Summer Fire With Habitat Works

This week on the Missouri Woods & Water podcast Nate and Micah get to talk with good friend of the show Dustin Williams with Habitat Works about summer fire. We have never really thought about the possibility of burning in late summer, but after talking with Dustin, burning this time of year makes a lot of sense in several ways. Dustin talks about all things summer fire with us. From the positive aspects to the negative. How it affects different types of plants like wanted species and invasives to different wildlife, Dustin gets into all of it. Thanks for listening!

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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast with your host, Nate and Micah. Andy's bitch ass couldn't make it. You didn't waste any time f that dude. He and he can't even do anything about it. I know. And he is not gonna listen, so he ain't gonna hear it. We should like, we should say stuff in our shows that is like very important that he should know.

Just like little tidbits like about the podcast or whatever. Like I'd be like, Hey Andy, next time I see you, if you gimme three finger, like three. Fingers up, I'll give you a hundred dollars. Or just something stupid like that and, just, or Hey, we have a new partner. [00:01:00] Yeah. And if you say congratulations to us, you'll get part of it.

Just dumb stuff. And then he'll just be like, how's it going guys? Oh yeah. It was great. Did you listen to the last show? Oh yeah. Yeah. Definitely. That was good. That was good. You freaking liar. We should. Just with him. Hey, Andy. Andy. Andy. We love you. I hope you're having fun on your vacation right now.

I don't love him. He's a dick. Do you want to get in a fight? Is that what you wanna do? No. We're fighting. There's no going to get in a fight. We're fighting. Is it like me trying to fight Dustin in tonight's show? Oh no. I could definitely take Andy. Oh, there's the difference. Yes. That's what you think Dustin would mess you up at?

Dustin would annihilate any of us. All three of us together? Yeah. At the same time, like he's a beast. Okay. He did wrestle D one, he's pretty good. And granted that was 10 years ago, but he doesn't look like he's taken a day off. But he also coaches wrestling? Yeah, dude's a stud.

Okay. He doesn't look like he's taking any time off. No. He's a killer and he's one of those guys, like he's got a [00:02:00] sleeve tattoo. Yeah. He's one of those guys that the tattoo really works for him. It's because it intimidates me even more. I know, but okay. Yep. That guy's a badass. But he's nice as can be.

It's not like your tattoo that's got faded letters on your back that some guy did in a garage when you were 17. You might as well, you might as well call it a prison tattoo. It looks exactly. It looks like a prison tattoo. It looks like you used to do crack and somebody gave you a tattoo. No, listen to this.

So this was last summer. It was one of the hottest days of the year. I remember this because it said hottest day of the year so far. And for some reason I had to dig this damn what was it? It was electrical wire going to one of our plants and I had to dig it up 'cause we were getting it replaced. Why I chose the hottest day of the year, I don't know.

But I'm sitting there digging in this fenced in area. And I took, and I had my shirt off. I was like, it's hot as hell. I'm taking my shirt off. My boss comes by Aubrey, she drives by, she stops the car, rolls the window. You [00:03:00] look like a prison inmate, rolls the window up and just drives off. I'm just like okay.

That hurt my feelings and it's a hundred percent accurate. I get it. It's pretty bad tattoo. I will say your tattoo is tattoos. Yeah. I got a few No retts, but no, I don't bother me. That one is a good one. That was good. Good. That one's a good one, but it's such an odd tattoo. The back piece. I have that, I had three people, three different people work on it, so Yeah.

It just didn't work out. Your initials that didn't stay. Yeah. And now they're like flames that are fa Yeah it's bad. It's bad. See your back tattoo is exactly why I never ended up getting one. Good. I'm glad I've made that decision because I was scared to have that. Now your tattoo on your chest.

Yeah, your chest or whatever it says forgive and forget. Yeah. Legitimate. That was a well done one. Yeah, they did a good job. I wish you would've done no regers. Not even a single letter. Not one letter, huh. But anyways, today's episode. Dustin, I love you. I'm sorry I was talking shit. Don't hit me.

Speaking of Dustin, that's who we have on today's [00:04:00] show. We're talking about summer fires. I about said it. I was about to say, speaking of hot, we're gonna talk about fire, but you just said, speaking of Dustin, speaking of hot fire. Yeah. We talk about summer burning, not something that gets brought up a lot.

And we think of everything we do. We think of deer hunting and stuff. Dustin looks at it in a different lens. Different, yes. He's looking at all angles. Which is good. He's helping everything out. I could just care less about everything else. I just want help the deer, I want hold and grow big deer.

Dustin wants to help out the quail. He wants to help out the turkeys and everything else under the sun. So mean plant and plants. He wants, yeah. Plants. He wants native species to take over and not these stupid invasives that he, he's always talking about. And yeah. So summer fire is a topic I've never really even listened to.

I'm sure there's other podcasts out there, but it's not something we've ever even really thought of. Dustin actually the last time [00:05:00] that we. Recorded was like, Hey, that'd be a good one. We could do at some point. And so we said win. Yeah. And he said now. So we did it. Perfect. So it's a good show as always.

Dustin gives some really good information. He told me I asked a good question once, so that's cool. Yeah, good job. I'm smart. Proud of you. Let's get into our sponsors before today's show. Yeah. We'll just go ahead and start it off with Habitat Works. Who the hell's that guy? That's Dustin Habitat Works, llc@gmail.com o Or you can call him at (816) 752-7390.

You guessed it. He does some or fire. So give him a call. Mention us when you call and you get 15% off any of his services. Weber Outfitters. This will come out on August 8th. That means you, you might. Maybe have time to put, I don't know when we're there. The entries. Closing entries. Yeah. So this will be the last time we talk about it.

Exactly. The next one will be doing the live drawing [00:06:00] that coming Saturday. So for the ultimate bow hunting giveaway. Yep. August 12th and Hawk Point, Missouri at Weber Outfitters is their try and buy event. We will be there. Dustin might be there. Yeah. Yeah. We invite Dustin to go. We'll see. But we'll be there for sure.

And it's a try and buy event. Different vendors are coming out, the bow companies, saddle companies I think Alon Optics is gonna be out there. We're gonna be there. It's an opportunity to try stuff out. And during the event, we're gonna give away the ultimate bow hunting package that you can enter in if you still haven't entered yet by the time you enter this or listen to this show.

Like I said, we don't know when it really closes for sure. I would guess you can. Apply until maybe they draw. I have no idea. I dunno. Maybe the day before or something. But if you want to just go into the show notes for today's show and there's a link right there to take you to the giveaway. If you don't know how to get to show notes or whatnot, then go to Missouri woods and [00:07:00] water.com and go into our partners tab and the link will be there also.

A couple ways you can do it. You can also get to it through Weber Outfitters. I just don't know where they have it on their website. Because we have the link. So weber outfitters.com, check 'em out. I wanna say hi to a dude that went and stopped into Weber today and what's his name? Tim.

