Invasive Brush Plants - Part 8 - Mesquite

Mesquite or honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa var. glandulosa) is one of the toughest, most invasive species of brush in the world according to Texas A&M’s Brush Busters. http://www.cattlementocattlemen.org/uDocs/BrushBusters-Mesquite.pdf/

Biologically, mesquite is classified as a legume. Other legumes you may be more familiar with include clover, alfalfa, peas and beans. The legume family’s claim to fame is that these plants fix nitrogen in the soil. This ability to fix nitrogen is why clover or alfalfa are often used as cover crops to increase nitrogen in the soil for the food crop. I was surprised to learn that mesquite falls into the legume family but I should have known since trees produce long bean pods. Because mesquite is a legume, you may notice that grass growing under the mesquite is greener than the grass growing away from the tree. This is not because the tree shades the grass from the harsh sun but because the grass is benefiting from the nitrogen rich soil under the tree. Nonetheless, mesquite in invasive quantities is undesirable.

At Dogwood Ranch, we do not have a serious mesquite invasion such as many ranches in South Texas. We want to keep it that way through vigilance. Dogwood Ranch only has a few large mesquite trees. As we discovery small saplings in the pasture, we zap them with Remedy right away. Mesquite, like yaupon, cannot just be cut down or shred because it will come back and spread. The roots must be die to kill the tree.

The first large mesquite tree was tackled is chocked up to a live and learn experience. We cut the 9 inch diameter tree down with the chainsaw and then applied Remedy to the stump. So far, so good. From there, we chopped-up the branches and the trunk and drug them across the field to the usual burn area. That was the mistake. When we drug the thorny branches across the pasture, some of the thorns broke off and are now laying in wait on the ground to puncture tires or soles of boots. The next weekend after we chopped down the tree, the brand new UTV (utility terrain vehicle the “Ranger”) got three thorns in the tires requiring patches.

Even worse, we transported mesquite thorns to the burn area on the “old Dogwood” that never has had mesquite. As a result we ended up with thorns in our boots and and area we avoid on the ATV.

Because of this experience, a new plan on how to deal with the large mesquite trees has hatched. In July, we mixed a strong batch of Remedy and water. I sprayed the trunk of the two large mesquite tree all the way around from the ground to about 5 feet up the trunk. Major limbs at that level were sprayed also. At last check two weeks ago, the leaves were starting to turn yellow. According to our neighbor who more mesquite on his place, best practice is to spray the tree but do not cut it down for a year. The lore is that it takes about a year for the roots to completely die. He mixed his spray ½ Remedy, ½ diesel but I think that a little over kill. However, his trees certainly look deader and ours!

After we are sure the trees are dead, we will chop them down and burn them in place, rather than drag them across the property.

Here are a couple of links to sites about Mequite control. http://www.livestockweekly.com/papers/98/11/12/whlbrush.asp

http://coastalbend.tamu.edu/NLO/Resources/BB%20Mesquite%20L5416.pdf

Invasive Brush Plants - Part 7 - Juniper or Cedar

Now that we have discussed why we want to clear the juniper, let’s chat about how we do it. Basically, there is one method we use to clear juniper – cut it down. Unlike yaupon, it will not come up from the roots. The small saplings we whack down with the machete. For the trees, the chainsaw is the only way. The problem with the juniper is what to do with the tree after it is chopped down. If it is in the woods, sometimes we will just let it lay where it fell and become cover for birds and small mammals and eventually rot. If we don’t want to leave it, we use the chain saw to cut the limbs and drag them to the burn area.
You have to be careful working with it because the leaves or nettles are pokey and itchy, especially when they fall down your shirt or get in your breaches. Wearing gloves is a good idea. Because the trees have sticky sap, don’t sit on a freshly cut stump or you will have a sticky backside! The cedar does smell nice when cut.

