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White-Tailed Deer Tree Stand Safety

Fall Prevention and Tree Stand Safety

Tree Stand Safety – Background

Hunting is obviously not one of our three lines of business, Sawyers, Sugarers, or Soapers, but it is part of what I refer to as Primal Woods Life, and it is About Us!  Indigenous peoples have not been particular about food, other than to ensurethat it was safe and nutritious, so they ate what the land had to offer; plants and animals.  In the midwest, White-Tailed Deer are a part of the fat of the land, and so they are a part of how we now sustain ourselves.  If you want to know more about White-tailed Deer and their conservation, check out the post I wrote, Top 7 Messages from The Land Ethic Reclaimed.  Hunting safely is about your Health, and it is about your Community, including your family and friends.  I argue that you cannot afford to get hurt, and your friends, family and community cannot afford for you to get hurt.

Tree Stand Safety at Primal Woods

Part and parcel of hunting white-tailed deer in this part of the country, are tree stands.  Now I religiously wear my safety harness in all ladder stands that I hunt from, regardless of height, which ranges from 12-15 feet.  I don’t care who you are, a fall from that height can hurt you, badly.  However, the safety harness only protects you once you are in the stand, not when climbing to, or descending from the stand.  We inherited a high “hang-on” stand from a tresspasser a few years ago, and this stand requires some additional safety considerations.  The seat of the stand is about 25 feet above the ground, and access is not via a typical ladder, but rather by use of a “climbing stick,” which is strapped to the tree.

tree stand safety fall prevention

Yup, that qualifies as a long drop

This tree stand requires 16 feet of climbing stick, and another 8 feet or so of “tree steps,” which are screwed into the tree.

tree stand safety tree step

An example of a “tree step”

Tree Stand Safety – Fall Prevention

Now, let in be said, I’m not a big fan of heights.  And I am certainly not interested in falling from 20 or 25 feet while trying to access this tree stand, or worse yet, while climbing down from this tree stand in complete darkness and the dead of winter.  So, today I installed the Gorilla Gear Fall Defense G-Tac Fall Defense Line Tree Rope.  That’s a mouthful.  It is the larger rope on the right side of the climbing stick in the photo.  This piece of safety equipment uses a curious knot, called a “Prusik Knot,” which you can slip up or down as you climb or descend, but which pulls tight and arrests your fall if the knot is put under tension by the force of your fall.

tree stand safety Prusik knot

Prusik Knot in the Gorilla Gear Fall Defense Line

A carabiner attaches your safety harness to the Prusik knot when climbing or descending.  The green and white in the larger black rope is reflective.

The other rope in the picture, on the left, is what I call a haul rope.  Again, this is tied off up at the stand, but is equipped with carabiners at the ground-end to allow the hunter to leave his gear on the ground, attached to the haul rope; freeing his hands for climbing.  Then, once the hunter is safely situated in the stand, with safety harness attached, the gear is hauled up.  So both ropes, for fall prevention and for hauling gear up to the stand, are important from a safety perspective.

Ok, all for now.  I just wanted to get out a quick note, asking you to care for yourselves, and by association, your family and friends.  Take safety seriously.

All the best, and kind regards,

John

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Peach Trees – Actions against Peach Tree Borer

A brief update on 3 of the fruit trees, the peaches, planted in June of 2016.  The details of all of the fruit and nut trees and shrubs can be found in the blog post “FRUIT & NUT TREE AND SHRUB WALK-AROUND JULY 2016.”  It’s safe to say I have provided all of the trees and shrubs planted with near-zero support.  So far we have only lost one peach, the “Flamin’ Fury,” and that was last year; it did not look good from the git go.

Yesterday I was prompted to check the remaining peaches for peach borer by my friend PJ.  ‘Shor ‘nuf, they appear to have recently been at the O’Henry Peach, and perhaps less recently, and less aggressively, at the  Loring Peach. Read more

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Planning for 2018 Maple Syrup Expansion

Improvements will be built upon the foundation of the current process, as defined in the “Process Flow-Maple Syrup” diagram

It is is mid-June, and already I feel a bit late in putting together the improvements necessary to significantly scale up maple operations in 2018. This is my first pass at identifying what needs to be put in place to increase production by a factor of 8x to 10x. The number of taps will go from 50-70 in 2017, to 400-500 in 2018.  What will stay the same, and what will change? Read more

