November 18, 2023 • 21 mins
Are you working hard, or working smart? The smart way to work stacks function to solve many problems with fewer inputs. This approach helps you clear fence lines, trails, or open habitat while enhancing functionality.
When you curate land you increase resources each year. There is a time and place to clear land, but clearing is not always necessary. The forest itself is great habitat and shelter for many types of livestock. Pigs, goats, sheep, cows, and even chickens can live in the forest.
Your forest systems with silo pasture or agroforestry can deliver additional products. Raise timber, quality hunting land, or wildlife habitat in the same areas livestock periodically visit. When you understand these approaches you get more from every acre.
This really boils down to your connection with land. To steward or curate you need education. That starts with practical experience. To learn more about the essential survival skills program mentioned in this episode, visit https://www.sustainablehomeste...
You won’t learn these things with another podcast or YouTube video. Save that for a rainy day. Doing this the right way means everyday enjoying your property. Get outside, get active, and engage the land in a meaningful way.
If you want to start your small farm or homestead, or even improve management to get more enjoyment from your land, you’re in the right place. Join us at https://www.prosperityhomestea...
#LandManagement #HabitatManagement #MendingFences #RegenerativeAgriculture #RotationalGrazing
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prosperity-homestead--3659183/support.
When you curate land you increase resources each year. There is a time and place to clear land, but clearing is not always necessary. The forest itself is great habitat and shelter for many types of livestock. Pigs, goats, sheep, cows, and even chickens can live in the forest.
Your forest systems with silo pasture or agroforestry can deliver additional products. Raise timber, quality hunting land, or wildlife habitat in the same areas livestock periodically visit. When you understand these approaches you get more from every acre.
This really boils down to your connection with land. To steward or curate you need education. That starts with practical experience. To learn more about the essential survival skills program mentioned in this episode, visit https://www.sustainablehomeste...
You won’t learn these things with another podcast or YouTube video. Save that for a rainy day. Doing this the right way means everyday enjoying your property. Get outside, get active, and engage the land in a meaningful way.
If you want to start your small farm or homestead, or even improve management to get more enjoyment from your land, you’re in the right place. Join us at https://www.prosperityhomestea...
#LandManagement #HabitatManagement #MendingFences #RegenerativeAgriculture #RotationalGrazing
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prosperity-homestead--3659183/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You might think this is a sexytopic. I certainly think it's a sexy
topic. But what do we dowith all the brush and tree cuttings on
a small farm, homestead or astate. How can we use the tree
trimmings and other things that we aregetting in our maintenance in order to expand
and grow our homestead. I'm justinhit with prosperity homestead and I try to
(00:25):
share with you practical ideas and conceptsthat help you get more from your land
without a lot of extra effort.And I've railed against string trimmers and leaf
blowers, and I've said, well, it's probably okay to use a chainsaw,
but even then, there are thingsyou can do with hand tools,
in this case, a hand apruning saw either on a pole or a
(00:49):
small handsaw, or even a brushblade that you can use to clean up
your property. Now you've seen theproperty that I manage. One of the
properties that I manage, it hasbrush is thorns, it's overgrown, it's
we're going to introduce goats for themain reason to clean that up. But
it's very difficult to navigate through thosewoods. So we put up a trail
(01:11):
system and the trail system helps usmove through the property, and we're going
to use electric portable fencing for thegoats themselves. But we don't have enough
electric portable fencing to cover the wholeproperty because we have these twelve acre paddocks
or these three acre paddocks. Andso what we've got to do is we've
got to cut lines through the fromtrail to trail, basically, so through
(01:34):
the woods from trail to trail.Now we could make additional trails, but
the forest multure, which is originallylike thirteen hundred dollars a day, is
now two thousand or twenty two hundreddollars a day, and so as time
progresses, inflation is causing our coststo get much higher. Same thing with
(01:56):
chainsaw. A fuel used to betwo dollars a gallon. Now it's three
twenty a gallon. I've heard it'sas much as four dollars a gallon in
other places. Now chainsaw is moreefficient when it comes to cutting small trails
through the woods. Then the it'smore efficient financially than the forest multure,
(02:17):
but it is not necessarily something youwant to be carrying as you do long
trails. So we've talked about trailclearing, and so there's a bunch of
gadgets out there, but what Ifind works really well is a pole saw
or a hand pruding saw. Nowhand pruding saw is actually curved a little
bit, the blade super sharp,and you use it to cut off small
(02:38):
branches. So small branches that areabout the size of your wrist is what
you're going to cut with that.Now, the chainsaw can cut down full
trees, but if we're clearing woods, we can use big equipment that's the
appropriate thing. But if we're justcutting a trail or a path from one
trail to another so we can setup a portable electric fence, then all
(03:01):
we need to do is go downthrough the woods and cut the side branches
off the trees that we're working with, as well as removing any small trees.