Burning juniper is pretty much a mess. There is so much moisture in the leaves when green that they create a lot of white smoke and if piled on too high, will snuff out the fire. It’s best to let it dry out a few weeks before burning. Even then it is a mess. When the sap heats in the fire it pops, sometimes shooting small burning pieces out of the fire ring. The foliage initially goes up in huge flares and the burned needles can float on the smoke carrying a spark. We don’t burn juniper if the area is dry or if there is burn ban in the county as it is too dangerous.

We are experimenting this year with a twist on the “just cut it down” method by ringing the tree and letting it die in place. We used the chain saw to make a cut about an inch deep through the bark all the way around the tree. On some, we then used a paint brush to put Remedy in the cut and some we did not use Remedy. In a few weeks the leaves starting turning brown on all of the ringed trees. We are hoping the advantage of this method will prove to be that the tree dies, the thick leaves fall off and let light in to the grass. Once the leaves are gone, we can chop down the tree with much less mess and less burning. We ringed four or five large trees last spring and are monitoring their “progress”. I will report back on how this process works.

Even though we strive to eliminate most of the juniper, it does have some useful purposes. We use the limbs for replacement fence posts. The fences around Dogwood Ranch are about 60 years old and many of the old cedar fence posts have rotted and are falling down. In some areas, only brush is holding up the barbed wire. We are also in the process of building a bridge over the creek with boards we cut from the large cedar trunks. It has taken about 2 years to cut enough boards and beams but we plan to finally start building the bridge this fall. It needs to be strong enough to span 25 feet and hold a John Deer mower and one adult. I will report on bridge building progress later this fall.

Invasive Brush Plants - Part 6 - Juniper or Cedar

Juniper, also called Texas cedar (Juniperus virginiana) has a few redeeming qualities: 1) it makes good fence posts; 2) we can build things from it and 3) the barred owl roast in them during the day for cover. Nonetheless, for the most part, the cedar is not good in invasive qualities.  Here is a real world example. On the my blog post dated September 11, 2010, there is photo of the American flag in a holder mounted on a juniper stump. The trunk is about 6 inches in diameter and the tree was probably 30 feet tall and sported thick green foliage. The grass under the tree and in its dense shadow never really grew well, didn’t turn deep green and was thin. We cut off the top of the tree in the winter. The following spring the grass around the stump and where its dark shadow used to fall was thick and green like never before.


Thick shade of juniper trees



Regardless of our obversations and the opinions of the county AgriLife agent and biologist, some family and friends are unconvinced that we should remove so much juniper. They feel the trees are pretty and that destroying them is not environmentally appropriate. Therefore, before discussing our methods of juniper removal on Dogwood Ranch, I will review some scientific information provided some folks much smarter than me.  Recall from the post describing the Blackland Prairie vegetation zone that although juniper may be native to the area, before European settlement, the brush was controlled by frequent naturally occurring fires so it did not become invasive.

According to Thomas L. Thurow and Justin W. Hester in their paper “How An Increase or Reduction in Juniper Cover Alters Rangeland Hydrology”, http://texnat.tamu.edu/symposia/juniper/TOM2.htm : “Increased dominance of juniper in what had previously been grasslands or savannas substantially alters the fate of precipitation on rangelands. This has very important ramifications because water is a direct or indirect limiting factor to all aspects of production on semi-arid regions.” Thurow and Hester explain that the increase or decrease of juniper changes the natural hydrologic cycle. You may remember studying the basic hydrologic cycle in 5th grade science class but see the USGS’s diagram as a quick refresher.

Thurow and Hester describe how changes in juniper cover disrupt several processes of the natural hydrologic cycle: interception, infiltration, herbaceous production, evapotranspiration, runoff, deep drainage and erosion.

Interception loss is loss due to interception of rain before hits the ground. Thick juniper canopies intercept the rain drops and reduce the amount of rain that reaches the ground.


Infiltration is the process by which water moves into the soil. Increased infiltration is one cause of increased erosion when juniper invades the range.