Tim was recently listening to an episode of ours and stopped in at Weber today. Oh really? And did he pick a bow? Decided to come in for a visit. It was time for an upgrade. Nice. Tim, message us and tell us what you got, bro. I see him getting several ones set up, but which one did you go with? Very cool.

Interested to hear that. Yeah. Athlon optics, they're also, like I said, gonna be at the try and buy event. Excited to see our boys there. We haven't seen Drake in a little while. I don't know if Dustin's gonna be there or not, but we haven't seen them. So excited to [00:08:00] catch up with them. Weber happens to be a dealer for Alon as well, so check out Alon stuff.

It's good stuff. Yeah. Someone would almost say ridiculously good. Ridiculously good optics. Yeah. Get it. See what I did. I see what you did there. OnX. Use the code M ww 24, 20%. Hopefully you guys are on there, picking out where you're gonna be on stand putting stands. And we just spent 20 minutes on OnX after recording with Justin.

Just talk Dustin, with Dustin because he's I don't know about expert, but he's a dang good map reader and he's already given us some ideas. I'll call, I will call him that. Yeah. Damn. Good at pointing us in the right direction. Use the code Mww 20 20% off Camel Fire Flash Sale.

What's today? Today's Thursday. I'm not sure what they have. Yeah, we're recording. On a Thursday. The only thing we know is trail cam Tuesday, and it's not Tuesday, so I don't, couldn't tell you what's on there right now. I haven't got on today, yep. Black ovis used to code m WW 10 for 10%. I've been doing a little shopping on there.

I tend to do that at a time. I [00:09:00] like to fill my, I put a lot of shit in my cart and then it sits there, right? And then I'm like, okay. Then I got weeded through what I actually want. I've also started using my wishlist. Ooh, there you go. Do you know that's an option? You can do wishlist? Yeah. Save your wishlist.

Yeah. I knew I've never done it, but I knew it was an option. I've got actually probably too much shit on my wishlist because then I go back and I'm like, wait a minute. Wish pair of pants did I like better? I don't remember which ones, so like I said, MWW 10 for 10% hunt worth gear. We love our hunt worth.

Oh, and it's about to get even easier to love your hunt worth. Oh, I saw that. They got, they're doing some upgrading to their website. The system builder function is about to be live actually, by the time this comes out. It might be, Awesome. So how's that gonna work for him? There's I think, five different systems.

Of course, I don't know all the details, just talked to Karen yesterday. But let's say you're gonna be a early season Whitetail Hunter. You can go in there and it'll have everything that an early season Whitetail Hunter potentially would potentially want. And basically there's the system, if that's what you want right now, you can say, Hey, I don't [00:10:00] want.

The gloves. Take 'em off. So you just don't it doesn't automatically put 'em in there. It's just this is what is early season. And then you probably just click on 'em. Here's a midseason mule, deer hunt, or whatever. That it to be a thing. Gives like a temperature breakdown too, if I remember right.

Yeah. It's got a little blurb about each item too. So then you can go in, add it to the cart and move on to the next and build your systems from there. When you build your system, use the code Mww one, five or 15% off. Yep. Alps Outdoors. Use the code 2 0 2 3 Woods Water for 30% off. Huge discount.

Hopefully you guys are using that thing. That that's some big savings right there. And actually I got even more excited about my elite pack because of our firearms. Yeah. Yeah. The guy's my buddy over at SS o b Holsters he's gonna make us some custom holsters for that pack.

'cause yeah, the clip. Like my what do you call it? My conceal stock holster for my sig is, the clip is just a little too fat for those the webbing or what is it called? Molly. Molly on the belt. And I really would rather [00:11:00] it be on my, the padded part of my, yeah, like on the outside clip.

Not, yeah. Inside. And he's gonna make us some. So pretty excited about that. Pretty excited about it. And obviously there's other stuff you can pick up from Alps that is terrific to use. Most of my stuff that I'm gonna be camping with in Wyoming is gonna be Alps, right? My tent will be, my sleeping bag will be my sleeping pad, will be my pack, will be like, if I use trekking poles, they'll, that would be their stuff.

Yep. All that stuff, man. Yep. So check 'em out. Zamberlan boots, my voice is still cracking. Zamberlan boots zamberlan usa.com. Speaking of stuff that's gonna be in Wyoming with me, my links, I'm telling you right now, I've. Tried four or five different models of theirs. Now is that your favorite? Those are my favorite, yeah.

Especially with the Boas system. I don't know if I like my belt Toros or my links better. I've been breaking in my links and they're pretty well broken. I probably should put a few more miles on 'em, [00:12:00] but I'm pretty happy with them, but I'm also pretty happy with my belt Toros, so I don't know.

Yeah, I'm gonna take both. So we'll just see. I took, I, I'm gonna take two paired this year too, but obviously I'm not gonna pack in one, one pair is gonna sit in the truck just in case something happens. The other pair that I think I'm gonna take is going to be the leopards. Really? I think the Cresta are gonna stay at home.

Oh, okay. Okay. That'll work. Yep. Reveal cameras. As you guys know from last week's episode, their new app updated and freaking it's exciting. Oh, let me look at this picture of this buck real quick. Yeah. Because I got a picture of a buck actually this morning a buck that I would like to shoot in the face.

No, not in the face, in the lungs, in the pump house. It happened to be 77 degrees with a southwest, five and a half mile wind, 29.9 pressure. And a waxing gibbes moon, whatever the hell that means. Yeah. Never heard of that moon. Do you know how it got all that information? By the app? On the freaking app?

It's on the picture of the buck. Yeah. [00:13:00] And then you tag it, and then once you build up enough, it's gonna give you statistics of when, which I haven't started tagging 'em yet. I need to, I've been tagging my bucks every single photo of a buck. I haven't done every photo. I don't know if I gotta do every photo.

But I've been doing a few. So it should build a, it's badass statistics. It's for it. They're really trying to think of everything. Yeah, and like we talked about, I don't know if this guy brought on, he's a hunter and he wants the best thing out there yeah, that's what he is trying to make.

Yeah. It's a 9 45 and you and I might go set another camera. I doubt it, but I'd be down. No shit. I'd do it right now. Let's go. Don't threaten me with a good time. I will threaten you with a good time. I've got my stuff that I don't have to worry about getting eaten by ticks. Oh yeah, that's true.

Although we would be able to walk straight to the creek. I got my Hey dudes on right now, you know that. Yeah, we would. But, and I'll talk to you off here. I know. I'll talk to you off here. Alright. Yeah, let's get into the show. Yeah, that's it. Let's get into the show with Dustin Williams, with Habitat Works about Summer [00:14:00] Fire.

