Done
Well, I did it anyway. I cleared a 10′x30′ path for the trucks to gain access to the mini-farm from the North road. Blowing snow, 3″ of snow on the ground, soaked-through jeans, a single handsaw, and an hour and a half’s work. No headache anymore at least (thank God for excedrin).
Most of the brush was just little saplings, but I did get at least 10 good trees big enough for fence rails (about 8-10″ circumference). I even made myself pause to lop off their branches before tossing them on the “rails” pile. I didn’t do that for any of the previously cleared future-fence-rails, and I’ve been despairing now of ever getting them out of the wildly knotted loom of tangles their branches have become.
The chipping brush pile is getting taller and taller – and now there are 4 of them. I hope to have enough mulch to last me a couple years.
Now the only thing left to do is move one last big clump of downed brush/trees to the chipping pile, then go in there with orange tape and individually mark trees that I want left in 8′ lengths rather than 18″ fireplace lengths. I plan to make as many raised beds as possible with all the slender, straight trees I already have, before going out and buying landscape timbers. The beds made of whole logs will be rough, and maybe ugly, and probably the sides will leak compost because they won’t be flush to each other when stacked, but they are free and I do so hate waste.