Herbaceous production, or growth of other plants such a grass, are often negatively impacted due to juniper-induced reduction in light, soil moisture and nutrients. What we observed unscientifically on Dogwood Ranch, Thurow and Hester describe as follows:



“Juniper is an evergreen with extensive lateral and deep roots, and it has physiological adaptations which enable it to extract water from very dry soil. In addition, juniper also has a dense mat of fibrous roots at the soil surface. These traits make juniper a very strong competitor with grass for water, both underneath the canopy and in the tree interspace. Numerous studies have documented significant reductions in grass production due to increased woody dominance underneath the canopies. . . .When juniper roots grow into the spaces between trees to compete for water and nutrients, this competition, especially when combined with grazing pressure, puts extreme stress on the grass. This can explain why grass in the juniper interspaces may often be sparse, lack vigor and are difficult to reestablish as long as the juniper is present. Another competitive advantage of juniper is that it is not as quickly affected by drought as herbaceous species because the trees have a deep root system which gives them access to a water source that the herbaceous species cannot effectively tap.”

Evapotranspiration consists of evaporation and transpiration. Transpiration is water vapor released in to the atmosphere by plants while evaporation is water vapor released from water sources or the soil into the atmosphere. Although water evaporation is less under the juniper tree due to the thick canopy creating a microenvironment of shade and reduced wind, the increase interception caused by the thick canopy increases evaporation. This is because the water on leaves and branches evaporate quickly before it can be transpired by the plants. More precipitation is lost to evaporation in juniper woodland than grass land. “Juniper has a very extensive rooting system compared to herbaceous plants, and therefore when it invades a site, it has access to a greater volume of soil water. . . .Juniper can continue to remove water from the soil long after grasses have gone into a drought or temperature induced dormancy.

Juniper seems to have little effect on runoff but negatively impacts deep drainage. “The combination of less water entering the soil and strong ability by the juniper to extract water means that little water has a chance to drain beneath the root zone.”

Finally, juniper invasion also can cause increased erosion in the interspace between the trees because the juniper often has out competed the grass and bare soil is exposed.



I hope the above explains why we are aggressing removing juniper from Dogwood Ranch. We hope to improve our chances of restoring the Blackland Prairie grasses with the juniper held closely at bay, if not totally gone. Never fear though, as we will never be able to eliminate all the juniper on Dogwood Ranch by our manual methods. Also, some of the tall old juniper in the woods we will not disturb as the barred owl uses it for cover during the day.

Invasive Brush Plants – Part 5 – Yaupon Holly Continued

Basal Trunk Paint – This method is used when the invaded area and the trunks are too large to lopper or use the clearing saw.  We apply the Remedy-oil mixture from the ground up the all the way around the yaupon truck to about a foot to 18 inches up the trunk.  The mixture needs to be applied around the entire trunk to make sure all of the roots die.  We have two different application methods.  When we first started this method several years ago, we used a large paint brush.  As you can image, crawling around on the ground or squatting while painting is hard on the legs and knees so, we started using a “wand” applicator.  It is a simple device (we bought the first one and made the second one) made of one inch PVC with a rolling paint applicator on the end.  We fill the PVC tube with the Remedy mixture, and it runs into a threaded elbow connector into a cylinder that the rolling applicator is connected to.  Through holes in the cylinder, the Remedy mixture soaks the rolling paint applicator. 

Paint roller end of the "Wand"

Then, standing up right (as humans evolved to do) we roll the Remedy soaked rolling brush on the tree trunk.   By using the wands, we can reach the basal trunks without getting down on the ground.  It’s much better on our hands, knees and backs and the process goes much faster.  We try to make our wand applications in February or March, before the grass and weeds starting growing again and turn the underbrush into “Chiggerville” again.  Then, we wait all summer and watch the tree trucks start to crack and peel and the leaves turn yellow, then brown to black and fall off as the trees die in place.  The next fall when the chiggers are dormant,  we walk through the area and push down the dead yaupon, drag them to the burn area and burn them.