And so what do we do withthat? Now, I've seen people
go in and chop and drop,So they're just cutting it and dropping it
on the ground and they're just puttingthe fence over top of it, or
(03:23):
they're walking on that trail for alittle while and that'll start breaking down the
materials. But chopping and dropping isone option because it alleviates all the hauling.
If you're dragging branches out of thewoods, you're not working effectively.
Now you can take the branches andcut them and then lay them in the
woods with the stump end facing yourfence. You want to be able to
(03:46):
walk your fence lines. That's anotheroption. And of course your goats or
your animals can eat the branches.So we can make tree fodder by either
hanging the branches in the woods somewhereto dry, or laying the branches down
and letting the animals eat the greenmaterials off of them. Now, if
we add two very important observations,we can get even more value from these
(04:12):
trees. The one observation is whenwe cut the trees. If we cut
the trees when the leaves fall off, we have no leaves to feed the
animals. If we're cutting trees offat the ground, then we have the
potential for those trees to compass.But we don't want trees to compass in
our fence line because now that's inthe way we have to keep cutting them.
(04:34):
So instead of cutting the trees whenall the leaves have fallen off,
we want to cut those trees whenthere's leaves on the trees, so that
we now have food for the animals. Not necessarily immediately, we could dry
those out for the winter. Itdepends on your climate. But we don't
want it necessarily. We don't wantto cut the trees on the ground because
(04:55):
a vertical tree cut off above headheight can now regrow. So we can
cut it when the leaves are fallingoff and it will regrow in the spring.
Or we can cut it when ithas leaves at an appropriate height with
the appropriate type of tree, andthen it'll regrow leaves, and now we
(05:15):
have shade for the animals, wehave regrowth, it's above our fence line,
and we ultimately have something that wecan still navigate around. Now,
there will be times where you wantto cut trees off at the ground,
like eventually you want the tree andstump gone, because maybe you want a
four foot wide path from a widetrail that's thirteen feet wide. Now you
have a fence line or a walkingpath it's four feet wide. You're gonna
(05:38):
put your electric fence down it.Maybe you're gonna run ATV through it,
Maybe you're gonna hike through it.Maybe you're gonna run a water line and
we don't want any stumps. Andthe brain says, we'll just cut it
off at the ground. But ifwe cut it off at the wrong time
of the year, if we cutit off at the ground and it regrows,
(05:59):
then we have instead of one sticksticking out, we have eight sticks
sticking out. We have to cutthat branch in such a way that it'll
come out, and it'll come outas easy as possible, because we don't
have a trail to bring a pieceof equipment, so we can use one
do one of two things. Wecan use a puller, so it's a
pole with a little hook on theend. It can actually pull small trees
(06:23):
out of the ground. And sowe're gonna cut the tree off about hip
high. We're gonna strip it ofall of its side branching. We're gonna
either turn the top in the treefodder, or we're gonna take the top
and use it. We're gonna talkabout brush fencing here shortly, but we're
gonna use it some other way andthen we can pull the small tree out.
The problem is that tree is gonnahave to be smaller than our wrist
to pull it out of the ground. And if depending on the type of
(06:46):
tree, it could be pretty hard. So the cutting it off about hip
height, stripping it of all ofthis branch is actually we'll start starving the
tree. You can cut a notchin the top of the tree in order
to cause it to die on purpose, to settle water on the top of
the tree and start to rode out. Now, if the tree rots out,
it'll be easier to pull out theground because it'll die off the surface
(07:09):
of the ground. So do yousee these methods. So now when you
attend a course, and by theway, Sustainable Homestead Institute is somebody we
work with very frequently. I ama student of them, learning about the
goats. That's why I don't talkabout the goats and other than the things
that we know that I know workbecause I've learned them and used them.
(07:30):
But ultimately, when it comes totrail clearing, these methods for trail clearing
allow you to get your fences upquickly and to allow the animal pressure to
prevent the regrowth. So we're talkingabout paths in the woods about four feet
wide where we're going to run temporaryelectric fencing or the paths that are around
permanent perimeter fencing. How do wemaintain those so that we reduce our actual
(07:57):
labors, but also the utility valueof the things that I teach is how
do we increase the amount of calorieson that pasture or the amount of shade,
the amount of value that we candeliver to the animals. And so
how we cut these things matters.So we're not cutting and hauling and ripping
things out. We're we're looking atthe type of tree and we're looking at
(08:20):
how that tree survives, and we'resaying, okay, this tree right here,
if we cut it above our head, it'll regrow because it's nitrogen fixing,
or it's you know, it's atree that will pollard. Pollarding as
a method of managing trees. Now, if we've got a tree that's away
from a fence line and we knowit's going to get a rest period,
(08:43):
we can cut it off at theground because we know it's going to compass.
