What about the north side?

We live on the north facing side of a mountain and don't have any options for getting south facing land right now. How can we work Holzer wonders on this north facing slope? (Northern NJ, 800 feet above sea level in the Ramapo Mountains)

Across the way are a couple of acres of wetlands. I can imagine making Holzer ponds there, but I am also curious if it might not be more beneficial to cultivate (I notice I am afraid to use that word in this venue) something like a rice paddy area there? Either would require removing standing wood to support such changes. Curious about the thoughts on this.

How do people deal with the wild animals? In my neck of the woods, we have alot of deer, some wild turkeys, occasional fox, bobcats and bears plus black and copperhead snakes along with moles, voles, chipmunks and squirrels? Airborn we have a variety of hawks, owls plus all the usual suspects. The biggest problem is the deer who sneak in and eat almost anything? Does Holzerizing happen behind deer fences? That one is hard to imagine. The deer are also carriers of ticks which in endemic areas portend borrelia, bartonella, ehrlichia, babesia and powassan virus, to name just a few. So they are negative from a consumer perspective but also from a disease carrier perspective. How can this be Holzer managed or changed?

Deeply appreciative of your thoughts,

Jackie de Vries

Dogs are very useful for critter control. If you are going to have a lot of domestic animals that need care, I would suggest looking into LGD's (Livestock Guardian Dogs). If what you need to protect are fruit trees and vegetables and the like, you can be helped by any high energy dog. In Dane County, WI, there was a program to take dogs sent to the pound for being hard to live with and give them new homes guarding orchards. These were area-appropriate dogs, like huskies, and they lived outside year round. I think they installed an "invisible fence." (I only know what I found out when I asked about the dog at our CSA.) Depending on the pressure, your own dog may be able to handle it, especially if you have a dog door to allow rapid exits. At our place we have a "three season" room with a (doubled) dog door, and that's where the dogs hang out if we are not at home.

Of course, I've got to bring up bone sauce. (Burra tried making it--it worked to stop some animals, didn't stop donkeys.)

Here's a link to Paul's video about bone sauce.

A dog really does work wonders.
If the deer have a "road" going thru your land leave it for them and fence it to contain them with a few of their fav plants left for them.

As for which land you should get, I think hill is better than wetland, also if you remove the trees those wetland could become lakes, some trees(pecans/walnut) transpire 100gallon of water per day.