Our family got a 24 acre woodlot that had been clear cut ~30 years ago and left for nature to do its thing. There is a good mix of hard wood and pine, a few areas where the pine grew in very very thick. When we first started, our favorite was a good 300 ft DeWalt wind up tape measure so that we could get everything mapped out to try and come up with a long term plan for some of the areas, we picked a couple areas to work on and will revisit the mapping periodically as we progress. Make sure you have a plan!
My favorite tools have been a handsaw (prefer Silky), a chainsaw (20 inch for bigger, 12 inch for lighter work), a sold pair of loppers (Fiskars), and a good rake. After clearing out the brush/raking to evaluate the layout, we determine what to do with the area, taking down the trees we want (either cleared or to leave the larger hardwoods). Once it is clear, raking it out, running a tiller at a light setting to loosen up the top layers, and planting grass/clover (seed spreader and tiller) Our favorite this fall was a solid backpack blower to keep the areas we have already cleared from getting too covered.
Eventually, expect a broad fork to be a favorite for breaking up larger areas we want to plan...have a couple raised beds we have planted potatoes in to eventually turn into berry bushes.
When heading into the woods, I usually have a handsaw and a larger blade for taking the pine limbs out as high as I can reach. If you have a lot of planting in your future, get those compost bins going ASAP (add some worms) and get the ground covers growing so you will have plenty of greens to add to your pile, I bet you will end up needing a lot of good soil!
Biggest early win we had was putting up a couple of Shed In The Boxes and decking one out with full shelves so we could organize our gear. and a couple of game cameras to 'secure' the gear. Biggest temporary setback was starting a more permanent storage solution and not properly determining which trees we needed to clear in order to build. Good luck with your project!!!
