All right, buddy, I need you to watch over the
farm.
I got a mission that's out there,
so I'm on a little bit of a mission today.
I'm going deep into our forest
because I want to set up some brand new trail
cameras that I got so I can see sort of
the wildlife activity.
I just ordered a couple of new trail cameras
and I'm really excited about them because they're actually solar
powered,
so they should be able to last out here in
the middle of nowhere much longer than
like your usual camera. So I figured I'd bring you
guys along with me for the ride today.
Did you look at that?
That looks like some bear scat right there.
I think that that's some really old coyote scat right
over there too.
I think this might be actually the best spot to
drop my first camera.
I've got a Creek down over there.
Like I said, I saw some bear scat over there.
I got coyote scat right here
and I got the fence in the farm right back
there.
So you can actually see our trees if you zoom
way in over there.
So I think this tree might just be right.
There we go. We got our first camera added.
Now, I have always found that when you hide cameras
like this,
it's important to mark off the exact spot where you
put it.
One time a couple years back,
I actually lost a trail camera because I set it
up here and I went back to Washington,
DC for like a couple of months and I came
back to check on the camera
and I kind of remembered where I put it,
but I never actually found it.
So I think one day I might find like a
camera like that sort of embedded into a tree somewhere
when I'm an old man and I'll have to check
out that SD card.
I'm gonna drop a pin
trail camera, even like to take a photo,
write some notes.
And now I have a record of it right about
here.
OK. And onward we go into the forest.
Really is kind of remarkable walking in here.
This is one of the rare times a year
where it's not bad to come out here because it's
not too buggy it's not too snowy,
it's not too thick with weeds.
It's like just the right time to explore and Speaking
of explore,
so there's a couple of these scattered around our farm.
They're like ancient garbage dumps for the farm like this
canister.
I don't even know what this is like a stove
of some sort.
It's been here forever. At some point,
I should probably bring the necessary
apparatus to try to reclaim it,
but this thing is heavy as all heck.
I also kind of like it,
though, sort of a marker of ancient history.
You know, as you look around at the trees in
this part of the farm,
you know, they're not that old.
Like, the oldest ones around here are,
like, a hundred, 120 years old.
That's because there was a time when most of Vermont
was actually clear cut.
Yeah. Back in the 1800s.
They just entirely clear cut the state and
they did it with the intention of raising sheep.
And they did that for many years.
But there's a lot of land here in Vermont that's
just basically marginal pasture.
Like if you look where I am right now,
you can see that it's really swampy.
And so because of that,
as they focused on dairy at our farm,
they probably just gave up on this land and let
it grow in.
Oh, here's another cool thing I wanted to show you
guys.
You see this,
it's ancient farming equipment,
like it's some sort of plow.
But gotta admit, I've never even seen a plow like
this before.
I mean, it's been here for years and years and
years.
Like you can see where like it had some spikes
for maybe aerating and something for telling maybe here's another
example,
some old farm garbage. I
think that's the remains of a
stove of some sort. You know,
from the best I can understand,
our farm was established in the 1830s.
You know, you think back then,
there was no town dump.
There was no waste removal service.
They burned most of what they had,
but some of the older things,
like metal scraps like this,
would just come out to an unused part of the
pasture and they'd leave it there.
I'd actually be very curious to see what I could
unearth out here someday with like,
a metal detector of some sort.
Then every so often in the middle of the forest,
you come to another clearing,
see more animal scat. I'm not even sure what that
is.
Maybe an old bear poop.
This is probably another really good spot to drop a
camera.
So let's
find a good tree
now. This should be a pretty good spot for the
camera,
right? I got this nice little marsh.
I got the Creek over there.
I got good sun exposure for the solar charger part.
I often find that I get the most animal activity
when like open space meets with forest.
And this spot right here is a very interesting pocket
because
it's super marshy. Like you can see it.
Look at that. I mean,
I even have cat tails
growing here to a certain extent.
So that's sort of why this will never make great
pasture in this part of the farm,
but it makes great wildlife habitat.
And it's because of that I'm very thankful to have
it.
It always strikes me as really funny,
the artificial nature of making YouTube videos
and being out in a natural place like this.
Like that shot there where you just see me walking
across the stream.
