wayne fajkus

I started making mustang grape juice and its very easy. I fill a steam juicer (just grapes, no stems) and run it for 45 minutes. After that I add 4 cups sugar per gallon of juice. I water bath that for 15 minutes in jars to make it shelf stable. From there I mix it with up to 4 parts water for drinking. Adjust for taste. You can probably add less sugar but I think it stretches the yield.
No straining with the steam juicer. I may use this juice to make wine, although I would have to add yeast since the steam juicer may have killed it.

my bee project hasnt done well so none with honey.

Thought this was cool. The oak tree is dead. The leaves are all mustang grape. Normally the vines would go to the ground and create a room. The other one I had, which finally toppled over, often had a deer inside when I walked by

The cows love the leaves so I doubt they will let the leaves vine down to the ground.

This is what I used some of the soil for. I guess I would call it a washout area. It looks like an old dried out river bed. It does not make sense to take an eroded, low elevation area, and make a swale (make it even lower). So I made just a berm with the excess soil.  Its pretty risky but I can fix it if it blows out. There is a lot of Bermuda in there and if I can get it growing, it should hold it together.  I also mulched it with hay and seeded it with a food plot mix. Oats, wheat, peas,  brassicas.

If you look at the top left you should see a culvert. That road was added by previous owner probably 20 to 30 years ago. The diagonal flow on my property goes through that culvert. This includes overflow of the last pond I built.. This berm is uphill from the culvert so won't be effected by that flow.

It should catch water from a small area. I'll look after a rain but I suspect it will hold 6" of water in an area ruffly 30 yards x 30 yards. It'll take about 200 ft of hose to get a sprinkler to it. Considering the small size of the berm it might be worth doing it to get Bermuda and other roots holding it together sooner.

Here is an update on vetiver. I planted the swale line with two plantings over 2 weeks. This shows how it turns brown and looks dead, then sends up new leaves. I've kept animals off this pasture to let it establish, but at this point I can tug on the first plantings and they stay in the ground.

Basically done. After filling with water, I can see the berm  is not level. I have a mound of dirt I extracted. I'll add to berm to level it off. The overflow area was cut into the lowest elevation, so the water is basically at or below the pre-existing ground level before I started the project. The berm/dam is not holding the water.  My big concern is getting roots established.

To wrap up, this project took one solid day, but spread over a few days-1 or 2 hours at a time. A skidsteer and a small tractor was used. The tractor had a little more reach to smooth out the slopes with the front bucket.

I also need to direct the outgoing water to the area I'll be posting up soon

The dam is pretty much done. Will hay/seed it soon. I'm about half way done digging out the pond.

Started on another unsealed pond. I basically dug out a swale, then filled with water (using water as a surveyors level)to make sure water entry and exit was correct. Everything looks good so far. Next I will dig out about the size of the red line. I'm using the soil in another area. Will post that one soon.

I know the main pond has them. I got a couple in a minnow trap I had set out. I'm not actively trying to get them.

This is a line of vetiver on my original swale. Just planted it. It's within range of water access. This is a horse pasture. I'll have to keep them out for a while.