This is the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast. All,

all right with us tonight for his first time on Zoom. Usually he's been down here with us, but we got our buddy and now newly crippled buddy Dustin Williams. He's not so crippled anymore. Nah, he's been mended. We'll get into that. But we got Dustin Williams with Habitat Works on Zoom tonight 'cause he worked late like a working man does.

Dustin, what's up man? Not a lot just. I think I'm further along than you realize. I'm on The men pretty good, so I'm talking too much shit. He's gonna drive down here, he's gonna drive down and whoop your ass. That's what he's gonna do. Can't keep a good man down. That's right. Our listeners, I don't know if you [00:15:00] know this or not, but Dustin is a spelt individual.

Felt spelt, spelt, he's got some muscles and stuff like that. Dustin's kind of a badass. Yeah, definitely. We'll just, we'll say that. So he's about an hour and a half away from us right now, so I'm gonna talk all the shit I can so that by next time, hopefully I was gonna say, I've never heard this side of you before.

What's the deal? Is that not the most typical short man guy syndrome you've ever heard? At least his way. I'll talk shit. It's like a barking dog through his door. Yeah. Little yapper. I know where you live. Damnit. But yeah, what's up? What's up man? How's it going? Oh, that's good.

Been busy, been doing some fun things and. Getting ready to go on a trip to Oregon, the big, the actual state of Oregon. I live in a small town of Oregon right now in Missouri, but yeah. What are you going to do there? A little bit of sightseeing for six days. So quite a bit of sightseeing. A little vacation, huh?

It's a vacation. Yep. Nice. Yep. Nice. I, that's one state I would love to go to. [00:16:00] I bet it's just absolutely gorgeous out there. Yeah. Yeah. I would like to hunt elk out there. I'd like to hunt elk out there, but I'd go there just to see it. But that's a, are you flying or driving? We're flying, I think it's three and a half hours, so it's not really that bad of a flight.

Really? Yeah. That ain't too bad. Probably like a 20 hour drive. Oh, it's probably longer than that. It's probably like 24. I, is it 24? I know it's on the coast. 20. The good thing is when you're driving out there, you gain two hours. That's true. But when you drive back, you lose them. So that's gotta suck.

But yeah, that, that's good. You need a nice vacation because you've been doing a shit ton of stuff this year, this summer especially. The topic we're gonna get into today, and just, I guess I, we shouldn't make an assumption that every listener knows exactly who dust in Williams and Habitat Works is.

You should, but Dustin, quickly introduce yourself for those who don't know who you are, and tell 'em a quick tidbit about Habitat Works and what it is you do. [00:17:00] Yeah. I started the company in 2019 and did that along with some other habitat jobs that I carried for a few years. I worked for Kansas Forest Service for a while.

I worked with another contractor in Kansas custom forestry applications. Had a good time there. Learned a lot from my boss. He was a good dude. And worked for the state of Kansas, the Fish and Wildlife Department at their wildlife areas along the Missouri River, close to St. Joe. So I've got a lot of experience managing wildlife habitat and an array of different habitat types, whether it's forest or prairie type system or river bottom ground.

And there's, it's all similar with some tweaks and some. Twists on how you might do things in each of those different places. So yeah, and that's why, and you went to school for that as well too, didn't you? Yep. I went to Mizzou. M I was thinking, yeah, Zou[00:18:00] I was thinking about how long it's already been since I was there, and it's coming up on 10 years since I graduated here before long.

Yeah. Wait until it's almost 20. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. But and Dustin, we've had Dustin on the show multiple times. One of my favorite shows, we actually talked about Dustin last week's show in our BSS session. Actually it'll be two weeks ago, show in our BSS session. We all, we got a listener question that was, what is something you'd like to get better at?

And my answer was, I'd like to be able to read maps like Dustin does. And that's one thing I'm absolutely floored by is, your ability to look at a. A topography map or a, OnX or whatever app map and just kinda plan it before you've ever seen it and talk about, the ridges that you see and the the ways you would attack it.

To me that's a service I would definitely reach out, for, Dustin does it all, and that's just one of the things that he does. But man, I'll tell you what, [00:19:00] like I was, I love sitting there that night and just pulling stuff up on our big screen and having him just go do, and I think I, what did I send you?

Like three, two or three different properties that we were looking to possibly lease this year. And I sent 'em to Dustin and said, what do you think of this? And, as soon as he got a moment, he sent it back and he had a, a few marks on it. He is this is what I think, blah, blah, blah.

And yeah, stamp placement here, yeah, this would be good. They should be moving this way. That sort of thing. So we luckily have an in with them, so I didn't have to pay him for that. But, I no, I appreciate you bringing that up. I'd like to do more of that stuff for people 'cause that's really fun for me.

And really what it is you take those points and those features and if you're scouting a new place or hunting public land or whatever that might be it just helps you focus on some areas to start. Check those points out, see what kind of sign there is, and, look for your acorn trees and look for the food sources near those areas.

And then you can have a better developed game plan before the [00:20:00] season ever starts. And if you just. And started walking the whole place. Yeah, and I think it'd be a great you think about it now, I don't know how much Dustin charges for that service alone, although if you mention us when you call, you get 15% off.

But yeah, it's a, if that's the only thing you had him do, it's a very non-invasive thing, right? You could literally have a Zoom call with him if you live in southwest Missouri, and he's up in Oregon, Missouri, and you send him a map, he works it up, sends it to you, and you guys get on a call and he can go over it with you.

And it's, for a person with a new property, I think it'd be great. Or someone who's having struggles with their current place, maybe there, there's more they want to do with Dustin. But I think that's one of the services that e even like a new hunter too. Definitely. The Hey man, I don't really know what I'm doing out here.

My grandpa's got this back 40 that he said I could go kill some deer on putting, if you're able to lay the eyes on that map, you can point 'em in the right direction. It might not be a hundred percent, but more than likely he's gonna get you close. Yep. But we're not really [00:21:00] talking about today.

Now, I will say we did have a show with Dustin just a few months ago. Freaking Apple Podcast got rid of episode numbers, so I can't tell you what episode number it is anymore, but it was sometime during like early spring, wasn't it Winter time? Yeah. I don't even, what was the topic of that one? It was the art, I think it was the art reading maps or something.

I don't even remember. But we talked about maps quite a bit and Oh, it was the farm. Yeah. It was your guys' farm visits. That's Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. The breakdowns and all that. Yeah, it was early spring. But like I said, for some stupid ass reason, apple Podcast got rid of episode numbers and I can't just say go back to episode this.

I could find it on Spotify probably. Yeah, you probably could. And actually I can tell people what episode number it is real quick. Not that it's that big a deal. You can find it if you want, but it is episode

right here, 1 51 50 episode one 50. That would've been [00:22:00] sometime around. March or April, March. Yeah, probably April-ish, mid March. March early April. So anyway, that's a good show. What we're gonna talk about today specifically is summer fire. And it's something that honestly, a lot of people don't think about.