We know it's going to create newshoots that are going to provide food
for the animals. We know thatif we cut branches when there's leaves on
them, that we can dry thosebranches by hanging them, and now that
dry leaf will be food for theanimal in the winter. That's why I
(09:03):
want to introduce brush fences, bythe way, because if you have a
pasture rotation, you can actually cutthose branches create brush fences offset from your
actual electric fence. So you dragthe branch into the woods for a little
bit. You put up some verticalposts, you weave and that a lot
of this was done in Europe.You weave the green branches in between these
(09:28):
posts, and now, because theanimals are not going to revisit for a
while, you now have your treefodder in the field drying out. Because
again it's vertical with the woven branchesin between. It provides a slight barrier,
it provides shelter for wildlife, Itprovides bird habitat while the animals are
(09:48):
not there. And then when youget back to rotation, your animals can
eat the leaves and the small branchesoff of the fence and they aren't going
to hurt anything. And because thefence was set up offset of your election
fence, they're also not going tobe near your electric fence. Now,
this is something that we can showyou in demonstration. That's why I mentioned
the Sustainable Homestead Institute because This issomething that we can show you, and
(10:11):
it's on the different properties that I'mmanaging, but we can show you as
part of their bushcrafting course because theycan also make temporary shelters for yourself or
animals in the woods from the materialthat you're clearing out anyway to get your
electric fence in. And now youranimals have temporary shelters, they have food,
(10:35):
they have protection from wildlife. Soyou could even weave a corral.
Now, if this is woodland,I've got woodlands, I've got areas that
are overgrown. So while you're clearingthe areas out, applying animal pressure to
remove some of these lateral branching.Anyway, you're now making corrals, shelters,
(10:56):
wind breaks, and other valuable resourcesvery close to where these trees are
cut. And you're doing it withsimple tools. You're doing it with a
hand salt, a hand pruning salt, a pole sal and possibly a pool
or some kind of augur. Now, the thing about cutting all the lateral
branches off and cutting up a treeoff about hip high is that the majority
(11:18):
of the case is it's gonna die, and so the animals are going to
pressure it. They're going to beeating the little fresh knobs off, and
then as it dies you can justpull it out of the ground. So
whether you have hogs or goats orany other type of grazing animal, you
don't need to cut the tree offat the ground and haul it out unless
it's a big tree. But ultimately, by coppicing things that are away from
(11:41):
your fence lines or pollarting things nearyour fence line, you can start developing
these other resources. Now, what'sinteresting about this model and concept, and
I have done a brush fence video, is that if you have high value
trees, such as oak trees,you can actually use these brush fences to
keep your animals off the oak treewithout hauling any plastic out in the woods,
(12:05):
or without hauling any fence out inthe woods or any of those grow
tubes. Now, the grow tubeswork pretty well, I like those,
but if you're building these brush fencesup, it could be as easy as
saving your straits. And what doI mean by that. You'll see in
most of my brush clearing videos,I will go through and cut down the
brush to remove any straight poles thatare six feet long or better. Why
(12:31):
am I doing this because that sixfoot pole if I cut a point on
one end, I can hammer itdown into the ground, especially if it's
like wrist thick. And I knoweverybody's got different thickness wrists, but that's
kind of just a general measure.If it's a little bit thicker than my
wrist, it will make a goodpole in the ground. I can hammer
it down in the ground significantly.I can weave brush in between it.
(12:54):
I can make a loop around afruit tree, for example, and that
will keep animals off the fruit tree. I can use it to create a
brush corral out in the woods somewherewhere I might need to bring in animals
for safety reasons. I can createa brush fence that's north south, and
then another one that's east west tocreate a box out in the woods that
might go around an oak tree,because we don't want the animals under the
(13:16):
oak tree all the time. Mostcows, goats, pigs will not go
through a brush fence. They it'sjust they'll eat off of it. They
might climb up it and stuff,but they're not going to go through a
brush fence. Now, the greatthing about a brush fence is that you're
going to start having seeds and plantsthat start growing underneath them, And now
the fence goes from a temporary fencethat's made of brush to a more permanent
(13:39):
fence that's actually made of trees thatkind of grew in the area that you
want it. So you always wantyour brush fences a little bit longer or
a little bit wider than you wouldnormally a regular fence. But now your
animals are able to graze. Nowthere's animal habitat for wildlife, there's windbreak.
