Field Notes List

We really needed secure storage and an office on the property but how best to solve this need?

Making a decision on a container purchase.

What do we buy, where do we buy it, single use or well used, partially converted or bare container?

There is a lot to learn about drone use.

Initial Drone Seeding

While actually very late in the winter to be seeding winter crops, we had to get something started on these bare fields.

Collecting images and documenting field notes. Stay tuned.

The build of a seed spreader from cheap parts and a leaf blower.

I am creating the notes and Playbook for this experiment.

I needed to figure out exactly where my property lines would be to know what I was buying.

Tracing the Survey on Foot

I noticed a significant difference in the Tax Survey and the Deed Survey

The property was purchased with the intention of doing more with the land than simply continuing to hold it as timberland. A significant portion of the property would eventually need to be opened for pasture and other farm uses.

Rather than treating the existing timber as something that simply had to be removed, we wanted to determine whether harvesting it could accomplish two things at once: recover some of the timber's existing economic value and begin the conversion of the property into a working farm.

Deciding to Harvest the Timber

One of the first major decisions after acquiring the property was what to do with the existing timber. The property was about half planted pine timberland, but our long-term plans called for converting a significant portion of it into usable farm and pasture ground. Harvesting the timber offered an opportunity to recover some of the value already standing on the property while beginning that transformation.
We obtained two separate independent appraisals for the timber. Another consideration was that the pine timber was fully mature at 40 years old and if it was not harvested it would eventually begin to collapse on its own.

We sought proposals for the timber and obtained a couple of independent appraisals rather than relying only on what a buyer told us the timber was worth. The appraisal estimated the timber value at approximately $90,000. The eventual sale price was $60,000, making the difference between estimated timber value and realizable market value an important part of the experiment.

Understanding the Timber, Getting Proposals & Independent Appraisal

Before accepting a timber offer, we needed to understand what was actually standing on the property and whether the offers we received represented fair value. This stage combined buyer proposals with an independent timber appraisal to give us a better basis for making the decision.

W. J. Sorrell Lumber & Pulpwood Co., Inc. was selected as the timber buyer for a lump-sum price of $60,000. The selection moved the project from estimating timber value to defining exactly what would be harvested and under what conditions.

Selecting the Timber Buyer

After comparing the timber information, appraisal and proposals, we selected W. J. Sorrell Lumber & Pulpwood Co., Inc. for the harvest. The decision converted the standing timber from an estimated asset into a negotiated $60,000 transaction with specific harvest rights and responsibilities.

The plan called for a clearcut of merchantable timber in the designated areas, with selected hardwoods marked to remain. The goal was not simply maximum tree removal; it was to open land needed for future uses while retaining trees that added value to the property.

Defining the Harvest Plan

The harvest was designed as a substantial clearcut while retaining selected hardwoods and other trees that we wanted to remain part of the property. The plan had to balance timber value, future pasture conversion, appearance, access and future maintenance.

The Timber Deed named W. J. Sorrell Lumber & Pulpwood Co., Inc. as Grantee and conveyed merchantable timber on the designated Tallapoosa County parcels for $60,000. It granted harvest and access rights and provided for selected hardwoods to be marked and left.

Timber Deed / Contract

The timber deed converted the negotiated sale into a legal conveyance of the designated timber and established the buyer's harvest and access rights. It also documented the $60,000 consideration, the designated parcels, retained hardwoods and the fact that some incidental damage was expected during logging.

Pre-harvest documentation established a visual and practical baseline before heavy equipment changed the site. Mobilization then introduced logging equipment, access traffic and staging areas that would become part of the eventual land-impact assessment.

Pre-Harvest Documentation & Mobilization

Before and as logging began, the property entered a transition from standing timber to an active work site. Photographs, drone images and observations of roads, drainage, vegetation and ground conditions provide the baseline needed to judge what the harvest actually changed.

The harvest involved the normal sequence of commercial logging: cutting merchantable trees, moving them to working areas, loading timber and hauling it off the property. This was the stage where equipment traffic, weather, retained trees and day-to-day operating decisions directly affected the final condition of the land.

Harvest Activities & Management

Active harvesting transformed the property through cutting, skidding, staging, loading and trucking. This stage was also where the written plan met real-world conditions and where communication with the logging operation mattered most.

Approximately 50 acres were clearcut. The immediate result was open land, but not finished pasture: stumps, slash, woody debris, disturbed soil and equipment impacts remained. This condition became the baseline for the separate post-harvest land-conversion experiments.

Harvest Completion & Immediate Land Impact

When the logging operation ended, the timber sale was complete but the land transformation was only beginning. The harvest opened roughly 50 acres, leaving the expected stumps, slash and disturbed ground along with roads and working areas that had supported the operation.

The timber transaction produced $60,000 in gross proceeds. Compared with the approximately $90,000 appraisal, the realized sale price was about two-thirds of the appraised value. But the sale also advanced the larger property plan by opening substantial acreage that otherwise would have required tree removal before conversion.

Financial Results

The timber sale generated $60,000 in gross proceeds against an independent appraisal of approximately $90,000. The more important financial question, however, is how that $60,000 should be viewed alongside the cost and value of opening roughly 50 acres for future use.

