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 Hundreds of tiny frogs leaped in all directions as I waded shin deep in the swamp water. I turned around one last time to see angled rays of the afternoon sun cutting through the trees to spotlight my crippled flipover disc in the distance. "I will get you," I said to myself. You know you've been in the woods too long when you find yourself talking to a farm implement. Mosquitoes were dive-bombing my eyes, the only part of me without deet. One tenacious black fly still circled my head like a buzz plane. It was time to head back to camp. There are times in life where a vision is the driving force and our motivation to beat all odds in order to reach a goal. This is easier for short-term goals due to their usual quick satisfaction. Sometimes, however, a goal may seem totally unattainable or even years away. A man meets a woman and envisions her his bride. The executive crafts a strategic marketing plan that will be 1-5 years to fruition. A farmer plants his crop with hopes of harvest in fall. A child gets a Lincoln Logs toy set and seeks to replicate a cabin he saw in a photograph. We plan and often hit unforeseen obstacles that cause some people to just quit. Others of us keep pushing forward, with sheer hope and determination carrying our dreams. Our motivator is the completed vision. This is especially true of us obsessive hunters and our dogged efforts to harvest critters. Enter the food plot as a way to attract those critters. I had dreamed of three food plots, actually. The south plot had shaped up nicely, but needed two more tons of lime. The north food plot required crossing a drainage swale/babbling brook via a makeshift series of 2x12 planks that were presently afloat. The third food plot was to be carved out this spring, but the mission was aborted due to wet soil conditions. With a spring of record rainfall, I barely managed to get the single-gang flipover disk through the flooded drainage swale and to the plot on the north 40. Even though we carefully crossed the makeshift plank bridge that provides access to the area, the lime cart jumped the bridge and nearly capsized a ton of lime into the creek. Thanks to my steady Ox Cart, the lime was safe. Shortly after that, the plank-crossing fell prey to five inches of rain in 24 hours and was washed out by a tidal wave from the high swamp. The flipover disk was marooned. The bridge was put back together, only to be washed out again two weeks later. I had disked the food plot and left the disk there covered with a tarp, later finding the tires flat. The mile of trails to access the crossover were quicksands of mud and standing water. Fallen trees blocked trails. For the first time since I owned this property, the huge task of correcting these many problems had grown so much bigger than me, that I had begun to wonder if I would get to hunt this year. In my mind's eye, was that flip-over disk, pathetically boogered into the mud due to its missing tires, patiently waiting for rescue before it rusted and became a relic.Bear season was two months away and deer archery shortly thereafter. A third of my property was inaccessible and I had not safety checked a single of my 18 tree stands. It was time to get down to business. These mountain size tasks were a true test of my obsessive personality. When we obsessive folks go after anything, be it a project, hunting a new critter, or in this case, putting in food plots, we go after it with everything we've got. We envision it done before it's started and our passion is often contagious. So it was this year, that I decided to put in one more food plot on my little 80 acres of hunting land, in order to meet the 5% foot plot to acreage recommendation made by the DNR forester who helped me with my Woodland Stewardship Plan four years ago. I had the added inspiration of being sponsored this year by Mossy Oak Biologic, so I had visions of monster bucks dancing through my head. One of my plots last year produced venison, but I later found that the soil was so acidic that the plantings did not perform up to my expectations. I had put 400 pounds of lime on each plot, but when I did PH testing myself this year, I found that I should have added at least 1-2 TONS of lime and plus fertilizer on each plot in order to bring the PH up to productive levels. This posed some huge problems however. The plots are remote in the interior of my land and not accessible by trucks or trailers. The trails in were also water filled as mentioned before. Solution: I purchased the Ox Cart  ATV trailer/wagon by Equinox Industries out of Canada for transporting the lime, fertilizer, road rock, lumber and equipment. I must say, this item has become my #1 "find" this year for work around my camp and my food plots. It's up there with duct tape, bungee cords and a mall axe. You can read more about the Ox in my separate field test review due out in September.Loading and unloading tons of lime on these remote plots was one mighty huge job for one woman alone. Solution and a surprise: A little help from my friends, which I will explain later. Finally, I had to go through the arduous task of disking, harrowing and planting the plots all over again in order to re-seed.  The availability of lime was at very short notice and trying to spread it with the fickle weather was darn near impossible. Calling the farm co-op on the way up to my shack early on a Saturday morning, I was surprised to find they could dump the five tons that very morning. I called my neighbor Randy (the bull dozer man) to see if his boys could come over and help, and I dropped by my neighbor Ken's to see if anyone was around for hire. Within an hour, I had a crew of five people: Ken came with his Huff front-end loader along with daughter Amy and her husband Anson, who wielded chain saws, blazed trails and helped with other things. Randy's boys served as the crew. There was lots of mud, lots of sweat, and a friendly team spirit that made me want to adopt them all. Most of the time I can, and prefer to, get my chores around the shack done alone, but this was one time where the jobs were way bigger than me. I thanked God for some help from my good neighbors and friends. Six weeks later and late in the day, I pounded the last nail into the new bridge crossing - then just plopped down in the center of it with a huge exhausted sigh. My hammer felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, and I ached all over. Over the course of four weekends, I had dragged countless cement blocks, eight 5 x 6 x 8 foot timbers and I don't know how many 2 x 12's to this remote bridge site and this over trails that were shin deep in water in at least 10 places. It had been fun. The south plot crop, planted with Biologic Full Draw and New Zealand Maximum, was knee high and looking great. The north plot had washed out and had to be replanted. Trail repairs were next. It looked like hunting season would happen after all. Before the mosquitoes made dinner out of me, I went to my waiting  ATV and made the inaugural crossing, heading for the flip over disc. It was too late to put the tires back on, so I headed back to camp. The disk got dragged out the following weekend.It's funny how one single thing or person can motivate us. I have a number of other long-term goals. Some are realistic, and others seem like such impossible dreams that I just keep them to myself. The key, I believe, is that if you envision something long enough and keep plodding ahead, it will happen. Linda's Five Star Picks for items in this article:
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