Wow, Catie ... there is a lot here to try to address.
Can't help you with the poison ivy. I don't have PI on my upland conifer sites. Thank goodness I do not have to deal with it.
But the slow conversion from all conifer to a mixed forest? Maybe you can benefit from our
experience here.
From the picture and from your description, it sounds like the conifers need thinning. Good for you to have the hugelkultur plan. You will have lots of
wood for HK.
Your site is probably quite similar to my own in northern Lower Michigan. Conifers such as spruce or pine are most often planted in plantation configuration on a 6'x8' spacing. This close planting shades out competition like grass in a few years and forces trees to compete for sunlight by growing straight and tall ... making for good saw logs or cabin logs.
Shade tolerant hardwood species like maple, beech and chestnut will colonize under the conifer
canopy, making thousands of new seedlings ready for any opening in the conifer canopy to shoot up and take their share of the sunlight. It looks like you have a lot of spruce. If it were my ground I would start pulling individual trees out of the stand for use in building, biomass (chips, etc), and hugel construction. Take "the worst first" with the thought of releasing some of the spruce for improved growth with less competition. Maybe I would take half or two/thirds of the spruce out over an extended time. This will create the micro openings
volunteer hardwoods need to take off as well as micro/garden spaces for food plots.
"Cut more trees" ... it sounds terrible to many, but the more space you can create by removing conifers, the more diversity will enter the equation. Do not worry about cutting too many conifers. If you are working slowly and without massive machinery, it will take you a long time ... and GIVE you time to mull and consider your options as you go.
By approaching the project as one that is creating biomass that will be useful in a number of ways, your "worst/first" approach will begin to open small spaces that will give you new ideas about how to use that space.
Avoid the temptation to call in the loggers or pulp cutters to take large masses of material all at once. Sixty acres is a lot for one person to handle, but you sound young and may have many years to shape your space. Take your time and enjoy the work if you can.
You may have to take 20-60 trees for your cabin and out buildings (wood sheds, stock
shelter, etc). This alone will give you a start.
In my pine plantations I have already thinned the stand by removing some 10,000 or so trees out. Many went as pulpwood, but hundred more have been used in buildings and gardens. And I STILL need to take almost another ten thousand to give the remaining pines room to fulfill their own genetic potentials. In time, as the original plantings of nearly 1,000 trees to the acre becomes reduced to perhaps 100-200 per acre the conifer plantation become more "garden/like" with lots of space and light within the stand to establish new gardens.
Note: I have no problem letting a trimmed tree trunk lie on the ground and rot for several years before moving it into a hugel situation. And even if I do not use it in the garden or for building and it just rots where it lies I feel good about the soil it is making as it melts back into earth. I also burn a good deal of brush and trimmings in order to make soil amendments like
wood ash and charcoal for the hugel beds.
I also like to prune up the remaining spruce to create cleared working spaces BENEATH their canopy. This kind of space usually receives "side/light" while also providing overhead cover from frost and hail ... making a good space for protecting nursery stock. I grow a lot of walnut and chestnut nursery stock, and these young trees shelter well for a year or two while they toughen up
enough to go out into the open.
I would prune your prize remaining spruce up from the ground at least 6 feet or so. Rule of thumb for pruning? You can take about one/third of the growing branches off to the great benefit of the tree. Pruning usually stimulate strong new growth in girth.
Need fruit tree light? There are always the sunny edges. Or you can open smaller spaces within the conifer plantations in order to establish young fruit trees .. then gradually remove any additional conifers as the fruit tree grows. The young trees will love the shelter of having big spruce wind/shelter while they establish.
I look at the 30,000 or so pines planted on my site as unnatural interlopers. Left all alone from this point, the maples, beech and chestnut will move into the conifer stands and become a MIXED forest. In a hundred years or so it will be more hardwoods than conifers ... closer to a "real" forest.
I think of your work as something like that of a sculptor, taking away excess material (trees) in order to produce a more useful form. Ironic that in order to produce a mixed forest you must cut down so many existing trees. Not all at once, of course, but over the long haul of your relationship with an evolving woodlot.
You were "given" 60 acres of forest land? How sweet is that? Where can I go to get in the way of a
gift like that?
Nature invites your participation in the evolving dance on your acreage. Do not be shy about converting those beautiful spruce to materials you can use. Working slowly and mostly by yourself means you will have time and space to figure it out as you go.
I bet if you open the conifers a little at a time, the hardwoods will begin to come in on their own. Where I live, sugar maple volunteers will quickly take over a pine plantation planting once a few trees come out. Funny to think of sugar maple being problematic, but they come in so densely they can seriously retard to future growth of the conifers if not controlled.
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When I get impatient, I can remind myself that 40 years from now, hopefully, the forest will look a lot different- with deciduous and coniferous trees of mixed ages and types interspersed with some majestic 80 year old red pine and white spruce planted by my grandpa.