I actually had to walk across the stream,
put the camera down, walk back over the stream,
and then walk again. It's very artificial,
but I don't know. That's what happens when you make
YouTube videos,
I guess.
OK, look at that. So you can look at this
one,
right? That's some, definitely some coyote scat.
A lot of hair fur in this one.
If I had to guess,
I bet it was like a coyote eating,
like a dead deer or something.
Yeah. The more I get
into being out here in the woods,
the more I find I spend a lot of time
looking at poop.
Such as the life of a farmer,
I guess.
Speak of the devil. Here's some more poop.
Oh,
here's another good find. It's
a gold bone.
Looks like somebody's even gotten in there.
Eating out most of the marrow.
That's something, Yeah. I find a lot of weird bones
out here around the farm.
I don't even know what that is.
I guess it's probably some sort of deer bone.
It almost looks a little too big and heavy to
be a deer bone.
Maybe a moose. A
little clearing spot. Dude,
it's actually a very hot day today.
It's about 70°, but I'm wearing my thick,
long clothing
just so I can get through brambles like that.
Of course, it's got me sweating like you wouldn't believe.
I guess you could believe because you can see it.
It's interesting to me how the mood of the entire
forest seems to change depending on the types of trees
that are around.
You know, down when I was over by the cedar
swamp,
putting up that first camera,
it had a vibe. Then as I got into some
of our hardwoods,
it had another feeling. And now I'm in,
like, this area filled with Pines
because you look at the ground,
it feels different to walk on.
Everything sounds different. It's
pretty cool.
See some sort of little animal Burrow right down there?
Yeah. These thorns can't defeat my
pants. That's good.
Be miserable. If I was wearing something like a
if you rip the shreds.
So you can see here,
we're now coming towards the back barrier of our property.
It's our neighbor's land pretty much on the other side
of that Creek.
Oh no.
Well, that's brand new damage.
So my neighbor lives over there.
He built this bridge. I don't know,
back in like the 1960s.
He even had like a nice little chain suspension rope.
You
can actually see it here now.
The last time I was back here was probably,
I don't know, October ish.
This wasn't like this. But unfortunately,
these trees just came down over the winter.
You
can see, I mean, right on the Bank of the
brook.
You just took out the bridge.
They sort of took out the bridge.
There was still something I wanted to show you guys
back over there,
so I got to figure out a way to get
across here.
I don't know if I feel comfortable trying to walk
across this bridge.
I'm going to scamper across these rocks.
If I fall here, I only get a little wet.
If I fall there, I can get a lot of
wet.
I
want to get a photo of this.
Next time I see my neighbor Fran,
I'm going to show it to him.
He's in his 80s now,
so he doesn't get out much to these parts,
but I'm sure he'd care.
Here you go.
Another boundary marker for my farm.
So that direction is neighbors.
That direction is us. Here's another old junk pile.
I don't know if this is from our farm
or a neighbouring farm. Has whoever put this here?
Probably as long as since gone.
I mean you can see
ancient SAP buckets, metal roofing,
a can, some old tires.
At some point somebody was probably using this as target
practice.
See all the bullet holes?
This is like the southwest corner of our property.
My neighbour's property starts back here.
Our property goes way way out there,
so I don't know which farm this came from,
but long since gone.
More bullet holes from target practice.
That looks like a daggone Vermont postcard right there.
Here's another classic property marker right over here.
See that?
So like I was telling you earlier,
back when Vermont was clear cut for sheep,
Stonewall fences like this were actually used
as property markers and as a way to keep the
sheep in place.
And actually, when I talk about wanting to free up
some forest for pasture,
this area out here is definitely what I'm thinking about
when it comes to good future pasture opportunity.
Now, that's not to say I will clear cut the
whole thing,
but by thinning it out,
it gives some of these trees a better chance to
grow.
And it creates an opportunity for me to see this
and have animals grazing again.
You know, we humans have a remarkable propensity to create
trash.
Oh, wow. And Speaking of which,
I wanted to show you guys this one.
This is cool.
An old, old farm truck.
I don't know if anybody has any guesses on the
make or model
or even the age.
My guess is kind of like,
I don't know, the 40s or so
is when it was made and
then who knows when it was put here.
But yeah, some old farmer probably had this old truck
and was like,
I don't know what to do with it anymore
and just tossed it out here
and it has stayed ever since.
