arrendale8105
Senior Member
This may be a long thread but as I've been working hard the last several months, then the conversation i had today kind of made me feel good and even more proud of what I've done which goes with my posts in the tree thread. I grew up working on a family farm. Instead of the normal and just taking over the family "business" i went out on my own after working the farm my whole life from age 11-21 (year 2001). My family encouraged me and of course wished for the best. In 2008 the opportunity to buy the place i currently live came up. It is a relatively small house and 30 acres and only a mile as the crow flies from my home farm. When i decided to buy it several family members tried to talk me out of it saying i should just let them "deed" me a couple acres and build a house however i refused as i wanted to do it all on my own and didn't want to be the guy that people say was given or inherited what they had. So i bought my place. Since then I've updated the place and built a shop and boat shelter. The actual house and pond is on 7 acres and the other 23 is ag field that my uncle farms. There is a 18 acre tract next to me that a guy owned that joined me but he lived in another county and this was the only tract that he owned here. I figured out who he was and got in touch with him about hunting it as my field doesn't quite get to the wood line. He told me that his nephew sometimes hunted it and that it would be fine if i did too but to let him know. Over the years I've gotten to know the nephew and have helped him recover may deer from the property. I cant even count how many deer I've seen over the years in my field and on that property also. Every year since i moved here i'd call him and ask him if he was ready to sell it to me and he'd just laugh, say no, and that our arrangements would stay the same. A couple years ago my uncle who farms my field told me that although he liked farming the field but that the way i am about hunting that maybe i should look into one of the pine tree programs. I told him that if i was ever able to buy the other tact that i would do it and plant my current field in pines and keep the other tract the same and plant it in a large food plot. The other tract is 4 acres of field and 16 acres of hardwoods with a creek in it. Here"s where it gets interesting. I did sign up for the long leaf crp program a couple years ago and they said that they'd get with me if any availability came up in my county. Last year in September i made my usual call and found out that the land owner had passed so i left it alone. I never could get in touch with the nephew nor saw him during the season. In November i got a call from the widow of the land owner that passed and she told me that the land was for sale and that someone had made her an offer that she thought was a low ball and she declined it and then found out what had been going on between me and her husband every year since 2008 from their nephew (she never knew about it). She offered the land to him first but he could not afford it and after she declined the other offer the nephew asked her about me. She would not tell me the other offer so i told her i'd have my timber guy check it out and get back with her. Afterwards i made her an offer. She promptly told me that although it was a lot more than the previous offer it was still a long ways from the appraisal she supposedly got. After her telling me what her appraisal was i politely told her if someone made her that offer she better jump all over it and that i wanted that appraiser to do all my stuff from here on out as the land is bottom land not worth anything but growing trees and hunting and my timber guy said the timber may be worth $10,000 if i cut it which i don"t want to do. One week later she called me back and accepted my offer and 2 weeks later i closed on it. One week after that i got the call that i was accepted in the long leaf CRP program. I signed on the line so after this year of ag it will set out a year and then be planted in long leaf pines and i will be reimbursed the planting cost and also get more in land rent for the trees than what I'm getting for ag from my uncle. So now i have 16 acres of hardwoods with a creek, 4 acres of rr ready forage beans and i planted my first set of trees on it. On top of that i also have been working on the family farm and have cleaned up a 1 acre plot that will be hit with a pivot irrigation this summer and planted 60 trees out there as well. While i was riding and checking everything today my uncle stopped and we spoke and he told me how excited he was that i was doing so much improving the farm since half of it is technically mine anyways he said he would providing all the chemicals to help keep it cleaned up around the trees since he gets a better price through his rep. Not to mention I've been using his bulldozer along with my skid steer and mulcher to clean up stuff. I guess i'm officially getting old now as he said as my priorities have definitely changed. As I've aged, now married with 2 kids i still love to hunt as much or more as before but i get the satisfaction of helping improve the land also for my kids and maybe one day my grand kids as my grand parents and parents have done for me. Also i killed my only two turkeys this year at my own house on the property i just bought lol.
First pic the blue shade is the field that is going to be planted in pines. the blue dot is my house. The tract on the left is the one i just bought.
Second pic is the tract i just bought. I killed the two turkeys this year in the bottom left hand part of the field right next to the woods
Third pic is a quick shot of the food plot i planted with rr ready forage beans in my back corner at my house
Fourth pic is the acre plot i cleaned up back at the family farm
Fifth pic. The line bottom left of the black blob is where i cleaned up and planted two rows of trees on either side of an existing creek. The two red lines on the right side of the pic are my original food plots in the planted pines
Sixth pic is of the newly cleaned up plot. I planted RR ready forage beans as to make it easier for me to control the weeds to start with.
I am extremely proud and excited on the years to come hunting for me and my family. The enjoyement of my days now are to load up the family and ride, check cameras, and check feeders as i am truly blessed.
First pic the blue shade is the field that is going to be planted in pines. the blue dot is my house. The tract on the left is the one i just bought.
Second pic is the tract i just bought. I killed the two turkeys this year in the bottom left hand part of the field right next to the woods
Third pic is a quick shot of the food plot i planted with rr ready forage beans in my back corner at my house
Fourth pic is the acre plot i cleaned up back at the family farm
Fifth pic. The line bottom left of the black blob is where i cleaned up and planted two rows of trees on either side of an existing creek. The two red lines on the right side of the pic are my original food plots in the planted pines
Sixth pic is of the newly cleaned up plot. I planted RR ready forage beans as to make it easier for me to control the weeds to start with.
I am extremely proud and excited on the years to come hunting for me and my family. The enjoyement of my days now are to load up the family and ride, check cameras, and check feeders as i am truly blessed.
