Everyone wants a forest.
Now that you have your wooded land, what do you do with it?
If you just have it cuz its pretty, you are the most elaborate form of consumer.
For true ownership, consider
adventure land
firewood
lumberwood
pigs
foraging — mmm, wineberries!
mushrooms — don’t miss this one for sure
Adventure Land
Outside play
Makes memories that stay
The highest and best use of your woods is Narnia, the 100-acre Wood, the Bridge to Terabithia, Never-Neverland, Treasure Island, Wild Cat Island, the Land of Nod. If you have a sensible screen and social media policy for your children, this will happen naturally.
You will never be able to make a childhood as magical as the one your kids will make on their own.
Firewood
A tree you can see
But wood is good
The easiest and most common way to enter a relationship with your land and make it part of your household is cutting and burning wood.
Fireplaces and even inserts don’t cut it. Get a stove.
You need to cut wood in advance. Wood needs to dry.
Make sure your woodburning stove has a window. There’s something about seeing flames.
Note: if you know any superior ways of sharpening chainsaw chains, drop a line. Many steaders will be grateful.
Lumberwood
Make a table
if you’re able
There is nothing magical about lumber. It’s just wood that has been dried and planed. If you don’t have the machines, you can do it by hand using splitting wedges and a hand planer. Kids love this! Even simple furniture made by you from your own trees is going to be rich in a way that even the finest bought products can’t. To have furniture made from your own trees is very strong.
Pigs
Grove, clearing or bog
they eat high on the hog
Pigs were the old-fashioned standby for making use of woods. Mast—acorns—makes the most flavorful pork, they say. In the right area, this still makes sense.
Plan in advance to have a pen where the pigs come for supplemental feed, so you can catch them when you want them.
wild pigs are a menace and your own pigs if free roaming can tear up a garden or a pasture. Think carefully about fencing
Forage
Berries you forage
Enliven your porridge
Herbs, mushrooms (have a care), sassafrass, berries, nuts, curios . . .
You can enhance your forage with deliberate plantings. This is what is called a food forest. But every forest is naturally a proto food forest with discoveries to be made in every acre and in every season without you planting a thing.
There will be old-timers around, or just people with a hobby, who can tell you things that can’t be found in any book.
Exitgroup.us / www.twitter.com/exit_org and his family foraged and preserved these wineberries from their land. That color ... !
Mushrooms
Log bloom
mushroom
One of our steaders and his family use their woods to grow mushrooms for fun, (literal) profit, and a true sense of reward. You should give serious consideration to this option if you live in an area with decent rainfall.
It’s surprisingly simple. His photo essay on growing shitaake mushrooms below.
Angle grinder with special bit
drill in a diamond pattern about 3 inches apart
inoculate with dowel or sawdust in injector
logs should be 4-8 inch diameter. Oak works well for shitake. Cottonwoods for oyster mushrooms.
wax to seal inoculation holes
Final