I never really have thought about it. I'm one of those people that always thought you burn in early spring. That's just when you burn. Yeah. When things get green, you don't burn anymore. Yeah. Dustin disagrees. I don't know that he disagrees that burning in the early spring's a bad idea, but how you've been doing quite a bit of burning lately, correct?

Not lately because the growing season burning has, it really just starts about this time of year. And it runs through September, october, depending on the conditions. So it's been a little while. Since I've done one and we're recording this show, what's today?

Seventh 27th, July 27th. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my first one of the growing season tomorrow, [00:23:00] and then I have three more right now that I have to do for this growing season. And what about summer burning is something you like? There's, we'll get into all of it, but I guess what are some of the main positives to it and how does that differ from, the early spring where a lot of people think about burning?

All the burns are goal specific, and so it just depends on what you're trying to achieve with your burn. And like the one tomorrow, it's prescribed by the N R C S for a C R P contract, when a gentleman has a tree problem and so burning this type of, or this time of year is more efficient at setting back woody encroachment in the c r P ground.

And so for that goal specifically, that's, this is a better time to burn. So it's not necessarily great for timber or I guess you would call it like doing a timber [00:24:00] burn. It is trickier. I have found this type time of year, especially in our area, to do timber burns. And that's because most timber stands are not improved.

And so they're shady. They're really dense and they're shady. And sunlight helps you get fire going tremendously. But that's part of the reason I didn't burn today. I was supposed to burn today and then it was cloudy and humid. And when the cloud rover, it's more humid. And so I was like, it's looking at the weather tomorrow a lot better, a lot less cloud cover and it should create a better burn.

But so you asked about the timber. Usually there's not enough sunlight in there and it's really damp in the understory and it can be difficult to get a fire to burn through the woods this time of year. Okay. So what about you were talking about trying to knock back some of the woody encroachment on the c r p for this particular land that you're going to.

What about burning now is [00:25:00] better for that than six months ago? So in the winter burns during the early spring or the winter, when you burn through grass, that will obviously easily burn the plant, has all of its nutrient reserves in the root system and so you run that fire through there and it's the same thing as if you just cut it off with the chainsaw.

All the nutrients are still in the roots. And once the growing season kicks off again, that tree immediately is gonna resprout. This time of year. A lot of the plant's nutrients are in the top of the tree and with a little bit of rain that we got, even in the past week or so, it's running its nutrients as it typically would.

Sometimes in a drought, they'll actually resort to storing those nutrients down below. But more of the plant's nutrients are up top and so when you run the fire through, you set it back more effectively than you would if you [00:26:00] do it when it's completely dormant. That makes sense. So is that kind of the same Oh, the same thought with you, you saw one of my hunting properties this last year we walked it and how just freaking nasty and crappy it is.

Now, obviously you have the one problem of the, being dark un under the understory and it's not very open in there. But if you were able to successfully burn in a really thick oh, brushy area up to head height, let's say you just got all the crap that you don't want in there.

Is it the same basic premise with, plants like the locust and the things that you don't like the invasive species, they're also out and alive by now. And so if you're able to successfully burn them, they would, you would do more damage to, I guess them than you would early spring when you're opening it up for 'em.

Yep, that's correct. So if you burn in the spring, you're gonna. Wipe out everything above, which is essentially just dead plant material anyways. [00:27:00] And all the nutrients that you're sitting back down on the ground are gonna go right back to the roots of that plant and it's just gonna go off like gangbusters again.

And wait a minute yeah, three weeks later you're like, what the hell? Yeah. I swear I just set this on fire. Yeah. It'll set it back, but it's invasive species for a reason, so it's just does really well. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah are, people are like, are you, would it be better to do this rather than like just a normal, some type of spray that would kill it this time of year?

This time of year, a spray will, as long as you get complete coverage and the conditions are right again. You essentially kill that whole plant as long as you use the right chemical. And so I'm using two four D and pasture guard in a mix to spray stuff like multicolor rows and recia za and all of that, all those woody invasive.

So I guess in [00:28:00] theory that would be more effective, right? 'cause you're actually just, you're killing them. More effective, more expensive, right? More hazardous beer. More dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. I come in contact with a little bit more of that stuff than I would like. I would much rather burn than spray.

Makes sense. It's the cheapest. It's the most cost effective. The most natural. You get more benefits from nutrient recycling by burning all that goes into the ground. And so those are some of the positives to burning versus chemical, but chemical. In most instances even during a summer burn, you're gonna have to come back with chemical at some point because there's a seed bank or some of those are still gonna resprout or whatever that might be.

Yeah. That makes total sense. What are, so what are the hurdles you have to overcome when you burn in the summer though? Do you have to is your preparation and your execution different just because of the, I guess the difficulty [00:29:00] you might have? What challenges do you have in the summertime?

Yeah, that's a good question. The challenges are a lot of times that the vegetation is green versus in the spring and it's dead. So already there's that hurdle of burning things that are living and they have moisture in them. So it's more difficult in that aspect. A lot of times in the c r p scenario anyways, what you're burning is the dead fats from the previous year's growth that is underneath.

And so getting that humidity down or Yeah, down low enough is important because the green grass will slow that fire too. And a growing season burn is not the same intense ripping thing that spring burns can be, especially in a grassland scenario. Yeah. And unless once in a while go ahead.

Probably. Unless it's just drier than hell [00:30:00] out. And everything's pretty much dead anyways, just right. Without any moisture. I'm sure. I'm sure that's when it gets a little sketchy. Okay. And that's another thing too. I. It is sketchy in those grassland burns in the spring and the winter because everything around you is all dormant.

Sometimes you can use those forest edges and some of those features as your fire break. If you can get into there in case of the need to put a fire out, you don't wanna rely on that if it's, if you can't get into it. But sometimes, like tomorrow, there's a section of it that I know just based on how dense and dark it is that a fire's not gonna creep through there.

So for, I'm gonna go ahead and mow the line anyways because there's segments along there, but I'm not gonna be as worried in those areas where it creeps into that dense vegetation. Yeah. Not that you would be careless, but you have, you can control the fire a little easier this time of year. [00:31:00] Yeah. Once again, unless everything's just dead, but because you have.

That already working against you. At the same time though, it's harder then for you to successfully do it. Like I'm sure at times you're like, okay, I've got this. It's off, it's got it and then it shits out and you gotta start again or whatever. But yep. I'm sure there's some of that and some cussing on your part at times.

Yeah. Some old crap. But yeah, but never, yeah, especially I'll do that every once in a while where, you know, I know what that's gonna be like, but for anybody listening, just make sure you got good fire lines. Make sure you got three or four people with you got all the equipment to put the fire out and just don't, complacency is what will get you well.