(14:00):
There's so much extra value. Butmost importantly, you didn't have to
haul any brush. You drag thebrush five feet, bang it in place
with a chilly or a club,and you take the branchings and poles and
put them in the ground. Youdon't need to carry any t posts.
You don't need to do anything otherthan clear the fence line. And by
clearing the fence line, it'll beeasier to put up your temporary fences,
(14:24):
it'll be easier to maintain your permanentfences, and you'll find that you'll have
an abundance of new materials as yougo. Now there will be times where
you'll coppas because you want the straightpoles. There will be times where you
pollard because you want the tree fodder. But as you do this, and
this is really part of what you'llfind in the old school agro forestry books,
(14:46):
but as you do this, yourland will start developing to give you
more and more abundance. I've gotseveral areas where i can walk from a
big wide, thirteen foot wide traildown a little four foot wide trail and
then onto another thirteen foot one trail, and I'm almost building out like small
little paddocks in the woods. Now, it really depends on how long your
fence is, but I want tobe able to run a hundred foot fence
(15:09):
down a trail and then connect itto another one hundred foot fence, and
then at most have four fences thatI'm moving, and so I can have
a fence open up, move animalsfrom one paddock to another and not have
to carry a large number of fences. So that could be a fifty foot
by fifty foot area, it couldbe one hundred footy one hundred foot area,
but all of the interconnects are clearedout. Now as the forest matures,
(15:33):
you're going to have less brush,and these brush fences will rot down
and they'll be you know they'll returnto the earth. And by the way,
if you're out camping on your paddocks, these brush fences make a great
opportunity for you to get tender aswell as for you to have shelter by
(15:54):
setting up a brush fence. It'slarge enough that you can put your tent
on the inside, and that waythe brush fence provides a positive barrier for
you if you're out there among wildlifedoing the nomadic stuff with your animals.
So I know I covered a lothere and it really is something that's better
demonstrated. So you can visit theSustainable Homestead Institute at www dot Sustainable homestead
(16:18):
dot com and join their Essential Survivalclass and you're going to learn about brush
shelters there and different kinds of waysto get more from the natural environment,
especially when you're looking at wooden tools, so the tools that are naturally in
your environment. You're going to getsome knife and act skills there and for
(16:40):
many people, you can do yourtrail clearing or your your fence line clearing
with a simple brush axe or machete. You don't have to carry a lot
of tools. If you want tolearn about trail clearing and the use of
brush fencing in your riginative padducts oras part of your favent system. Then
(17:00):
you want to ask your questions atwww dot prosperity homestead dot org. Simply
go to the contact page and askyour questions either way. As we form
classes where we're clearing trails, settingup brush fences, maintaining fences, installing
fences, or those other fundamental homesteadingskills, I'll be sure to let you
(17:22):
know when those classes are available andyou can come out here into the Martinswell
Henry County area and you'll get tosee all the exciting things that we have
out here and all the exciting trainersthat we have available. When it comes
to starting your homestead, I reallydo believe it starts with the Essential Survival
class because a lot of times peopleare hauling brush in, chipping brush and
(17:48):
taking chainsaws and all this extra equipmentand having to drag stuff out with their
tractor because they don't understand that thewoods is a resource. And so we're
advocating being very light on the landand how to have that better feed and
better fodder through agro forestry systems,through silver pasture, through food forests.
(18:10):
And if you take the mentality ofjust you know, pillaging and stripping everything,
you're going to miss out on theopportunity which is nature. And so
if we're doing wildlife habitat restoration,if we're doing you know, we're taking
poor land and making it better.The Survival Essentials course is going to give
(18:30):
you an idea what's out there,because you don't want to cut down a
pawpal tree. For example, you'reout there clearing a line and you see
a pawpalal tree, you have toknow it's a pallpal tree. You're you're
going to get that awareness for allthese wild edibles plants and useful trees and
useful plants. And this is reallygood for hunting land as well. But
(18:51):
that Survival Essentials class with Scott Vernonover at the Sustainable Homestead Institute really opens
your awareness so that now when you'rehiking, now that when you're managing hunting
land or you're having rigentative grazing undertrees, whether it's pigs or goats or
cows, you're going to start gettingthat curation that builds additional resources, so
(19:18):
you're not just putting in a fenceline you're not just cutting a trail,
You're actually curating the land so thatyou have more wild edibles, so that
you have more beneficial and rare trees, so that you have protection of beneficial
and rare trees, so that youhave protein like nuts and stuff that your
animals can eat, so that youhave more tree fodder, so that you
have proper grazing land, so thatwe're now holistically being stewards of the land.
