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Upon acquisition, the majority of the property was heavily wooded, largely composed of pine and sweetgum with pockets of red maple and pecan trees. Access to the back end is severely limited, which ruled out the use of heavy machinery for the purpose of removing trees. We therefore decided that while laborious and time-consuming, it was best for us to clear unwanted trees ourselves. The first step was to clear the understory, which was a staggering array of invasive and nuisance flora (Ligustrum sinense - chinese privet), Smilax rotundifolia and Toxicodendron radicans (poison ivy), to the point where walking was feasible. After one season of attempting this manually, we devised a new plan...
...and we got a goats. We fenced off the perimeter (ask me about the first fence line we pulled if you see me), set up a shelter and turned them loose.
With teamwork, we soon got our first glimpse of the rear of the property from the breakfast table as they cleared the brush, which made conditions safer for felling trees and easier for dragging limbs and carting lengths of tree boles to the truck and trailer. We methodically thinned out the smaller of the standing trees, further opening the understory and providing nutrition to the goats through all the leaves and pine needles they consumed. After another season, we added two more to the team.
After removing the smaller trees, progress on clearing the land accelerated and the goats did a good job of eating down remaining brush and fending off the sprouting stumps of the sweet gum trees. While the majority of the property had pine and sweet gum, there were widely spaced pecan trees and red maples. Some of those were strategically left behind for shade and aesthetics. We erected a shelter for round hay bales.
A significant milestone was having room to turn the truck and trailer around. Before there was enough open space, we were limited to backing the truck and trailer in along the side of the property, and dragging or carting limbs and trunks to them. It was a tremendous boon to be able to fell, buck and limb a tree and then drive right up to it and load.
Downed trees loaded for removal. Tops are left behind for the goats to eat.
Trees loaded and ready to go.
While this worked very well, goats are browsers and rarely eat down to the ground. As a part of the natural succession that follows the clearance of mature trees, disturbance species began to appear. Because the goats don't want to clear them, and neither do we, we modified the plan again...
and we brought in pigs. In addition to rooting up the weeds, the pigs were able to root up a good number of the stumps left behind. For most of those which remained, the process of decomposition was greatly sped up. With a little help from friends with rakes, the earth was evened out, seed was spread and up came grass and turnips. And so it goes. There are more trees to clear. There are more stumps to remove and more weeds to control, but things are growing.
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