to ranch American bison in Virginia.

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Adding a Raspberry Pi weather station

on October 04, 2018

ranching technology

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Front-end loader mounted t-post installer

Since we started fencing the perimeter of our ranch in 2014, I've strove to increase the rate at which I am able to fence an area. Among the most recent improvements has been a t-post pusher which is mounted to our tractor's front-end loader bucket. This device is very simple, but has already saved us countless hours of work. The following photographs illustrate how I use the post pusher. Aiming: The loader is first positioned with the end of the pusher is close to the ground. I then maneuver the tractor until the end of the pusher is in alignment with the marked post location. This is how the lined up pusher looks from the driver's seat of the tractor. Yes, I know the loader has an issue with the hydraulics cover. Loading: Once the pusher is aligned, I place the tractor in park, raise the loader arm and insert a t-post into the open end of the pusher. Tilting: Correct placement of the t-post is dependent al...

DIY cultipacker-roller

For those of you who are unfamiliar with agricultural equipment, a cultipacker is an implement used to compress soil. There are several reasons a farmer may use a cultipacker, but, for me, the primary purpose for the cultipacker is to pack down soil that has just been planted with grass seed. This should greatly improve seed germination in newly planted bison pasture. Five truck tire rims welded together form the shape of the cultipacker. Technically this is really more of a cultipacker-roller hybrid as the ridged portions on the roller should be more closely spaced on a true cultipacker. A thick piece of steel tube runs through the center of the rims, which I'll explain later in this post. For added weight each tire rim was filled with concrete after it was welded in place. A photograph of the roller portion of the cultipacker completed and waiting for the concrete to cure. The length of steel tube that runs through the center of the...

Mapping hay deployments

As I mentioned in a previous post, I work with GIS (digital maps) professionally. As a result, I have used GIS technology to map just about anything I can think of on the ranch. I've precisely mapped every fence line, post, gate, waterline, road, stream, water tank, shipping container, and corral panel on the ranch. This comes in very useful when I want to get an exact measurement of a gate, the number and type of fence posts in a given area, the size of a pasture, or where I buried a water line. I have not only recorded were something is, but often when it happened. If mowed an area, for instance, I'll record the area I mowed and when I mowed it. The above map shows some areas I've mowed recently. That comes in very useful later when I examine the location for the quality of the grow back. Doing this systematically can help me pinpoint the best times to mow a specific area in the future. One thing that I have...

Restoring Native Plants

This summer I had loggers come out to the farm to clear about 20 acres of loblolly pines. Now that the land is cleared I intend to restore the native ecosystem. Based upon the native species I have idenified on my farm and in the immediate vicinity, I believe this was a piedmont oak savanna. The primary grasses included indian grass, purple top, little bluestem, big bluestem, split beard bluestem, and broom sedge. Legumes include partridge pea and round-head bush clover. Flowers are many, but I am particularly interested in the Maryland Golden aster and milkweed. As a part of this restoration effort I have collected as many of these seeds as I've been able to and planted them in a quarter acre section of the 20 acres I wish to restore. This quarter acre will be fenced off from the bison and allowed to grow up and serve as the seed source for the eventual restoration of the remaining 19.75 acres. Gathering the seeds has been a consuming task to t...

I am amazed at how many people read this blog

Google, the owner of Blogger, has this option where you can see general information on how much people read your blog. It's nothing super specific, just things like the general location of visitors and the amount of time they spend actively reading the site. What amazes me is how much time people spend reading my blog. In the past month people from the United States collectively spent more than 11 hours and 30 minutes reading my blog. Canada spent over 1 hour, Australia 10 minutes and France 5 minutes. Can that be right? What could be that compelling? I strongly suspect that Google statistics are just BS, but who knows.