(19:44):
So again, if you simply justwant to ask a question, or
you want me to answer some questionsthat might help you find what resources are
right for you, visit us atwww dot prosperity homestead dot org and you're
going to start seeing more of theseclasses that are They don't seem like they're
related, but they are foundational toyou understanding how to be a good steward
(20:07):
of that land, how to workwith nature, how to get the most
from your every acre of your property, how to minimize the amount of outside
inputs that are necessary to build yourhomestead. I'm just a hit with Prosperity
Homestead. Thank you so much forlistening, Thank you for being a part
of what we do. Be sureto ask your questions and make your comments
because that really helps us understand ifwe're on the right track. And if
(20:29):
you want a practical on site programthat has to do with the things that
we're talking about here, be sureto ask and get on a waiting list.
You know we're running active farms.We're not you know, we're not
sitting around waiting for students to showup. Because now is the time to
get your homestead off the ground.And so don't watch another YouTube video,
don't listen to another podcast unless you'reoutside working. Get outside instead and start
(20:52):
enjoin your land. I'm just ahit with Prosperity Homestead. Ask your questions
at www dot prosper already homestead dotorg and of course we've got a number
of free resources to get you started. I'll see you in the next podcast.
Thanks for listening.
You might think this is a sexytopic. I certainly think it's a sexy
topic. But what do we dowith all the brush and tree cuttings on
a small farm, homestead or astate. How can we use the tree
trimmings and other things that we aregetting in our maintenance in order to expand
and grow our homestead. I'm justinhit with prosperity homestead and I try to
(00:25):
share with you practical ideas and conceptsthat help you get more from your land
without a lot of extra effort.And I've railed against string trimmers and leaf
blowers, and I've said, well, it's probably okay to use a chainsaw,
but even then, there are thingsyou can do with hand tools,
in this case, a hand apruning saw either on a pole or a
(00:49):
small handsaw, or even a brushblade that you can use to clean up
your property. Now you've seen theproperty that I manage. One of the
properties that I manage, it hasbrush is thorns, it's overgrown, it's
we're going to introduce goats for themain reason to clean that up. But
it's very difficult to navigate through thosewoods. So we put up a trail
(01:11):
system and the trail system helps usmove through the property, and we're going
to use electric portable fencing for thegoats themselves. But we don't have enough
electric portable fencing to cover the wholeproperty because we have these twelve acre paddocks
or these three acre paddocks. Andso what we've got to do is we've
got to cut lines through the fromtrail to trail, basically, so through
(01:34):
the woods from trail to trail.Now we could make additional trails, but
the forest multure, which is originallylike thirteen hundred dollars a day, is
now two thousand or twenty two hundreddollars a day, and so as time
progresses, inflation is causing our coststo get much higher. Same thing with
(01:56):
chainsaw. A fuel used to betwo dollars a gallon. Now it's three
twenty a gallon. I've heard it'sas much as four dollars a gallon in
other places. Now chainsaw is moreefficient when it comes to cutting small trails
through the woods. Then the it'smore efficient financially than the forest multure,
(02:17):
but it is not necessarily something youwant to be carrying as you do long
trails. So we've talked about trailclearing, and so there's a bunch of
gadgets out there, but what Ifind works really well is a pole saw
or a hand pruding saw. Nowhand pruding saw is actually curved a little
bit, the blade super sharp,and you use it to cut off small
(02:38):
branches. So small branches that areabout the size of your wrist is what
you're going to cut with that.Now, the chainsaw can cut down full
trees, but if we're clearing woods, we can use big equipment that's the
appropriate thing. But if we're justcutting a trail or a path from one
trail to another so we can setup a portable electric fence, then all
(03:01):
we need to do is go downthrough the woods and cut the side branches
off the trees that we're working with, as well as removing any small trees.
And so what do we do withthat? Now, I've seen people
go in and chop and drop,So they're just cutting it and dropping it
on the ground and they're just puttingthe fence over top of it, or
(03:23):
they're walking on that trail for alittle while and that'll start breaking down the
materials. But chopping and dropping isone option because it alleviates all the hauling.
If you're dragging branches out of thewoods, you're not working effectively.
Now you can take the branches andcut them and then lay them in the
woods with the stump end facing yourfence. You want to be able to
(03:46):
walk your fence lines. That's anotheroption. And of course your goats or
your animals can eat the branches.So we can make tree fodder by either
hanging the branches in the woods somewhereto dry, or laying the branches down
and letting the animals eat the greenmaterials off of them. Now, if
we add two very important observations,we can get even more value from these
(04:12):
trees. The one observation is whenwe cut the trees. If we cut
the trees when the leaves fall off, we have no leaves to feed the
animals. If we're cutting trees offat the ground, then we have the
potential for those trees to compass.But we don't want trees to compass in
our fence line because now that's inthe way we have to keep cutting them.