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Revisiting the End of Maple Sugaring Season – Based on Growing Degree Days

Sugar Maple buds, iPhonography through telescope 2017 Apr 04

Of course our maple season ended some time ago, the last sap was evaporated on March 21st; the end having nothing to do with Growing Degree Days and reaching budbreak, but having everything to do with the trees healing the tap holes to the extent that sap flow was stifled. As I looked out the window yesterday though, it was clear that the two mature Red Maples in our backyard were in the process of leafing out, and with the naked eye it looked like the Sugar Maples on the south side of the house were budding out, if not yet flowering or leafing out. Read more

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Predicting the End of Maple Sugaring Season – Caveat emptor

Back to the Growing Degree Days (GDD) calculation, and “knowing” that Sugar Maples budbreak between 30-50 GDD°C base 10 (54-100 GDD°F base 50), how then does that help us?  Even predicting the end of the season is of dubious value I suppose, but it seems like a good exercise.  So, I’m just taking a relatively uninformed shot at this prediction; I have not tested the results against “real life” as recorded in prior years, nor have I used records from real life in prior years to inform this prediction.  In other words, caveat emptor. Read more

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Estimating the End of Maple Sugaring Season – Based on Growing Degree Days

 

Not so much

Today’s lack of sap flow, in the face of a 50⁰F daytime high, after a low in the mid 20’s overnight, has me concerned.  It certainly seems as if the sap should be running from the taps.  So, I thought I would revisit the issue of Growing Degree Days, and perform the calculation using data from a bit closer to home.  A couple of “revelations,” if you will: there are Celsius, or Centigrade GDD, and there are Fahrenheit GDD.  It is often not specified in literature, and I tripped over this distinction, or the lack of a distinction, in my earlier post on the subject, “MAPLE SYRUPING SEASON – STARTING, ENDING, OR BOTH?”  In the wikipedia entry on the subject of Acer saccharum, aka Sugar Maple, it is written that “flowering occurs in early spring after 30–55 growing degree days.”  GDD Celsius or GDD Fahrenheit not specified, naturally.  Since the units in the balance of the entry are in metric units, with English units noted parenthetically, I finally made the connection that flowering will occur at 30-55 GDDC (Celsius).  If GDDC is then multiplied by 1.8, the result is a GDDF (Fahrenheit) range of 54-99.  Okay, so now that that’s cleared up, where are we now? Read more

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Maple Syruping Season – Mid-Season Update

New snow

I am guessing we are at mid-season, and hopeful that it will run through the end of March.  Having said mid-season, we still have only chalked up 4 growing degree days (GDD) since Jan 01; that’s at the South Haven station, 16 miles to our northwest, and on the shores of Lake Michigan. Read more

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Maple Syruping Season – Starting, Ending, or Both?

I have been asked that question a lot lately, sometimes in more general terms, and I have asked it of myself as frequently!  Unfortunately I have had nothing resembling an answer.  Then yesterday, my early homesteader education continued, as the concept of “Growing degree days,” Gdd or GDD for short, came to my attention.  As it turns out, there is some science that can be brought to bear on the subject of when trees will bud out, and that so-called “budbreak” signals the end of the maple sugaring season. Read more

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I’m a List Guy

Yes, I am even one of those that will put something I have already done on the list just so I can check it off!  So last night I woke in the wee hours, and could not get my mind to shut off.  And today is tapping day of course, and I have procrastinated, of course, so now I am up against it, of course.  What’s new, that is the story of my life more or less!  To shut my mind off, I make a list of what is on my mind; this took about an hour fifteen, then I was able to get back to sleep.  See the image of my list below, or find the pdf, with clickable links,  HERE.  Now I need to power through the list, wish me luck! Read more

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2017 Maple Syruping Season – GO!!!

I am calling the official start of Primal Wood’s maple sugaring season as 2017 February 10th.  We got some sap flow yesterday and the day before (Monday-Tuesday) in our five test buckets; they are full in fact.  Today and tomorrow no flow is expected, as temperatures are expected to remain solidly below freezing.  Friday we see the rise from an overnight low of 18ºF to a daytime high of 41ºF; that is a near perfect scenario.  We shall see whether or not flow continues Saturday through Monday, as we do not see sub-freezing temperatures overnight, but then we pick up again with a nice cycle from Tuesday morning through Friday of next week.  Today and tomorrow will be maple syruping preparations and tapping.  Here we GO! Read more

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