To conclude this yaupon discussion, there are other methods, such a prescribed burns that we have also tried.  This will be the subject of a later post.  The reason we chose these manual labor intensive methods is that they are the only ways we can be selective, and only destroy the yaupon while leaving the oak, dogwood and other desirable plants.

Invasive Brush Plants – Part 4 – Yaupon Holly Continued

Clear & Spray Method – This method works best in clearing a large area choked with small yaupon. We use either a pair of loppers to cut the small yaupon trunks or a mechanical clearing saw device. The clearing saw is like a weed-eater on steroids, instead of a little plastic string for cutting, it uses is metal circular saw blade. 





Stihl Clearing Saw



Once we cut out the small brush and drag it to the burn area, the job is done until spring or summer the next year. This is when the cut yaupon will make is big comeback by sprouting from the root. When the regrowth is about shin to knee high, we spray the foliage with Remedy mixed with water and a squirt of liquid dish soap. We use water instead of oil in the Remedy mixture because the mixture sprays better and stays on the leaves just fine. Depending on how strong the Remedy mixture, the leaves will get black spots overnight and a few weeks later turn completely black, fall off and the plant dies, including the roots. The trick here is to patiently wait for the regrowth and to spray the mixture in warm weather while the plant is growing so that it will take in the poison. This method has a very good success rate, but sometimes a second pass with the spray is needed to get plants that were not sprayed the first time because they were too small or not noticed because they were covered with leaves. I have heard, but not confirmed, that if you don’t put enough Remedy on the first time, a more vigorous and more difficult to kill plant will emerge. So, we make sure we use enough at the right strength, usually ¼ Remedy to ¾ water so that we do not create a super-yaupon resistant to Remedy.



Guests Burning Yaupon and Cedar



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Invasive Brush Plants – Part 3 – Yaupon Holly Continued

Cut & Paint Stump Method – For the larger trees with trunks two or three inches in diameter, we find this method most efficient. This situation arises most often when yaupon have grown right up next to a nice larger tree. The yaupon often forms a thicket around the larger tree and some of the yaupon is quite large and tall, growing up into a tangle in the limbs of the larger tree. Poison ivy may also be on the main tree and obscured from view due to the yaupon so we are always very careful around these yaupon clumps. See post of August 5, 2010 about how to handle poison ivy.

First, we use the chain saw to cut the yaupon, close to ground. We pull the yaupon out of the tangle and stack it. The pile of cut yaupon is tied to a rope that we hook to the hitch on the ATVE and drag it burn location. More on our brush burning pile later.

Next is the painting process. We mix Remedy with diesel oil or vegetable oil (whichever one is cheaper, right now I think diesel is cheaper) and a squirt of liquid dish soap and apply it to the stump with a paint brush. The Remedy is the key ingredient; the oil’s purpose is to make sure the Remedy sticks to the trunk and doesn’t just run off to ground. The soap is a surfactant, meaning in small amounts it reduces the surface tension of the Remedy/oil mixture so that the surface contact between the Remedy mixture and surface of the yaupon trunk is increased. As an aside, the word “surfactant” is “surface acting agent” run together. The mixture is applied immediately to the fresh cut surface and down the sides and all the way around the stump from cut to dirt. When yaupon attempts to grow, it sucks in the poison which kills the roots. Our non-scientific survey of this method is 99% effective to prevent re-growth of the yaupon. Care is needed to prevent getting the Remedy mixture on other trees as this stuff seems to kill everything it touches. You don’t need a chemical license to buy it. We purchase it at Tractor Supply in Brenham for about $100/gallon. It’s expensive but by mixing and using it properly, it goes a long way