(04:34):
So instead of cutting the trees whenall the leaves have fallen off,
we want to cut those trees whenthere's leaves on the trees, so that
we now have food for the animals. Not necessarily immediately, we could dry
those out for the winter. Itdepends on your climate. But we don't
want it necessarily. We don't wantto cut the trees on the ground because
(04:55):
a vertical tree cut off above headheight can now regrow. So we can
cut it when the leaves are fallingoff and it will regrow in the spring.
Or we can cut it when ithas leaves at an appropriate height with
the appropriate type of tree, andthen it'll regrow leaves, and now we
(05:15):
have shade for the animals, wehave regrowth, it's above our fence line,
and we ultimately have something that wecan still navigate around. Now,
there will be times where you wantto cut trees off at the ground,
like eventually you want the tree andstump gone, because maybe you want a
four foot wide path from a widetrail that's thirteen feet wide. Now you
have a fence line or a walkingpath it's four feet wide. You're gonna
(05:38):
put your electric fence down it.Maybe you're gonna run ATV through it,
Maybe you're gonna hike through it.Maybe you're gonna run a water line and
we don't want any stumps. Andthe brain says, we'll just cut it
off at the ground. But ifwe cut it off at the wrong time
of the year, if we cutit off at the ground and it regrows,
(05:59):
then we have instead of one sticksticking out, we have eight sticks
sticking out. We have to cutthat branch in such a way that it'll
come out, and it'll come outas easy as possible, because we don't
have a trail to bring a pieceof equipment, so we can use one
do one of two things. Wecan use a puller, so it's a
pole with a little hook on theend. It can actually pull small trees
(06:23):
out of the ground. And sowe're gonna cut the tree off about hip
high. We're gonna strip it ofall of its side branching. We're gonna
either turn the top in the treefodder, or we're gonna take the top
and use it. We're gonna talkabout brush fencing here shortly, but we're
gonna use it some other way andthen we can pull the small tree out.
The problem is that tree is gonnahave to be smaller than our wrist
to pull it out of the ground. And if depending on the type of
(06:46):
tree, it could be pretty hard. So the cutting it off about hip
height, stripping it of all ofthis branch is actually we'll start starving the
tree. You can cut a notchin the top of the tree in order
to cause it to die on purpose, to settle water on the top of
the tree and start to rode out. Now, if the tree rots out,
it'll be easier to pull out theground because it'll die off the surface
(07:09):
of the ground. So do yousee these methods. So now when you
attend a course, and by theway, Sustainable Homestead Institute is somebody we
work with very frequently. I ama student of them, learning about the
goats. That's why I don't talkabout the goats and other than the things
that we know that I know workbecause I've learned them and used them.
(07:30):
But ultimately, when it comes totrail clearing, these methods for trail clearing
allow you to get your fences upquickly and to allow the animal pressure to
prevent the regrowth. So we're talkingabout paths in the woods about four feet
wide where we're going to run temporaryelectric fencing or the paths that are around
permanent perimeter fencing. How do wemaintain those so that we reduce our actual
(07:57):
labors, but also the utility valueof the things that I teach is how
do we increase the amount of calorieson that pasture or the amount of shade,
the amount of value that we candeliver to the animals. And so
how we cut these things matters.So we're not cutting and hauling and ripping
things out. We're we're looking atthe type of tree and we're looking at
(08:20):
how that tree survives, and we'resaying, okay, this tree right here,
if we cut it above our head, it'll regrow because it's nitrogen fixing,
or it's you know, it's atree that will pollard. Pollarding as
a method of managing trees. Now, if we've got a tree that's away
from a fence line and we knowit's going to get a rest period,
(08:43):
we can cut it off at theground because we know it's going to compass.
We know it's going to create newshoots that are going to provide food
for the animals. We know thatif we cut branches when there's leaves on
them, that we can dry thosebranches by hanging them, and now that
dry leaf will be food for theanimal in the winter. That's why I
(09:03):
want to introduce brush fences, bythe way, because if you have a
pasture rotation, you can actually cutthose branches create brush fences offset from your
actual electric fence. So you dragthe branch into the woods for a little
bit. You put up some verticalposts, you weave and that a lot
of this was done in Europe.You weave the green branches in between these
(09:28):
posts, and now, because theanimals are not going to revisit for a
while, you now have your treefodder in the field drying out. Because
again it's vertical with the woven branchesin between. It provides a slight barrier,
it provides shelter for wildlife, Itprovides bird habitat while the animals are
(09:48):
not there. And then when youget back to rotation, your animals can
eat the leaves and the small branchesoff of the fence and they aren't going
to hurt anything. And because thefence was set up offset of your election
fence, they're also not going tobe near your electric fence. Now,
this is something that we can showyou in demonstration. That's why I mentioned
the Sustainable Homestead Institute because This issomething that we can show you, and
(10:11):
it's on the different properties that I'mmanaging, but we can show you as
part of their bushcrafting course because theycan also make temporary shelters for yourself or
animals in the woods from the materialthat you're clearing out anyway to get your
electric fence in. And now youranimals have temporary shelters, they have food,
(10:35):
they have protection from wildlife. Soyou could even weave a corral.
