Clearing of Land Around Our Home Site

I view our 60 or so acres (1st diagram) from more of a Permaculture standpoint. The most well-managed portions of our land will be around the corridor that we travel and live. The least-managed portions will be at our property's borders. It is with these thoughts that I have been working our land. If you'd like to investigate the concept of Permaculture, one of my fave books is by Toby Hemenway and called "Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture".

I think of our land as arranged into concentric ovals or Zones (2nd figure). Our access road and home represent the center of the oval and the center of the most intensely managed land (identified in the above Permaculture book as "Zone 1". This Zone will be the most gardened and landscaped.





In the next oval (Zone 2) is the “stewarded” land. In wooded areas, the understory is fairly clear and populated with hardwood saplings (predominantly maple and oak) and is where trees may be harvested for fruit, nuts or firewood. In field areas, grass is mowed or fenced and populated with critters. Brush has been cleared back to stone walls. It is in these two areas where I currently spend most all of my time working. (note: Zone 2 was supposed to be orange and the color is apparently not picked up by my scanner. it's the obvious blank areas located around Zone 1.)

Outside of that is the soon-to-be somewhat tended forest. Outside of that is untended land. Through all layers of this land, trails will be made for recreational enjoyment and access. The first of those trails to be developed will radiate from Zone 1 out to property boundaries. Ultimately, a perimeter trail will follow the property boundary.

My first notions were to create vehicle access to an area that we will build upon. With the development of a road, this task is almost complete. Along with creating an access road, came the creation of a drainage plane for water (ie. a path for water to take)(more on this later) and restoration of the landscape on either side of the road.

Traditionally, when houses are built, the clearing of land happens quickly. In forested areas, the area is harvested using logging equipment or by using chainsaws to fell and cut up trees. Heavy equipment, such as an excavator, pulls the remaining stumps. Often, the pulled stumps are buried and the remaining brush is also buried or burned.

My tendencies lean strongly towards stewardship of the land and the above approach reminds me too much of the ancient “rape and pillage” philosophy. As I clear our land to prepare for a yard and house site, I do so with more of a minimalist approach. Time isn’t as much of an issue for me and the quality of our cleared space is. I am sure that I am doing significant habitat destruction but compared to the usual techniques that completely raze an acre or two of trees and obliterate the soil structure, I feel that my approach is a bit better.

The area I am clearing was once a New England farm field. This means that my clearing involves the removal of small trees, most less than 4" in diameter and brush. I am doing all the work by myself. My most often used hand tool for clearing is a long-handled pruner and sometimes I use a curved razor-tooth saw.

I have a chainsaw but I use it as sparingly as I can. I also have a 30 HP 4WD tractor with front bucket and backhoe, a field and brush mower and 4 inch wood chipper as attachments.

In the area I am clearing, plant succession is in full swing. Most of the small shrubs have been overtaken by popple (quaking aspen) and balsam fir. Maples saplings are small (finger sized) but beginning to sprout everywhere. While both the fir and popple have some commercial value as more mature (read: larger) trees, as 2-4 inch saplings, they don’t warrant commercial harvesting. I have decided that burning the cleared trees is a waste for two reasons. First, because of the carbon dioxide that will escape into the atmosphere (contributing in some small way to global warming) and second, because of the many nutrients that would also be lost to the soil. I have observed from working in my forest, that both downed popple and balsam fir decay quite rapidly. So by shredding and chipping these small trees (and thus increasing the surface area for the decay organisms to work) I will be giving them back to the soil quite quickly (within a year I figure).

I begin with the youngest trees and shrubs and clear these using long-handled pruners. These pruners work well for a few reasons. They can cut at or even a bit below ground level leaving stumps that you won’t trip over and they can reach under low branches so you don’t have to get a face full of needles and leaves. The trees that are too big for the pruners but small enough to chip are cut down with a chain saw. Trees that will eventually be cut but are too big for my chipper are left in place and pruned up as high as I can reach with the pruners or hand saw. Trees that will not be cut (mostly deciduous) are also pruned. By clearing in this fashion, chainsaw noise is limited to about 10 minutes an hour. This allows me to enjoy the sounds of the environment of which I feel I am a part.