Invasive Brush Plants – Part 2 – Yaupon Holly

Ilex vomitoria is an apt name for yaupon. Guess what happens if you eat the red berries of the yaupon? That’s right, you vomit! It does not take a PhD in botony to figure out that a plant with the Latin name for vomit is probably not fit to eat. According the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees, yaupon leaves contain high caffeine content and Native Americans used to brew them with the berries into a tea to induce vomiting. The “black drink” as it was called reportedly was also a laxative. According to Audubon, native tribes from the interior of hte US traveled to the coast each year to participate in a cleansing ritual with yaupon black drink. We are certainly not making black drink or brewing yaupon tea at Dogwood Ranch. If there was a real commercial market for yaupon tea, we would be rich! We will stick to getting our morning caffeine from coffee.

In small numbers, yaupon can be beneficial to wildlife as it provides food for deer and birds. We see lots of little birds nest in the yaupon and when vines grow into and over the yaupon, it creates a thicket that birds seem to like. The brush also provides cover for other small wildlife. However, solid choking invasive stands of yaupon are harmful to native’s grasses, forbs and other wildlife food sources. Under a thick stand of yaupon, there is little to no grass. Besides, the thickets that crowed around oaks and other large trees destroy the larger trees majestic beauty and take water and resources from them.

The problem with yaupon eradication, or even just attempting to control it and establish peaceful co-existence with it, is that simply cutting it down will not do the trick. Once cut, the yaupon will sprout back from the root and sometimes sprout directly from the cut surface. To kill it completely, the roots must either but removed from the ground or otherwise killed. We’ve see folks clear out yaupon by pulling a bush hog behind a tractor but in a few years, the area will be just as dense with yaupon so little was accomplished. Besides, it’s difficult to be selective in what is cut down with bush hog so along will yaupon, small beneficial plants that may not grow back are destroyed.

Yaupon eradication is such a problem that numerous papers have been written on the subject. One master’s thesis submission by Stephanie Renee Dupree of Texas Tech University compared various eradication methods. The link to her paper is  http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-07012008-31295019526226/unrestricted/31295019526226.pdf

Also see Managing Yaupon with Fire and Herbicide in the Texas Post Oak Savannah published by the USDA Agricultural Research Service http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=usdaarsfacpub

and the Texas Parks and Wildlife publication
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_br_w7000_0010p_color.pdf

Digging up yaupon is not an option on Dogwood Ranch because is there is just too much of it. Instead, we have to kill the roots in place. We use three methods, unfortunately all very labor intensive, depending on the situation: 1. Cut and paint stump; 2. Clear and spray; 3. Basal trunk paint. I will describe each method in detail.

Here is a before and after shot of an early yaupon brush clearing around an oak tree.

Before

After

Human Spirit cannot be Crushed!

American Flag Mounted on Cedar Stump at Dogwood Ranch

Today is the ninth anniversary of that horrible day, September 11, 2001. This morning I was relieved that my next Speaking from the Ranch segment about Dogwood Ranch was not quite ready to post. I thought it would be disrespectful of the day and memory of those who died at the hands of terrorists to do something so trivial and meaningless as posting more of my ramblings to this blog. However, the more I thought about it, the more I decided a post was required of me to honor and respect those who died and suffered at the hands of terrorists that day, and other days since. No matter the terrorists' particular flavor of terror, creed, nationality or “cause”, these people desire to destroy our way of life and crush the human spirit of all people. We must show them that they failed and will always fail no matter where in world the repulsive violent acts occur because even from the depths of fear, despair, hatred and injustice, the human spirit and yearning to be free will bubble up, boil over and ultimately triumph.

We must pause and remember the day and honor and respect those lost, but mostly we must go on with our lives, chase our dreams, speak our minds and even continue the trivialities of life. This is the only way I know how to show those that wish to crush freedom because they fear it, that the American Way, the American Dream and the American Spirit are alive and well.

 

Invasive Brush Plants – Part 1

Just as there are the Big Three Dangers at Dogwood Ranch, there are the Big Three Invasive Brush Plants: 1. yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria); 2. Juniper, also called Texas cedar (Juniperus virginiana) and 3. Mesquite (Prosopis gladulosa var. glardulosa).