Now, if this is woodland,I've got woodlands, I've got areas that
are overgrown. So while you're clearingthe areas out, applying animal pressure to
remove some of these lateral branching.Anyway, you're now making corrals, shelters,
(10:56):
wind breaks, and other valuable resourcesvery close to where these trees are
cut. And you're doing it withsimple tools. You're doing it with a
hand salt, a hand pruning salt, a pole sal and possibly a pool
or some kind of augur. Now, the thing about cutting all the lateral
branches off and cutting up a treeoff about hip high is that the majority
(11:18):
of the case is it's gonna die, and so the animals are going to
pressure it. They're going to beeating the little fresh knobs off, and
then as it dies you can justpull it out of the ground. So
whether you have hogs or goats orany other type of grazing animal, you
don't need to cut the tree offat the ground and haul it out unless
it's a big tree. But ultimately, by coppicing things that are away from
(11:41):
your fence lines or pollarting things nearyour fence line, you can start developing
these other resources. Now, what'sinteresting about this model and concept, and
I have done a brush fence video, is that if you have high value
trees, such as oak trees,you can actually use these brush fences to
keep your animals off the oak treewithout hauling any plastic out in the woods,
(12:05):
or without hauling any fence out inthe woods or any of those grow
tubes. Now, the grow tubeswork pretty well, I like those,
but if you're building these brush fencesup, it could be as easy as
saving your straits. And what doI mean by that. You'll see in
most of my brush clearing videos,I will go through and cut down the
brush to remove any straight poles thatare six feet long or better. Why
(12:31):
am I doing this because that sixfoot pole if I cut a point on
one end, I can hammer itdown into the ground, especially if it's
like wrist thick. And I knoweverybody's got different thickness wrists, but that's
kind of just a general measure.If it's a little bit thicker than my
wrist, it will make a goodpole in the ground. I can hammer
it down in the ground significantly.I can weave brush in between it.
(12:54):
I can make a loop around afruit tree, for example, and that
will keep animals off the fruit tree. I can use it to create a
brush corral out in the woods somewherewhere I might need to bring in animals
for safety reasons. I can createa brush fence that's north south, and
then another one that's east west tocreate a box out in the woods that
might go around an oak tree,because we don't want the animals under the
(13:16):
oak tree all the time. Mostcows, goats, pigs will not go
through a brush fence. They it'sjust they'll eat off of it. They
might climb up it and stuff,but they're not going to go through a
brush fence. Now, the greatthing about a brush fence is that you're
going to start having seeds and plantsthat start growing underneath them, And now
the fence goes from a temporary fencethat's made of brush to a more permanent
(13:39):
fence that's actually made of trees thatkind of grew in the area that you
want it. So you always wantyour brush fences a little bit longer or
a little bit wider than you wouldnormally a regular fence. But now your
animals are able to graze. Nowthere's animal habitat for wildlife, there's windbreak.
(14:00):
There's so much extra value. Butmost importantly, you didn't have to
haul any brush. You drag thebrush five feet, bang it in place
with a chilly or a club,and you take the branchings and poles and
put them in the ground. Youdon't need to carry any t posts.
You don't need to do anything otherthan clear the fence line. And by
clearing the fence line, it'll beeasier to put up your temporary fences,
(14:24):
it'll be easier to maintain your permanentfences, and you'll find that you'll have
an abundance of new materials as yougo. Now there will be times where
you'll coppas because you want the straightpoles. There will be times where you
pollard because you want the tree fodder. But as you do this, and
this is really part of what you'llfind in the old school agro forestry books,
(14:46):
but as you do this, yourland will start developing to give you
more and more abundance. I've gotseveral areas where i can walk from a
big wide, thirteen foot wide traildown a little four foot wide trail and
then onto another thirteen foot one trail, and I'm almost building out like small
little paddocks in the woods. Now, it really depends on how long your
fence is, but I want tobe able to run a hundred foot fence
(15:09):
down a trail and then connect itto another one hundred foot fence, and
then at most have four fences thatI'm moving, and so I can have
a fence open up, move animalsfrom one paddock to another and not have
to carry a large number of fences. So that could be a fifty foot
by fifty foot area, it couldbe one hundred footy one hundred foot area,
but all of the interconnects are clearedout. Now as the forest matures,
(15:33):
you're going to have less brush,and these brush fences will rot down
and they'll be you know they'll returnto the earth. And by the way,
if you're out camping on your paddocks, these brush fences make a great
opportunity for you to get tender aswell as for you to have shelter by
(15:54):
setting up a brush fence. It'slarge enough that you can put your tent
on the inside, and that waythe brush fence provides a positive barrier for
you if you're out there among wildlifedoing the nomadic stuff with your animals.