'cause one of the big things that would worry well, like Andy who's not here tonight, so hey, tell Andy to screw off right here, right here. Just tell him, he doesn't love you. Yeah, he doesn't love me. He likes corn more than I like corn. That's what I was just gonna say, guys like him, [00:32:00] farmers obviously right now there's beans and corn in the ground and that are actively growing.

And so you do definitely have that, I guess that worry of things like that getting affected. Whereas in early spring you're not gonna, be worried about 'em as much 'cause they're not in the ground and, a lot of those field edges are cultivated too. Where you can, that is there, there's a fire break right there.

It's a bunch of fresh dirt, but, so that's something you gotta definitely worry about this time of year. It's not like you're not taking the same precautions that you would in the wintertime. It's just, it's a different, ball game this time of year as far as things you don't want affected compared to things that you maybe don't care about in the winter.

But then you also have the added benefit that it's harder to burn stuff now, so you can be a little more, do you get more aggressive this time of year than you might in early winter or are you about the same overall? It, [00:33:00] it's hard to say yes to it just, it's so situationally dependent and like talking about the crop situation that you just mentioned there, there's better times in the growing season to burn, depending on your goals too.

So a little bit later than now would actually be better because more of those plant nutrients are all the way up and but the later in the growing season you get the more dormant the crop are. So the corn's starting to dry out and the beans are starting to dry out. September, if you're doing a growing season burn in September, you're more likely to light somebody from cornfield on fire.

So you better make sure that yeah, you've got a good fire line there. That would not be something that either of you would be happy about that would be bad. No, that'd be real bad. That'd be not good. Not good. We've got the insurance, but I'd rather not use it, sure. Yeah. You don't want to use the stuff, that's for sure.

Are there certain, are there any plants or invasives that you have found it more effective to burn now than [00:34:00] in the winter or vice versa? Yeah. Yeah. Winter burns are really good for helping to set back the, as long as they're not big specimens of honey, sole and olive, they're pretty good at setting those species back.

But if you burn grass in the wintertime and you have a cre diesel problem, you are making conditions better for that reio. And so that's one of the main ones that is a huge problem in this area. We had It's pretty much into your place that had it pretty bad. Yeah, I think so. What was it? That was all over the ground.

I don't know. I had a lot of crap on the ground. That's true. That's true. I had a lot of, I had a big old mess. Dustin's I honestly don't remember because you guys had such shitty places, but no, you guys both had Japanese honey, so that's what I was, okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's, I have notes for that a little bit too.

But, and I, it's not that I've found that it's better, but it's known [00:35:00] that growing season burns are better for setting back rei za. And back to like better times for that. Even it starts to put on its seed and flowers a little bit later than now. And so if you can get a fire hot enough, To burn that plant up while it has the seed on, you can actually effectively cancel that seed with that, that burn.

It will not, it won't germinate anymore. So you can almost effectively knock it back for generations, quote unquote. Yeah, except for it has a lot of seed in the ground and the seed made for is that's has a lot of longevity. That's sneaky son of a bitch. Yeah. It's not fun. It's like the worst thing in my opinion.

Yeah, man. I can see that. Now what about, a lot of times Go ahead. A lot of times that CCIA is so dense though in many situations, that it's one [00:36:00] of the areas that a fire in a grassland burn will stop, but it might be easier for you to get up to it and then spray that patch. If you burned everything that was around it.

So that makes sense. Yeah. If you got like a tall grassy area that you're not gonna, be walking through and then you burn and then you just have these patches of that left over, I'm not gonna try to say the word 'cause that would sound stupid, just sitting there left over. You can walk right up to 'em and then spray 'em.

So I guess that's definitely a positive. Or what about spraying it before you burn? Killing it as much as you can. And then would that, then, would it catch fire after that or, yeah. Okay. I have Can you how loud is my dog barking in the back? Oh, she's fine. Yeah, we can't hear her. She's fine. You're fine.

She can come in and watch you. Yeah. You're gonna close the door on her mean dad. She probably should come in. Yeah, she could. Yes, actually I, that's something that I wrote down too, because it [00:37:00] is more difficult to do certain things this time of year. There are ways that you can create the scenario that.

I wouldn't have been able to burn. But if I go in and I spray and then two weeks later that stuff's all brown browning up and drying out, now I can burn it effectively. Another thing that would help that is you can mow, you wanna mow high and so that it, when you leave, the stuff that you cut, it has a dense layer, not a dense layer, but it has air in it.

It's fluffy. Yeah. Yeah. And it falls down in the stuff that's still green. So it leaves that fluffiness to it. Then you might be able to run fire in a few weeks after what you mow. That makes sense. If you cut it all Yeah. If you cut it all the way short, a lot of times it's so close to the ground and so compacted that it won't want to.

But the main thing, even in that instance, is gonna be if your humidity and the sunlight is what it needs to be. Yeah. Yeah, so it's really just dependent on like the property you're burning in [00:38:00] this situation. If you've got a property with a bunch of cial, esped, nice. I had to really think about that one.

If you've got a property full of that, you might attack that differently than if it's a property full of, small young woody browse or whatever that you're trying to knock back out of a C R P area like you're going to tomorrow or whatever. You could say in that the first scenario I painted, you might go in, spray the invasive species, let it brown up, then go back and just like attack fire in those areas specifically.

Yeah, or like you said, you might mow and then go back and attack it. I guess it just is dependent on what you're trying to accomplish and what property, so I guess that's the biggest thing is you have to see what you're. You're attacking, or at least have a very good idea. I'm assuming most of these properties you have you either already seen them or at least had a really detailed talk with who you're going to work with.

Why do I [00:39:00] sound like a prep? I don't know. You keep your mouth. I think it's karma. My voice keeps cracking. Yeah, he's talking so much shit. He's from all that crap talking. He's scared and don't even know it. Why don't you come chase me? He probably could get you now. He probably could. Sounds like he outrun.

No, listen to this. I know we're going, we never even got into it though. Like he, we didn't His injury. Yeah, we didn't talk about it. About that. Yeah. We can cover that. We'll cover it in a, we'll do it at the end. Okay. No shit though. Last Monday I ran slash walked for two miles trying to get ready for Wyoming.

And at the end of my run, I thought to myself, I'm gonna fucking die in Wyoming. I'm gonna die on that mountain. That's what's gonna happen. But anyway you. You really just need to see the property, to decide, yeah. How am I gonna attack this with fire one way or the other. Yep.

Yep. So like you mentioned with this Fran beforehand and then Vernon, that would actually be something that you guys could do on with the Japanese honeysuckle. Get that stuff dying [00:40:00] certain it burn up like curtains and then, you'd have these little holes and it would be a repetitive thing still, like I mentioned before, but, would that, 'cause obviously my place is mostly timber. What effect on the trees does it have? Whenever you're burning in summer, like kind depends on the fuel and most of the on.

