doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: Raising your own stock blanks

When I moved back to Montana after retiring in southern Oregon. I missed the easy access to Preslik's in Chico, CA where I bought stock blanks for many years. As a sort of joke on myself, I planted a Mayette nut in my front yard. To my surprise, it thrived. After 12-13 years the tree is 15 feet tall and 9" in diameter at the base. Last year my crop consisted of three walnuts, but this year the tree seems to have many. At 78, I'll let someone else harvest the stock blanks but look forward to not ordering my walnuts from far away.

Sometimes you feel like a nut

https://vegetablesofinterest.typepad.com/vegetablesofinterest/2007/08/franquette-waln.html

Sometimes you just go against common wisdom when you plant trees. My yard was full of huge red oaks from the early 1900s until Hurricane Gracie came through here and uprooted about 15 of them in the fall of '59. Over the years many more have died, and about 15 years ago we decided to replant some oaks. Having dealt with red oak leaf shed in the fall we decided to replant with live oaks. Folks told us that they grow so slowly we would never live long enough to see much size on them. Well, folks were wrong. On rainfall alone we now have live oaks with trunks approaching two feet in diameter. They are beautiful, and give total shade beneath. I've never seen anything make acorns like they do. I have raked them up and shoveled them into 5 gal. plastic buckets to haul off. I dump them in a little pond that woodies like. Never shot any over them, tho'. Might be considered baiting.

SRH

I want some valley oaks on my property and waited years for the local ones to produce a few acorns. Last September I gave up and collected some at Coyote Valley Sporting Clays, an hour away. I am now nurturing the seedlings, as well as madrones and big leaf maples I grew from seeds.

Stan, a former SC state game warden told me an account of flying over a lowcountry plantation marsh pond crowded with mallards. An on foot investigation found the surface covered with acorns with no trees in sight. On Christmas Eve, the family shot the pond and all were promptly arrested. Dick confronted the owner: "Sir, the pond is baited with acorns." "It better be. I paid my help to rake them up from under the oaks on the entrance road and put them in the pond. Please don't take the ducks. No one but me knew about the bait. The ducks are for our family's Christmas dinner. Dick's superior officer conferred with Dick, who told the old man the total for forfeiture bonds. The owner wrote a check covering the shooting parties' forfeiture bonds, and let them keep the ducks. Gil

["I have raked them up and shoveled them into 5 gal. plastic buckets to haul off. I dump them in a little pond that woodies like. Never shot any over them, tho'. Might be considered baiting."]

Mmmhuuuh. Just agreeing with you...Geo

Old GA political saying: "Never write anything you can say and never say anything you can wink."

I get Cherrybark Oaks from the state and plant them on my farm. I'm 71 years old. How's that for optimism?...Geo

I plant Maple trees for the fall color.
And I sugar the bigger ones.

Red, orange, yellow, purple, blush, and rust.

Big Sugar maples have magnificent yellow leaves come fall.

These best time to plant a tree is 15 years ago.
The second best is today.

Not optimism, Geo. You can't help it.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit."

Greek proverb. You knew that!

"Wherevah you see a place of ugly, plant a bush, a tree, or a shrub." Ladybird Johnson