The timber harvest produced $60,000, opened roughly 50 acres and created the starting point for several later land-management experiments. The final judgment should remain open until the longer-term effects on soil, vegetation, erosion, wildlife, maintenance requirements and productive land use can be evaluated.

Final Timber Sale & Harvest Scorecard — Including Long-Term Results

The final scorecard evaluates the timber sale as more than a one-time check. It considers realized value, land opened, condition left behind, future usefulness, lessons learned and the longer-term effects of changing roughly 50 acres from timberland to open ground.

Experiment 9 $200 Canvas Garage -Farm Crew Playbook

Details of pricing and vendor information along with tips for success.

Reinforcing the Frame and Anchoring the Canvas Garage for Real Wind

The details of the materials and effort to complete this installation.

Not here to buy but to learn about the local market.

Visit Goat Auction in Goodwater, AL

We decided to visit a nearby goat auction held 2 Saturdays each month, to check the local market prices and learn a bit about the supply.

Wind event while we were gone lifted unit over the container and dropped it on the opposite side upside down.

Be Sure to Anchor Unit before Leaving

When we returned from the goat sale we found the wind had relocated the unit

Assembly of Canvas Garage Kit

Beth and I decided to assemble the kit this morning.

Drone evaluation shows about 50% coverage in most of the field with 25% coverage in burn pile areas.

East Pasture Follow-Up after 8 weeks.

8 Weeks after planting the Cowpeas and 6 weeks after Bahia, checking in to see how we are progressing.

The original dishwasher wheel pin had worn down and could no longer hold the wheel securely in its bracket. We installed a 5/16-inch body panel retainer from an auto parts store as a simple replacement and found that it fit the opening and locked the wheel firmly into place.

Dishwasher Drawer Wheel Repair

We developed a simple and inexpensive repair for dishwasher drawer wheels that keep falling off due to worn retaining pins.

Three-month follow-up of Experiment 2 showing denser grass establishment in the former plastic-covered test area than in the surrounding pasture.

Three-Month Follow-Up on Microclimate Test Results

Approximately three months after the experiment began, we photographed the former plastic-covered area and the surrounding pasture. The treated area still showed substantially denser grass establishment than the adjacent uncovered ground

A high rate of germination was found in the test zone with little to no germination in the adjacent area.

Dramatic Improvement in Germination Under the Plastic

We returned to the test site 19 days after establishing the plastic-covered area. Germination beneath the plastic was visibly much denser than in the adjacent uncovered ground.

Our initial thinking about the two options and what we expected vs what we initially found.

Planning for Smooth vs Stump Retained Pastures

Our initial thoughts about these two options are explained.

We selected a 3-by-8-foot area within an approximately 30-by-100-foot newly overseeded section of the east smooth pasture. We loosely covered the test area with 4-mil clear plastic to determine whether a temporary microclimate could improve germination during dry conditions.

Battling Drought with Plastic Microclimate

We selected a 3' x 8' area in the east smooth pasture to create a make-shift micro-climate using a sheet of 4 mil plastic on newly overseeded ground of about 30' x 100'.

Pensacola Bahia was seeded on approximately six acres of smooth pasture as a targeted warm-season establishment trial.

Testing Pensacola Bahia on Part of the Smooth Pasture

With some concern about soil health we decided to do a test of about 6 acres

Cowpeas were added to the smooth pasture as part of the warm-season establishment effort.

Adding Cowpeas to the Smooth Pasture

We used our drone service partner to spread the cowpeas on the smooth pastures. We did not have time to spread ourselves in time to beat the rain event forecasted.

Three hundred pounds of Iron & Clay cowpeas were manually broadcast across the stump-retained pasture using a converted blower and a side-by-side. We also spread 50 lbs around the lake area.

Testing a Converted Blower in the Stump-Retained Pasture

One of our experiments was to create a seed spreader from a leaf blower and funnel. We decided to test it in spreading seed in select areas.

Triple superphosphate was applied as part of the soil-amendment and pasture-establishment program.

Applying Phosphorus Across the Developing Pastures

Ground photographs and aerial images began showing different vegetation patterns and different surface behavior across the adjoining pasture treatments.

The First Seed Assessment Begins to Show Differences

First Drone Seeding Across Both Pasture Types

South Alabama Drone Services completed the first common seeding application across the smooth and stump-retained pasture areas.

The planned comparison was created: an intensively prepared smooth pasture and a lower-cost stump-retained pasture.

Building Two Different Pastures

Our goal as an innovation farm is to do things in a way that allow us to learn as much as possible from the event. A dual pasture process was determined to be a worthwhile investment to create a valuable learning opportunity.

The Timber Harvest Moved us Farther Away from Useful Pastures

Timber harvesting opened the land but did not create pasture. The work left stumps, roots, logging debris, slash, uneven ground, and disturbed access areas that required additional decisions.

Before the First Tree Fell

The experiment began as established pine timberland. The starting photographs document the forest canopy, pine-needle-covered ground, understory vegetation, and the conditions that existed before timber harvest or pasture construction.