As described in the post describing the Blackland Prairie, heavy cultivation of the land in Washington County gave an opening for invasive plant species to do what invasive species do best – invade.

All three of these plants are undesirable in Texas when they become invasive such that state biologists, agricultural agents and wildlife experts encourage Texans to rid their property of these plants. Generally, the problem with these plants is they are water-hogs, invasive and push-out the native grasses and plants. For instance, yaupon holly underbrush can be so dense in the woods we cannot even walk through it. Bcause it is evergreen and densely foliated, very little grass will grow under them. The foliage usually starts about a foot up the trunk and give whitetail deer little cover from predators, such as coyotes. The coyotes learn to lay flat on the ground to look out into the yaupon where deer, and particularly fawn, can be seen if bedded down in the trees.

Juniper also create dense shade in which little grass grows. Plus, the juniper tend to grow up next to the trunk of other trees like oak and elm and suck the water way from these more desirable native trees.  On Dogwood Ranch, we noticed lots of large juniper trees with the stump of a dead oak or eml right next to it.  Our theroy is that the juniper contributed to the death of the other tree by sucking-up the water and nutrients

Dogwood Ranch doesn’t have a serious mesquite problem but there is just enough to be nuisance. Besides its invasive quality, if you have ever stepped on a mesquite thorn with bare feet or had one penetrate the sole of your shoe, you understand that any mesquite is too much mesquite-unless its being used to smoke your barbecue!

When the county agricultural agent and biologist came out to Dogwood in 2003, they both encouraged us to get rid of the yaupon and juniper. We did not have any mesquite on that portion of the property. Looking across the fence line to a neighbor’s property South of Dogwood, the new juniper growth was intense and the biologist shook his head in dismay saying “I hate to see this kind of thing” meaning property owners that allow juniper to further invade their property.

We took their advice to heart despite that about 2/3 of the initial Dogwood Ranch property was choked with dense yaupon holly brush. Further, the juniper grew undisturbed during Dogwood's hunting lease days for decades so the trees reached heights 50 or 60 feet. Through trial and error and advice from experts and other landowners, we have developed eradication programs using different technics for each type of invasive brush. In next few posts, I will describe our now finely tuned process for each type of plant and circumstance.  By far the most difficult of the three to control is the yaupon so I will start with it.

History of Dogwood Ranch

We pieced together the history of Dogwood Ranch through word of mouth, evidence on the property, from the sellers and from public records. The initial purchase was a 10-acre tract that is a long 2x5 rectangle shape. The prior owners used the property for weekend recreational activities. They were an elderly couple who clearly entertained children and grandchildren on the place. They didn’t have a house but a mobile home and were set up for long stents at the property. For now, let’s just call them the “Smiths”.

Mr. Smith was apparently a handy man and had a full set of tools in the garage and several projects in progress all the time. He kept the front two or three acres nicely mowed, built fish cleaning stations around the trees by the pond, built a deck and kept chopped firewood handy. A picnic table, lawn chairs and a fire pit encircled with stone blocks by the pond clearly served as a focus of activity for the Smith family, as this area does for us today. Three years prior to our purchase, Mr. Smith unexpectedly passed away and Ms. Smith became infirm. We were told she suffered a mild stroke soon after her husband’s death. By the time we bought the place, the property had not been cared for since Mr. Smith died. In those three years the grass was overgrown to hip-high and the chairs, picnic table and other things left out in the elements were ruined, rusted and rotten. Wildlife moved into the mobile home, including squirrels and a family of raccoons that made a cozy nest in the fluffy armchair.

Ms. Smith sold the property “as is” including the old mobile home and all contents inside, weathered items around the pond and all of the tools in the garage. It appeared to us that the last project Mr. Smith worked on in the garage was trying to repair the tire on an old Ford wagon designed to pull behind a riding mower or small tractor. The wheel, tire and tools were still laid out on the work table as he left them.