Great. Yeah, that's right. We had bullshit. Yeah. You might accidentally kill some honey locusts and some hedge trees, who cares? That is something you wanna be careful of. You wouldn't wanna torch some young especially oak trees or something that you might wanna keep.

It would have to be very super dry and probably windy for for it to catch a mature oak tree or something like that. Yeah. So that's when you wouldn't really have a huge problem if you've sprayed the invasive you're trying to get rid of, and especially in a timber area, let's say if you've sprayed it a couple weeks before it's browning up, but let's say it's [00:41:00] been rainy let's a couple days before you go out and burn, that might be a good thing for you in that case, because the only thing that's gonna burn is the shit that's dying.

Yep. And then you don't have to. Yeah, if you're in a sensitive area that you don't want it to get outta control, then you might wait for the lesser conditions just so that you know that it's not gonna go past what's already dead. Yeah. So what I'm basically gathering from our talk so far about summer fire, I guess I've never really thought of it for what I call winter fire.

Winter fire, I just, you'd go out there with your freaking torch and you start a fire and you let it run with summer fire. What I'm gathering is there's a lot more thinking and strategy that is involved because, yeah, it's harder and you gotta think about, because if you do affect treat or I guess vegetation that you don't want to, you're also gonna do accomplish the same bad shit to [00:42:00] the stuff you don't want to affect that you would, the stuff you do want to affect.

I would, I guess I would, I'm gathering that just going out there with a torch and saying summer fire's a great thing. Might not be a smart idea. You really need to think about what it is you're trying to accomplish. Before you just start letting things on fire.

Yep. Yeah. And it is just going to, it depends on will I be able to, and that's gonna have an effect on the approach. Where I'm going tomorrow has plenty of dead from last year Cool. Season grass underneath and it's gonna burn. And so I don't have to do anything extra to get ready except for drop fire like I would in a winter fire.

Is it gonna knock about or knock back your like your native species that you're gonna want to come back, obviously. Or how, or does it affect them as much as it does everything else? Or is, or do they come back quicker? To [00:43:00] simplify spring versus summer burning. You burn in the spring to promote grasses.

So say you have a piece of prairie ecosystem that you're gonna burn, you burn in the spring. The warm season grasses hopefully that you have there are gonna do very well. Spring burning does well for grass. If you have cool season grass, it's gonna do well too. A typical rule of thumb in the native when you burn in the summer is that you are gonna set those grasses back.

And then the next growing season, and even this coming cool growing season, like October, November, you're gonna have more Forbes and even your cool season grass will grow back this fall. It's. It's like you kinda need both. Yeah. It's almost, I could see where you want to use both to your advantage.

Different Yeah. Mean in different scenarios. Yes. But a lot of [00:44:00] people only think about wintertime burning or early spring burning. Like I before we met Dustin and we, I never thought about burning in the summer. I just now you, everything's green. Why would the hell would you do that? If somebody would've said, dude, why aren't you burning right now?

I'd have been like, 'cause I'm not an idiot. Yeah. Now I feel like an idiot. Hot fire and summer's bad. This is already a Yeah. It's already a hundred degrees outside. I don't need anymore. Dude, that's one thing. You're gonna be sweating you nuts off tomorrow, bro. I'll be plenty hot. I'll be fine. Yeah.

That's why you stay so felt. Yeah. It's always sweating. Just sweating. Yeah. Constantly dehydrated. You need to get some electrolytes in your kidneys, bro. Yeah, I know. But I do plenty of water, not enough electrolytes. Yeah. I would say like it's It's something that, like a guy like me or Micah, that's where someone like Dustin would benefit the, what I would call the average Joe.

Because let's say we were trying to knock down our sirio, esp [00:45:00] za we would probably just start burning instead of thinking through, Hey, it'd be a good idea to bur or kill this real quick with some spray or even mowing it at the bottoms, or whatever you could do. Then come back and, burn, that would take, that would require planning.

And sometimes people like us don't plan. We just go start tearing shit up. We just do. I never know when I'm gonna be able to go out and work on my farm. I have slacked big time this year just because I haven't had the time to go out Oh. And actually do anything. He would be disappointed in me.

'cause I still haven't mowed Yeah. At that property. I've done that. It's gonna happen soon. I promise. That's about the only thing I've done. And I have killed some cedar trees. It's done. Yeah. I've, now's the time. I've killed quite a bit of cedar trees, so you'd be proud of me on that one, oh, you did. I remember you did have c and it was down in the thick cedars when we got close to the pond. Yeah. Yeah. I've taken some of those cedars out and mowed some of that back and I got into some of that thicker timber that we didn't even walk through and there were some cedars around in there and I was able to take a few out and clear some more crap up.

But [00:46:00] other than that, I haven't been able to do as much as I wanted to. Yeah. But yeah, I you would actually be proud of me and Micah finally. Not that it. Is anything that we've accomplished. But him and I picked up a new hunting property this year for us. And it actually has good trees.

Yeah. Like nice, like straight good, like normal trees and not just bullshit. It's not all it's got some areas Sure. But it's not hedge and thorny locust. It's actually got some oaks and walnuts and like we were walking through there the first time we're like, we could hang there.

They're like all these different places we could actually hang in. And so what's the one I sent you? The map of? Okay, we'll talk about it, we'll talk about it later, but yeah, it's that one. So I guess from the planning side, like that's where you call a guy like Dustin. Even if it's just a consultation, he will work what do you say? Have vehicle, will travel, will work for food. Like if all they want is a consultation, then you know, that's what he'll give them. [00:47:00] Obviously he would prefer to give you a consultation and come do the work, but the dude's got a phone number, man.

And by the way, it's 8 1 6 7 5 2 73 90. But, he, I, this is where I would err on the side of caution because the last thing I would wanna do, especially if like I was bordered up to a farmer, is. Is even if your fire got too hot and it damaged the crop next to it.

Yeah. If you're right up next to a crop, if it gets hot enough, it will ruin those, yeah. It's not gonna be the entire field, you're still gonna owe 'em some money. Yeah. And I guess that's why I never thought of it. 'cause you got less access, you got stuff that you don't want damaged, but at the same time, the fire's probably not gonna be as quote unquote effective or get as out of hand.

So you can control it much better than you maybe could in the winter burn. But I just, I'm excited to hear some of the benefits to, summer burning. We've already talked about some of the negatives, [00:48:00] but is there any other negatives versus positives that you have seen with your summer burning?

It's all relative too. It's not necessarily negatives and positives as much as, it's a negative that's gonna be super hot if you do it in the summer. Make sure you have plenty of water. But think about all those ticks. You're, think of all those ticks. You're fucking, when you, that's gotta feel good.