So I know I covered a lothere and it really is something that's better
demonstrated. So you can visit theSustainable Homestead Institute at www dot Sustainable homestead
(16:18):
dot com and join their Essential Survivalclass and you're going to learn about brush
shelters there and different kinds of waysto get more from the natural environment,
especially when you're looking at wooden tools, so the tools that are naturally in
your environment. You're going to getsome knife and act skills there and for
(16:40):
many people, you can do yourtrail clearing or your your fence line clearing
with a simple brush axe or machete. You don't have to carry a lot
of tools. If you want tolearn about trail clearing and the use of
brush fencing in your riginative padducts oras part of your favent system. Then
(17:00):
you want to ask your questions atwww dot prosperity homestead dot org. Simply
go to the contact page and askyour questions either way. As we form
classes where we're clearing trails, settingup brush fences, maintaining fences, installing
fences, or those other fundamental homesteadingskills, I'll be sure to let you
(17:22):
know when those classes are available andyou can come out here into the Martinswell
Henry County area and you'll get tosee all the exciting things that we have
out here and all the exciting trainersthat we have available. When it comes
to starting your homestead, I reallydo believe it starts with the Essential Survival
class because a lot of times peopleare hauling brush in, chipping brush and
(17:48):
taking chainsaws and all this extra equipmentand having to drag stuff out with their
tractor because they don't understand that thewoods is a resource. And so we're
advocating being very light on the landand how to have that better feed and
better fodder through agro forestry systems,through silver pasture, through food forests.
(18:10):
And if you take the mentality ofjust you know, pillaging and stripping everything,
you're going to miss out on theopportunity which is nature. And so
if we're doing wildlife habitat restoration,if we're doing you know, we're taking
poor land and making it better.The Survival Essentials course is going to give
(18:30):
you an idea what's out there,because you don't want to cut down a
pawpal tree. For example, you'reout there clearing a line and you see
a pawpalal tree, you have toknow it's a pallpal tree. You're you're
going to get that awareness for allthese wild edibles plants and useful trees and
useful plants. And this is reallygood for hunting land as well. But
(18:51):
that Survival Essentials class with Scott Vernonover at the Sustainable Homestead Institute really opens
your awareness so that now when you'rehiking, now that when you're managing hunting
land or you're having rigentative grazing undertrees, whether it's pigs or goats or
cows, you're going to start gettingthat curation that builds additional resources, so
(19:18):
you're not just putting in a fenceline you're not just cutting a trail,
You're actually curating the land so thatyou have more wild edibles, so that
you have more beneficial and rare trees, so that you have protection of beneficial
and rare trees, so that youhave protein like nuts and stuff that your
animals can eat, so that youhave more tree fodder, so that you
have proper grazing land, so thatwe're now holistically being stewards of the land.
(19:44):
So again, if you simply justwant to ask a question, or
you want me to answer some questionsthat might help you find what resources are
right for you, visit us atwww dot prosperity homestead dot org and you're
going to start seeing more of theseclasses that are They don't seem like they're
related, but they are foundational toyou understanding how to be a good steward
(20:07):
of that land, how to workwith nature, how to get the most
from your every acre of your property, how to minimize the amount of outside
inputs that are necessary to build yourhomestead. I'm just a hit with Prosperity
Homestead. Thank you so much forlistening, Thank you for being a part
of what we do. Be sureto ask your questions and make your comments
because that really helps us understand ifwe're on the right track. And if
(20:29):
you want a practical on site programthat has to do with the things that
we're talking about here, be sureto ask and get on a waiting list.
You know we're running active farms.We're not you know, we're not
sitting around waiting for students to showup. Because now is the time to
get your homestead off the ground.And so don't watch another YouTube video,
don't listen to another podcast unless you'reoutside working. Get outside instead and start
(20:52):
enjoin your land. I'm just ahit with Prosperity Homestead. Ask your questions
at www dot prosper already homestead dotorg and of course we've got a number
of free resources to get you started. I'll see you in the next podcast.
Thanks for listening.
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