Ford Wagon Left in the Garage

 So many times we have said “thank you Mr. Smith!” when we solved a problem by turning to hand tools or other equipment he left on the pegboard in the garage. His left wire, screwdrivers, clamps, metal fence poles, plywood and even a hand-operated drill saved the day when we had an unexpected job to do or the power tools ran out of juice. Based on the small hardware and electrical equipment left in the garage, we were able to discern that Mr. Smith shopped at McCoy’s on highway 290. This information came in handy when looking for matching or compatible hardware.

Mobile Home and Junk

Soon after our purchase of this 10 acres, we removed the items in the old mobile home that we wanted to keep (refrigerator we keep in the garage, some plastic dishes and a few miscelleaous items) and hired a local man to haul-off the mobile home. That occurred in September 2003 and there is still a “scar” on the ground where the mobile home sat.

Prior to the Smith’s ownership, the property changed hands frequently from the 1950s. Because this strip of land is at the bottom of the hill, a gully (we called it a creek) runs through the property and it is 2/3 heavily wooded, the property seemed to be a step-child to the surrounding ranch land. As far as we can tell, the property never had a permanent home on it and has not been used for agricultural purposes until we started running cattle on it back in February of this year.

S

Deer Stand in Cedar Tree 

Instead, the property was a hunting lease for about 50 years. We see evidence of this use even today. There are trees that still have boards nailed to the trunk to use as steps to get up to a deer stand. One large juniper tree still has the remnants of the stand in its branches. There is an old metal trash can lid deep in the woods that was probably used as a feeder. It is obvious from the vegetation pattern; that portions of the property were mechanically cleared of small brush at one time and now have been choked with yaupon and juniper. The clearing was probably done to give a clear shot when game would pass through the clearing. We find old spent shot gun shells and rusting Schlitz and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans in the woods. We also discovered rotting piles of plywood and nails buried by leaves and brush that we believe were the left-overs from making deer stands.

Old Deer Stand in Oak Tree

Through the online Washington County real estate records, we can only trace ownership of the property back to the 1950s when an owner sold the 10 acres to the Veterans Land Board which then sold it to a veteran. From there the property changed hands every 3 to 5 years until the Smiths, who owned it for about 10 years.

The more recent addition to Dogwood Ranch, the 40 acres acquired in November 2009 was purchase from a local landowner. The property adjoined ours with a barbwire fence making the property line. The property, originally 160 acres, had been cattle ranch land at least since the 1940s. The seller and her sister inherited the property and subdivided it years ago into two 80 acre tracts. The sister sold her property over 20 years ago. The seller was of German immigrant decent on both her mother and father’s side. She even referred to herself as a “stubborn Texas German.” Her family lived on the property (the part the sister inherited) and the father ranched cattle. At some point after she inherited the property, the seller moved out-of-state becoming an absentee owner and rancher. A local man, a descent cousin also of German decent, tended her cattle and property.

After we purchased to first 10 acres of Dogwood, over the years, we contacted the her several times inquiring if she was interested in selling all or part of the property but she was not interested. Much to our surprise, in October 2009 while we were on vacation at the Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle, she called stating that she was ready to sell. We only wanted 30 acres but she said she was going to subdivide the property into 20 acres tracts and the any purchase would be 20 acres parcels. We thought it a shame to split up such a large tract of land that way. Fearing what a new owner might do with property, we wanted enough so that we could have a buffer from what someone may do on the adjoining property we did not buy. Unfortunately, we could not afford the entire 80 acres, so we purchased 40 acres and the neighbor on the other side of that 40 (owner that bought the sister’s place 20 years ago) bought the other 40. Once we put a gate in the barbedwire fence between the 10 and 40 acre tracts, two formerly two pieces of property became one.

Gate Between the 10 and 40 Acre Tracts