Yeah. The thou the hundreds of stupid bastards. Yeah. I would, I might just do that just to laugh. Yeah. And when I think of negative versus positive, it's more like what might happen in this scenario versus this scenario. So one thing that could happen is that you have a patchy burn and it trickles through.

But what I like about that is that usually I'm doing things to mimic nature. And in nature nothing is like all the way wiped out all the time. And so it creates diversity in that aspect. [00:49:00] And not burning the whole, not having a clean black slate isn't a problem. It's just creating little areas of this type of vegetation versus little areas of this ve type of vegetation.

I got it. Versus positive, it's on how you look at it. I don't really. What about, yes. You really just have, what about as far as the deer are concerned? I, I do all this because I wanna shoot big deer, I want big deer around me. I'm go bang as a hunter and doing these summer burns.

What have you noticed, like what the herd does, like as far as your deer herd? Do they move out for a little while longer, since some of their food is obviously going away? Or do they come right back the next day? Or how's that? There is so much food everywhere right now that where you're burning isn't gonna be enough of an issue to run those deer off.

And so they can go not very far, I guarantee it. And find plenty of [00:50:00] food. It might be the cornfield that you're trying not to burn up right next door, right? But from a hunting standpoint, when you burn, think of when you burn in the winter. Early spring turkeys really don't like it, right? Because the, it grains up, there's tons of bugs in there, and they tend to flock up around a fresh burn and enjoy their mating season.

There. It's not much different for a whitetail deer if you burn in the summer, so you get the area that you burn now through September, it cools off, starts to get more damp in October, the cool season stuff grows just like a all food plot. And now you have a cheap fall food plot that you just ran fire through to create.

And you didn't have to buy any seed and you didn't have to turn your tractor on. You just had to not burn up your neighbor's cornfield, Hey, why Andy's on vacation? Let's burn up all my shit. There you go. [00:51:00] He comes back, he's what happened? Pen field's going and be like, Hey, listen, what had happened was we didn't call Dustin to come help us.

I haven't personally witnessed the follow up. A lot of times, unfortunately, what happens when I'm doing work is I do the work and then I'm on the next thing. And unless I get feedback from the landowner, I don't always see. But I'm willing to bet that would be a positive. As far as whitetail deer hunting goes, because you're taking out what's dead and dormant right now, and then the new vegetation is gonna come in the fall when you want it to come.

And it's gonna be stuff that's green during that time of year. Yeah. And if it takes, I mean if it does, if it's a good fire, it makes life easier on 'em too in that certain property. We all know Deere have no problem walking through thick shit. Yep. But do you think they prefer to do that?

No. We've all seen, we've all mowed trails. I mean like my property, Dustin, you saw it where my trails were mowed. [00:52:00] Guess where a lion's share of the deer walked, where it easier for them to walk, which is where I mowed now. Obviously not all the time. Big old matured bucks sometimes, to stay in the bull crap and, make sure they don't get messed with.

But that deer right above me walked down a mode trail in the middle of the rutt because it was easier for him and he could sent check quicker. And we all see that. And I guess when you're doing it now through season, that area is gonna be easier for them to access and, do their thing in than if it was still, thick and lush and all that crap.

And, now it's just reset before the season. So I could see where that would be a really positive for the deer population too. Yep. I'm small. You small? Yeah. What else? You got summer fire? You gonna, are you gonna come light some of my stuff on fire? That sounds fun. Good. Hey, you coming my way tomorrow?

Just [00:53:00] stop by. Yeah. Light it up. I'm going east, I'm going straight east of St. Joe. So you're just gonna be just north of me, I'm just saying. Yeah. It sounds like he is gonna have his hand. How big's the piece that you're doing? 18 acres. Okay. So it's not huge, but no good size. Nope. The guy has a driveway on the high end, which in all fires you wanna start at your high ground and work downhill.

'cause fire climbs. High ground and as much downwind as you can. A lot like hunting deer. So that's another benefit to topography is knowing how to work fire. That's something else I didn't think of. Yep. Work it right down into that creek. Yep. And then it stops and that's where you stop. Yeah, it makes sense.

So you really have to, pay attention to a lot of factors. If you, let's say this property tomorrow you're going to is a perfect square, and you coming in from the north and the wind is blowing from the south and you're trying to work [00:54:00] south, you're gonna fight that wind the entire time downhill.

Yep. You always start at the furthest down downwind spot. And so here's a negative you asked a little bit ago of growing season fire because it's a lot more smoky, right? 'cause the vegetation has moisture in it. And so hopefully I can stay just ahead of the smoke and put it out like right behind me, right?

Because it gets pretty brutal sometimes when blowing around your face. Yeah. I'm sure you're gonna let the fire department know that you'll be burning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's So anybody that's looking to burn in Missouri, all you need to do is have a good plan, have help have water and the tools to put it out, which a leaf blower is gonna be the most effective.

And then water is emergency situation. You don't wanna have to rely on water. Yeah. Don't wanna burn up your truck, but you just call. Some places might have a, they might want you [00:55:00] to call the rural fire department, but you call the sheriff's department and say, Hey, this is the property address. We're doing a controlled burn.

And sometimes they want you to tell 'em when it's done. They'll ask you what you're burning, how many acres. Sometimes they just say, if we don't hear from you, that means everything went okay. Yeah, pretty much what that does is alert the neighbors so they don't have a bunch of random people calling, saying there's a fire somewhere and they know where it's at.

And sometimes you're in a burn band area. We've been in a bit of a drought the last two summers in Missouri. Like all I gotta do is look at my pond and see that it's five foot low and know that it's been dry here. Now I don't know about where you're going tomorrow.

Different areas have had a lot more rain than other areas. Just a couple. Miles away. Sometimes you go to say, Hey, I'm gonna burn. You call the local fire district and they're like, Hey dude we're in a burn ban right now. You can't red, red flag day. Yep. That's something, that sort of stuff.

Yep. That's something that at the later end of the season, so next month is [00:56:00] August. That's almost August now, but towards the end of August, early September. If it's still as dry as it has been, there will be a lot of burn band days, I'm sure. Yeah. Especially as farmers start harvesting the crops, that's when you got a lot more opportunities for fires, maybe a combine sparks and starts a field on fire.

Field fires definitely pick up when combine or harvest season starts start everything's dying, going dormant, like you said. There was a day last year when we had our drought, if you remember, it was in Kansas City. The Kansas City area was a super windy day. Then it was also in the middle of a drought and we had so many field fires and fires just throughout the city.

And so yeah, if you're in a burn band and it's a 20 mile an hour day and you want to go burn, maybe you think twice about that. Yeah. That's when you cause some issues. Pick another day. Yep. A lot of that's gonna happen based on, like you said, wind speed humidity. When the humidity's [00:57:00] down in the twenties it's there.

