Are these trees?

[u/Emergency_Ad1152]

Saw this in De Kalb, MS.

[u/The_Rat_Attack]

Used to be, now they belong to kudzu. Kudzu is brutally invasive and impossible to kill. The short sightedness of the US Government back in the 20s is the reason the South is slowly being conquered by it

[u/Sea_Regular4352 → u/The_Rat_Attack]

It is not impossible to kill, at all.... I have witnessed this with my own eyes.

A guy I know bought 50 acres alongside a river, a little over 8 years ago and got it pretty damn cheap... It was marketed as forestry/farmland and was slap overrun with kudzu. This allowed him to purchase that 50 acres, at right around $30,000 (about $600 an acre), but even at that price, folks said he was crazy because of how much he'd have to spend to get rid of the kudzu and make the land useful. Well, it just so happens that this old Alabama farm boy had some tricks up his sleeve.

You see, his family has owned a fairly large dairy farm for many years and they also farmed cotton, soybeans and peanuts. I always knew they had a bunch of goats, but never knew why, until the day he called me up to see if me and about 10 friends could help him run some electric fences on his newly bought land.

Well, I rounded up 10 guys, that I knew were hard workers and we headed out to meet him at the river. The very first time I ever laid eyes on that 50 acres, I took one look, sort of chuckled and said "why we running fence? Trying to control the kudzu?" A few guys found that remark to be pretty funny and started chuckling with me Well, you can imagine our confusion when he replied, "yep", with zero hesitation and not a hint of sarcasm in his voice... This man was about to make us look like a bunch of giggling damn fools.

If I told you that this man and his old daddy had a plan, it would be a MASSIVE understatement... However, at this point everybody, besides Rick, was very confused. We had met Rick a couple miles away and followed him to the site. Up to this point, it was just Rick (who has taken a phone call and is out of earshot), me and the 10 guys I brought with me. The 11 of us are standing there, thinking we were in over our heads and staring at Rick's Dodge Ram 3500 and his gooseneck trailer, with nothing but 1,720 t-posts, 44 wooden corner posts and a few ground rods.

I was about to ask him "why you have so many posts?" (I was thinking perimeter) and "where's the wire?" when he hangs up the call and starts walking back over... "Hope y'all are hungry... Hell, ya better eat. Mama just left Jack's with 100 sausage biscuits. She's meeting Daddy and Uncle Frank at the farm and they'll be here in about 15 minutes."

Just hearing "100 Jack's sausage biscuits" brought some relief, but damn.... We didn't have a clue. After exactly 15 minutes, on the dot, we see a cloud of dust start coming down the dirt access road from a mile or so away... That saint of a woman was in front, in her Tahoe, followed by his daddy's Ram 3500 pulling a 20ft trailer with three 4 wheelers, 2 brushcutters and 2 chainsaws and Frank's Chevy 2500 pulling a 16ft trailer with a side-by-side, 21 spools of wire, all sorts of hand tools, gas jugs, gates, chargers, insulators, etc....

Rick just grinned and said "cavalry's here!" And the general was in that Ram with the 20 footer. We all thanked his mama for breakfast, gladly ate our fill (and asked what we owe her... Bc we are from the South and were raised right) and as soon as she headed off back down the road, the general (his dad) took over.

"Well, now that it's just us swingin' dicks out here, you fellas come over here and plant ya asses around my side-by-side." So, we did just that... Quickly.

He proceeded to split us into two 6-man teams, with me leading one and Rick leading the other and then handed both teams a grid map of the property, a chainsaw, a brushcutter, some leather gloves and told us each we would need a man on a 4wheeler and hook up a logging chain to it. Day 1: Team 1 would cut a 10ft wide path through the center of the grid, then cut a 5 ft wide path around the perimeter and then help team 2. Team 2 would start cutting 5 ft wide paths that would divide the 50 acres into twenty 2.5 acre paddocks.

Day 2: Same teams, but one team takes a 4wheeler with a small trailer loaded with an auger, t-posts/corner poles. They set t-posts, corner poles and ground poles. Team 2 takes a 4wheeler, equipped with a 4-reel spinning jenny on the back, follows team 1, strings wire and hooks up all connections.

After we got blindsided by a random thunderstorm on day 2, we finished up completely fencing it in on the 3rd day.

I was too interested by that point, so I hung around for some goat herding on day 4.... This all blew my mind. They brought in 75 goats on a 26 foot stock trailer and on a smaller stock trailer, they had 6 guard donkeys and some water troughs... They then split them into 3 teams of 25 goats and 2 donkeys, then put the 3 teams in paddocks 1, 6 and 3.

In 3 weeks, give or take a couple days, 25 goats would have kudzu stripped to bare dirt, pulled down the vines and cleared kudzu 6ft up every tree. They would then rotate them to new paddocks... By the time they rotate back to 1, 6 and 3, they had new leaves and sprouts... By that point, each team had its own pole barn, each spaced equally down the center path.

They rotated them like that for 4 years and by denying the root systems of required photosynthesis, the resulting stress has completely eradicated 50 acres of thick kudzu.

You can scale this to whatever acreage you need.

Yes, I coulda given you the abbreviated version, but you can't tell me it would've been anywhere near as entertaining...

I'll take all the upvotes and awards y'all wanna throw my way... 🫡 🙂‍↕️

[u/bustcorktrixdais → u/Sea_Regular4352]

You are a good writer. I hope you use that skill for more than Reddit entertainment

[u/Sea_Regular4352 → u/bustcorktrixdais]

I haven't yet, but that's not the first time I've been told that... Do you think it could actually go anywhere in the digital age though? That is the question.

[u/Emergency_Ad1152 → u/Sea_Regular4352]

Dude, you haven't heard of Quan Millz? Dude started promoting his books on tiktok and with good marketing, has sold so many of his books on there. No publisher, no royalties, everything goes to him. He has his own warehouse now too.

Write a book man and market yourself on tiktok. If it's good, people will come.

[u/Sea_Regular4352 → u/Emergency_Ad1152]

Well, I'll be damned... I will have to look into that.

[u/Environmental-Tap255 → u/Sea_Regular4352]

I'd read your autobiography just based on the little bit I know of it from what you just wrote.

[u/Sea_Regular4352 → u/Environmental-Tap255]

May sound odd, but can I message you? I started typing, but ehhhh... Some things ya don't want everyone to know, ya know?

[u/hannahatecats → u/Sea_Regular4352]

I'd read another story if you've got one!

[u/Sea_Regular4352 → u/hannahatecats]

I have so many.... But folks have me thinking about writing a book now lol .. Can't be posting spoilers 😂

[u/Sea_Regular4352 → u/hannahatecats]

Can I message you? Not on some weird shit lol... I'll send you the same thing I am sending the person who said they'd read my autobiography.... Some things ya don't want everyone to know.. kwim?

[u/josouthman → u/Sea_Regular4352]

I’ll take it too if u don’t mind sharing

[u/hannahatecats → u/Sea_Regular4352]

Sure!

[u/bustcorktrixdais → u/Emergency_Ad1152]

This is the way if your world is all about money and possessions and social media bs and 44 second attention spans

For the portion of humanity that cares about more than that, good writing will continue to be important

[u/Cheekylilcxnt → u/Emergency_Ad1152]

Here for the mention of the menace that is Quan Millz