I mean, it's been here longer than these trees were
here.
I will admit, I'm a little surprised that they pushed
it all the way up against the brook.
By the time that they were getting rid of it,
I'm sure they were sick of it and just wanted
it to be there.
But it's quite the ancient relic if you ask me.
It's sort of like an old time capsule.
Got a little wet there.
Luckily got waterproof boots on them.
There was this one point where I wanted to jump
across that rock over to there and I
sort of chickened out. Like I had this picture of
myself doing like crazy parkour,
parkour, but then the thought of me landing wrong and
blowing out my knee sort of had me approach it
differently.
Those are the decisions you make when you get older.
Now some of you might be wondering why didn't I
take Toby Dog with me on this little hike?
And well, the answer is I didn't want to bring
him out here because I didn't think he'd like it
very much.
At this point, Toby gets really anxious
when he's too far away from his farm,
so he'd only probably want to walk about 100 yards
before he wants to turn back.
When he was so puppy I would take him on
walks all the time.
But I think now that he's matured to be the
master of the farm,
he just doesn't like it.
So the stones are the ancient way that they would
keep their animals in place and then the barbed wire
is like
the semi modern way that they'd keep their animals in
place.
One of my big projects this summer is going to
be
actually putting in a perimeter fence around our pasture.
And when I do that,
I'll be doing something even newer than this ancient barbed
wire.
I sure hope it lasts just as long.
You know how I was saying that most of the
trees were clear cut?
Every once in a while you find a giant that's
been here for centuries.
That right there is one heck of a pine tree.
There's actually a couple good Pines in this spot.
There's that one too. Trees like that are becoming very
valuable these days with the way lumber prices are going.
So at this point, you can tell we're on like
an old logging trail.
Like you can even see like
ancient tire grooves way back there.
I'm a little ways off from being able to do
a timber harvest myself here,
and I really want to be selective,
love to leave some of these old giants as long
as I possibly can.
But I know that eventually with time,
they all end up falling down.
So you know, there's a value in harvesting them,
and it can bring money to the farm too.
So you got to sort of strike a balance in
terms of how you think about your
timbering activity. But actually, this is another area where I
ultimately want to turn it into silvo pasture.
The soil's a little bit acidic over here,
but it'd be fine for pasture,
and it would be great for being able to
have more animals on the farm if my whole
growth and expansion plan builds up.
Those right there, coyote tracks.
They look pretty fresh. And now we're back in the
pasture,
or at least the edges of the pasture.
When I talk about clearing out
a portion of the pasture to free up for more
grazing,
this is definitely a spot
in the fall after I did my goose harvest,
this is actually where I dumped the remains of
the goose harvest. The little feathers.
More old feathers. Pretty much right over here.
It looks like somebody exploded a pillow factory.
I still haven't been able to figure out a way
to use the feathers for good.
Just use it as fertilizer at this point.
See, now it's going from super overgrown
to probably grazable land. I actually think I want to
drop one more trail camera right down here.
There's some old apple trees that are right over here
that always attract wildlife.
What in the world is that?
You can see that patch of green over there.
It's like some sort of tarp.
I'm not sure what it is.
I don't have that. It's an old bench.
I wonder if somebody put it there as like a
hunting stand because this is a pretty good spot
to sit and wait for animals.
Mice have been using this as a nest,
that's for sure.
It's definitely started to rot through.
I wonder who Tim is.
I've actually been tracking the genealogical records of the Shaw
family,
the folks who owned this place,
for quite some time before we did,
and to the best of my knowledge,
there were no Shaws named Tim.
Our farm was abandoned for quite some time,
and so the idea that people were out here hunting
is not shocking.
You got the logging road right over there.
Wow, that's crazy, though. It's been sitting there and I
never knew that that existed.
The more and more I get into the farm,
the more and more I love learning about everything about
the land.
I'm realizing that the farm isn't just like the farm
proper.
It's the pasture, it's the forest,
it's the plants, it's the animals,
it's everything working together, including even the history.
At some point this summer,
I'll probably come out here and bring a friend and
we'll carry this back to the farm.
But we're pretty far out and I don't feel like
lugging it all the way back to the farm by
myself.
So stay tuned and I'll probably bring it back to
the farm and use it somewhere around there.