Hello, I am Connor, the new owner and steward of Metal Mountain. It is a 7.6 acre tract in North-Central Arkansas, on the southern edge of zone 7. My soil is sandy loam and sandy clay, pretty sandy, on a bedrock of limestone and sandstone. I have dramatic rock formations, huckelberry, raspberry, greenbriar, and fragrant sumac growing everywhere. Big oaks, big pines, cedars, and some smaller maples,
ash, on the north facing slope. I am under the impression that these plants indicate I have acid, rocky soil.
1. I am considering getting some of the
land select cut. I am very shady, the land hasn't been timbered or used in many years. There is a very paddock on it with an oak tree that has grown around some barbed wire. The tree is over 20" in diameter and the barbed wire goes straight through one side and out the other, through the center. How long do you reckon this would take? This is the most recent sign of habitation, there is little left of that old home site. Anyway, I have big straight oaks and big straight pines, and though I am going to build my own home, I don't have the means to fell, skid, and saw these big logs. If I got a logger in there, would I have any say in where he put his logging roads? Access and letting light in are my main motivations, any money I get out of the deal is gravy.
2. I want to transition to a food forest. I posted a year ago about a food fortress, I am a doomer seeking self-sufficiency. I thought I could plant many many fruit seeds this fall, marked with piles of stones, and in the spring when they start to sprout I would start felling
trees above them. There would be a strong mix of leguminous and thorny trees in addition to food species. People around here have luck with prunus,
apple. I haven't seen any pawpaw or serviceberry, I may be the first person in my neighborhood to be growing these varieties. I intend to grow a few hundred trees from seed,
Sepp style, and have a few young trees that I plant and
fence. People around here plant their fruit trees on a north facing slope, so that they flower later in-case of an early frost.
3. I will be getting critters this year. I think I have
enough brush to
feed goats and enough ticks to feed
chickens for free until winter. Goats wise, i would get two nubian milkers and my own billy, and keep them separate. I intend to string barbed wire on trees, and I will move the paddocks a couple times a year. This way, the trees shouldn't grow around the steel wire and become disfigured. Outside of the garden, I imagine the critters would like 3 acres a year, so I would be able to rest the land for plenty of time between browsings so it doesn't get trampled.
Please comment, give me advice! I am startled by the size of this undertaking