Maybe think about not doing it, but there's a small window there where you can burn where it's safe. Yeah. So usually it's either too hot or too wet, too dry or too windy. So yeah never, like the day you're like, Hey, I have today open. I should go burn. No, I can't that it's rain or that's yeah.

The whole week. I thought I was gonna burn today. And I woke up this morning and it was like the forecast switched on me from what I had seen. Not, weatherman's as right, as he is, but Brian Busby wasn't there. Right here. Yeah, that's right. I told Brian Busby. So now we can finally talk about it.

So tomorrow when you go do your burn, are you gonna take your little rascal or how are you gonna get around? I'm walking. So now we can talk about the injury since we so I guess, and we've talked about it before, but you tore, you ruptured your Achilles like what, two months ago? Three months ago now?

Yeah. It was Mother's Day. Yeah, mother's day night. And I already know what happened. But what did you do? [00:58:00] I was blowing the gutters out and I was done doing that and. Nobody was holding the bottom of the ladder. Yeah, that's a, and I don't know if you knew, the roof roofing flashing is made of sheet metal and it's really sharp and so it will cut your achilles tendon right in half.

Oh, I did not know that part. Oh man. I thought you landed and it ruptured. You actually had your Achilles sliced in half. Just cut. Oh, dude. I was in such shock that I didn't know, I hit the ground and I luckily I didn't hurt myself worse or break my neck or anything like that. But that hurts me just thinking about that.

Oh man. Yeah, I didn't really know. I looked at it, I thought when you, when I talked to you, I thought you said you fell off the ladder and like when you landed, your Achilles popped. I didn't realize you cut through the damn thing. I wish I wouldn't have asked more questions about that, Micah.

You shouldn't have told me to talk about it. That sounds terrible, man. And so they had to attach that they had to put [00:59:00] it back together. Yeah, I had, do not, if you're looking for pictures on your phone right now, I wanna see 'em. I know that's what he's doing. Go ahead and send those over.

Show us there. Were you at least, were you at least blowing out your mother's gutters for her on Mother's Day? Is that what you were doing? No, I had saw her that day. I was in St. Louis with my sister and my family and my girlfriend. And we came home and there was rain coming that night. And from the last rain, I knew that our gutters cleaned out.

And so I was up there doing that and I was al I was done. And it was just climbing back on the ladder to climb down and it went, slid out. Oh man. That, yeah, that gives me the heebie-jeebies. That makes me think of like a paper cut, like just put like a thousand times worse. I know, but just if you put a piece of paper on your finger and purposely tried to cut it.

Yeah. That quit looking for the pictures. I don't wanna see. I do wanna see 'em, but maybe after we record they're sending to you right now. Perfect. Sweet. What else, what are some other things that you're accomplishing this time of year? This show with us will come out [01:00:00] August 8th.

Happy birthday, Amy. Yeah. And this show will come out on August 8th. So what are some other things you're doing right now outside of Summer Fire that is pretty beneficial? I. Herbicide is big right now. It's that time of year where the recia, the multi four rows anything that's accessible it's a good time to spray if you have dense stands of certain trees in the woods.

This is hacking squirt season. Okay. And so I still have time then I can still hack and squirt. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember any hack and squirt areas on your place, but Oh, I had quite a bit. I got, I had a lot of them thorny locust and crap like that we wanted to take care of. Oh yeah. A lot of times it's a bunch of elms and ironwood and those type of trees where it's super open underneath of 'em and so it's just stems everywhere.

You're there's that, it's fall food plot season. I don't do, I don't do a [01:01:00] whole lot in the food plot department. But it's time to get some of that stuff in the ground. But he would, I'm not but he would, folks, he would. But I'll, once again, half truck will travel. He'll probably come up with a better plan for you to where you're getting natural food rather than I'm more likely to tell you where your food pots should go.

And now you can if you want. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's just I think a lot of hunters or outdoorsmen don't really think of late July through early September as a time to do this sort of stuff. Right now they, food plots is definitely on people's minds, but they're thinking about hanging stands and they're, getting areas prepped, but they're not really thinking about the property aspect right now.

It's more of the deer hunting. The deer hunting. I I'm. I'm checking my cameras right now. Oh, screw you, bro. To our listeners, he just sent the pictures to us. That's nasty. [01:02:00] Nasty, man. Jesus. How unlucky are you? If that was like two inches lower, it's just cutting your heel, it's gonna hurt, but at least you wouldn't have surgery. Ah, that's, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I talked crap. I apologize my friend. He's doing better though. It is what? It's, but if you ever cross me, I will slice your other Achilles. I'm just kidding. What is that? The office episode, Dwight. I love you guys, but if you cross me, I don't know.

Yeah, I love that show. Yeah, but it's just that time of year where people are, they're in that hunting, they're getting in that hunting mode and there's definitely still a lot you can get done on. This that can help the hunting. It's just a matter of getting out there and, dealing with the freaking heat.

And me and Micah are no strangers to, working in this heat right now. You gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah. It's, especially for guys like us and obviously Dustin, you got the day to go do it. You have to go do it. And if it's 102 [01:03:00] degrees, it's 102 degrees. I went out and put trail cams out when it was raining one morning because I, that was the morning I had and it was raining, so I went and got wet.

It's just sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Now, obviously fire, you don't get to be as, you can't just go whenever you've gotta use the conditions that you have. But yeah, now's the time, man. By the time this comes out, this will be prime burning season it sounds like. Starting now and going for the next, six weeks or however long you think.

You can push it. Yeah, u usually September is a good kind of time. One of my, one of my growing season burns that I mentioned earlier is from a bunch of cedars that I cut earlier this year. And I know they're gonna be good in orange and gonna go ahead and take advantage of that to set back whatever's underneath of those and it'll leave their skeletons.

But I know the landowner's gonna continue to run fire through there in the future. And so they'll work their way down, but that's gonna be good [01:04:00] structure for the wildlife and everything. Nice. That's just another version of cut it and then, and burn it to create the opportunity. It's dead and that's how it'll burn.

Yeah. Makes sense. They're already gonna hear this, but let people know how they can get ahold of Habitat works and get some pick some of your brain knowledge and have you come out and do some stuff for 'em. Yeah, gimme a call 8 1 6 7 5 2 7 3 9 0. Habitat Works, llc@gmail.com. I'm on Facebook.

Those are the best ways. And obviously we're gonna tag Dustin, and if you are looking for work to get done or some plans to get done or whatever, and you can't think of how, who the hell that guy is that Missouri Woods and Water talked about? Just ask us. Yeah. Or get on our website. He's partnered with us.

He's one of our awesome partners. We love working with Dustin. He's on our website. He ain't hard to find, so if you can't figure it out, just ask us. And we'll point you in the right direction. [01:05:00] So Dustin Williams Habitat Works. Thanks for coming on and talking about Summer Fire. Thank you. See ya.

See you man.

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