80AcresOnline

For those new to our project (those who haven’t already read about it on my other blogs, where posts about the land are mixed in with other topics)  here’s a quick overview.

We live on the edge of a small town (literally on the edge–the city limits cuts through our house.)   For twenty-two years, the field north of our back garden was someone’s cow pasture, leased to various people, some better managers than others.  When it came up for sale, we were in a rare flush period, and bought it (well, we and the bank bought it…)  because we’d  always hoped it would stay undeveloped.  The original field had one corner occupied by a construction company (they have about 10 acres, I think) and a house and yard occupies another half acre.

When we bought it, the person then leasing it was not the best manager…he leased both it and an adjoining, larger place, but overstocked them.   Overgrazing had taken its toll; in places, the only vegetation left was what cattle wouldn’t eat, and the nubs were separated by several feet of bare dirt.  Dirt that eroded rapidly in every rain.

It’s basically a long skinny rectangle with the long axis roughly east-west, with a notch cut out of one corner of the highway frontage, where the construction company yards are.   About three-quarters of the way to the far end, a seasonal creek (dry all year this year) cuts across it, north to south.   About ten acres of riparian woods borders the creek and one tiny tributary.  Another nine to ten acres of brush tops a low rocky knoll along the north (higher) long side.   Originally, it was tall-grass prairie (historical data plus the evidence of old-prairie plants still remnant here and there) but the grass land had been used for cotton first, then corn, then grazing, with some terracing and the planting of “improved” non-native pasture grass and (by one of the earlier managers) winter oats for forage.   The original drainage of the main grassland was temporarily changed by a ditch (probably at the time of terracing) leading water from a highway culvert to the south fenceline; years  of neglect and trampling by cattle allowed a more natural alternate drainage to form again, but highway runoff dominates that end of the place, including copious runoff from the construction company–turbid with roadbase from their parking lots.

For wildlife management, the existence of varied habitats on one relatively small  piece of land is a great help.  Winter resident songbirds segregate by preferred habitat–some like the brush, some like the woods, and some like the grassland.   The same is true of the breeding bird population in the spring and summer.

Terrain is gentle–there’s only about 20 feet in elevation difference between the highest point and the lowest, and only where former owners gouged out gravel and “road base” from the rocky knoll is there a steep slope (obviously not natural.)   Soil varies from solid rock to deep black clay, with areas of brown clay, red gravel, and exposed subsoil (from erosion.)   The land is subject to flash floods on the creek (due in part to the rainfall patterns, but also to bad land management upstream that’s led to less permeable soil.)

In eight years, we’ve increased the species count to over 800 (animals and plants) and within taxa counted in the original survey, most have doubled.  Though most of the grassland is still dominated by the introduced non-native King Ranch Bluestem (KRB), it’s being invaded by native grasses including meadow dropseed, little bluestem, sideoats grama, white tridens, knotroot bristlegrass, Indiangrass.    We’ve also seen the reappearance and spread of original prairie forbs–plants no farmer/rancher in the meantime would have planted, such as Mirabilia alba, four different milkweeds, three different gentians,  and many others.  We’ve been able to reintroduce some of the original prairie dominants: big bluestem, switchgrass, eastern gama, seep muhly.

Long-term, the plan includes eliminating non-native plants and re-introducing natives missing from the present array.  Some re-introductions have been successful  and some not.  Yet.   We use rain-barns to supply water for wildlife and for plantings in the first season (when we collect enough extra water.)   Our wildlife management plan, written and carried out to conform to the laws in Texas, requires activity in seven categories (habitat management, provision of supplementary food, water, and shelter, predator control, erosion control, and census.)  In addition, the prairie restoration project focuses on maintaining existing “pockets” of original vegetation and increasing the extent of it.

Last year we hosted visits by a nearby Audubon Society group (a bird walk) and a few others interested in specifics, and next year will host a visit by the Texas Native Plant Society (and, no doubt, others.)

Our area is at least sixteen inches below average annual rainfall this year–that’s means we’ve had less than half the average.    The “at least” is because what rain we’ve had has been spotty–one place might get four inches and another none, from the same weather system.

In addition to the lack of rainfall, aquifers and reservoirs both are sinking.  One of our town’s four wells isn’t producing at all, and the other three are pumping less than normal.  A development-friendly county government has supported rapid growth, both residential and commercial, with the predictable (but not to them) growth in demand for water…hence many new wells, all tapping the same resource…shallow wells tapping the groundwater that used to supply springs and small creeks in dry years, and deep wells (to Trinity Sands, the main deep aquifer) for “permanent” water.   Creeks and springs–even one river–have dried up completely in the past year.

From the land manager’s perspective, rainfall is THE water resource in this part of the world.   We have two “rain barns” to collect and store rainwater (and are working on another–trusses for its roof are finished and being painted.)   This stored water provides permanent (we hope) water for wildlife at three different sites and each site is optimized for a different use.

Wildlife (and re-introduction of native plants to improve natural food supplies and habitat) must have reliable water.  This year, it was all we could do to keep the wildlife supply going.  We lost approximately 90% (maybe more–we’ll know next spring) of the past two years’ worth of plantings because we could not provide enough water…what we could provide, we allocated to a few of the plantings easiest to reach with a bucket.

But if it doesn’t rain…there’s nothing to collect.   I designed the collection area/storage capacity for a little below the previously recorded worst-case–ten inches a year–but that’s where we are right now.

The bright spot in this is the response of the original (and re-introduced) natives that didn’t croak.   The deep-rooted tallgrass dominants stayed green: big bluestem, switchgrass, Indiangrass, little bluestem, even eastern gama (the water lover of the bunch) are all fine (so far.)   Up on the dryest area (a rocky knoll with very thin soil, if any) some didn’t make it–even agarita, which normally grows out of rock anyway–but some did.  We have more two-leaved senna and partridge pea than before.   We have a new odd milkweed (the experts are still arguing over it.)  The Mirabilis alba and Pitcher Sage have both spread this year, and the Maximilian Sunflower, though less than half the height in an average year, has continued to spread sideways in its clumps.