The process I use has evolved over a two year period into something fairly efficient for the way I am doing it. I use the long-handled pruners to clear all of the smaller material growing on the ground. I also use the pruner to clear the branches off trees that will not yet be cut down. On trees small enough for me to chip, I will use my chainsaw to remove the branches. I skim the trunk of these trees with the bar removing the branches quickly. All of this "brush" is removed and placed in rows on relatively flat ground (pic below).

Trees less than 4" are cut down getting as close to the ground as I can without sucking too much dirt into my saw bar and chain. I have an old bar and chain I save for this purpose. I am bound to get some dirt and debris in the chain, bar and sprocket and once every two hours or so, I strip down my chainsaw and give it and the bar a thorough cleaning. The blade also gets sharpened frequently. I do go through blades and even bars but I look at this as an equitable trade for what I am getting in return.




A brief word on safety. I can not emphasize enough how important it is to wear safety equipment during this clearing process with a chainsaw. This is not normal chainsaw work. I wear heavy, tall boots, kevlar chaps, heavy gloves and a helmet with mask and ear protection. You are just plain stupid if you don't invest in chaps and a helmet. I am not careless with a chainsaw and have an immense amount of respect for the damage one can do. In the last two years, I have grazed my leg twice. The chaps saved my knee and thigh from what could have been some pretty nasty injuries. Enough said.

The felled trees are de-branched using the chainsaw and again the brush moved to the brush row. Once the area is clear of all small brush, I cut each tree pole into manageable lengths (8-10' for me) and stack it in piles for chipping. I will tackle 10-20 trees at a time. Obviously, you don't want to fell them on top of one another as it would make branch removal that much more difficult. The area I clear is a semi-circle and I move forward in this fashion. Ideally, the brush row grows in length behind me in the middle of the semi-circle and the stacks of poles on the outside edges every 10 feet or so.

Once every day or two, I will run over the brush row with the brush mower on my tractor. This shreds the branches into nothingness (ie. a nice layer of mulch) if your blades are fairly sharp. I'll then trade the mower for the chipper and chip the poles out over the top of the shredded branches. The chute on my chipper moves 360 degrees and makes it easy to do this.The picture below is the mulched branches with wood chips on top.

As I remove the brush and trees, I open up the topology of the land, I can see what the ground structure looks like and get a clearer idea of the “lay of the land”. What is left after I clear is: deciduous trees (mostly maple, apple, oak) I may keep and white pine, balsam fir and popple I will clear once I figure out what to do with it. The deciduous trees which I have left standing, if we choose, can be harvested for firewood or kept as shade trees.


Some necessary details for those wanting to follow this methodology. Your ability to work well in the forest depends on both the quality of your tools and how well you take care of them. I routinely clean and sharpen my tools. The cutting edge of my pruners are file sharpened and the bolts tightened when needed. A light coating of oil is also applied to the working areas to both lubricate and protect. My hand saw gets cleaned of pitch with turpentine (as well as I can). My chainsaw gets taken apart every two hours. The chain housing is cleaned of debris, the track in the chain bar is cleaned of soil debris and the chain is hand sharpened with a rat tail file.
There is a good article on file sharpening chainsaw blades at: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/brewer57.html.

The above methodology is one I am using on land that we will enjoy as extended yard and garden. Most all of the forest products left on the ground are no larger than ½ to 1 inch chips of rapidly decaying wood. I may even spread a thin layer of topsoil on top of all this to level and provide a seedbed for a conservation mix of grasses and clover. In essence, I am nuturing habitat that is to be shared by humans and our animal friends. I want this area to be easy to maintain and to flourish while I am building our home, a process I envision taking at least a year.