I Hate Green Briars!

[catjac1975]

@Nyboy, we moved into the house February 14, 2015. We are so happy here. We love our life on our little farm! And yes, all the red tape problems and the whole horrible process, all the things that went wrong--were all so worth it!

@catjac1975 We did it with machetes. We chopped them off at the ground and dragged them out of the tree tops. The sheep ate the leaves off, then we rolled up the vines, stomped them and hauled them to the burn pile.

We started chopping and clearing the briars in this pasture, this spring.

You are a super star.

 

[baymule]

Back to work in the former green briar pasture today. Today's project was a large cedar tree with dead branches that swept the ground. It has taken us until now to get to it. Our neighbor Robert, came over and operated the chain saw, DH and I loaded the pick up and the Kawasaki Mule. We dragged the branches off at the burn pile and called it a day.

Robert sawed the branches off.

I dragged the branches to the truck and mule. My husband piled them up with Trip supervising to make sure we did it right.

Robert trimmed up the branches. The ones with green at the ends went into the sheep night pen, some branches were big enough for future fence posts or at least corner braces and were set aside. We can WALK under this tree now!

 

[Nyboy]

I love the smell of cedar. On to do list is lining closet with it.

 

[catjac1975]

I love the smell of cedar. On to do list is lining closet with it.

Be for you line a closet spend some time with cedar. I too like the smell and thought of the closet liner a long time ago. Fortunately we could not afford it. Now I find I am allergic to it. Could this out being around cedar mulch.

 

[ga.Karen]

Baymule, did you ever find out what your briars are? Down here they call them 'cat claw'. One place I lived I dug out a couple of tubers that were big as basket balls. I've been told by our extension service that nothing will kill them, they have to be dug out. Sure hope your sheep control them for you and if you ever see any blooms (yellow), cut them off quick!
You have done an amazing job. Lots of work isn't it? We have 16 1/2 acres and ours have been covered with wild black berries, wild grapes and now some of that cat claw is coming up. We also had to fight a huge patch of poison ivy, but I think we have licked that! I pulled/dug up wild grape vines that were about 30' long. I think every blackberry is related to every other one in this whole area as their runner roots can have 15-20 bushes attached to just one root.
We also had planted pines on ours when we bought it, but after picking up over 20,000 pine cones in just the front yard in early 2015, we got them ALL cut down. We had to pick them up each spring before could mow and then all through the mowing season so the pine cones didn't tear up or dull or mow blades as bad. And yes, we counted...and quit counting at 20,000...there were more than that.

 

[seedcorn]

There are brush killers that should take them out. Might take several applications.

 

[baymule]

There are brush killers that should take them out. Might take several applications.

My weed killers are hair sheep. They eat the weeds and we eat the lambs. No where in all of poison-dom can you find a circle of life like that? seedcorn.....

 

[baymule]

Baymule, did you ever find out what your briars are? Down here they call them 'cat claw'. One place I lived I dug out a couple of tubers that were big as basket balls. I've been told by our extension service that nothing will kill them, they have to be dug out. Sure hope your sheep control them for you and if you ever see any blooms (yellow), cut them off quick!
You have done an amazing job. Lots of work isn't it? We have 16 1/2 acres and ours have been covered with wild black berries, wild grapes and now some of that cat claw is coming up. We also had to fight a huge patch of poison ivy, but I think we have licked that! I pulled/dug up wild grape vines that were about 30' long. I think every blackberry is related to every other one in this whole area as their runner roots can have 15-20 bushes attached to just one root.
We also had planted pines on ours when we bought it, but after picking up over 20,000 pine cones in just the front yard in early 2015, we got them ALL cut down. We had to pick them up each spring before could mow and then all through the mowing season so the pine cones didn't tear up or dull or mow blades as bad. And yes, we counted...and quit counting at 20,000...there were more than that.

Where are you located? Around here we just call them green briars. Cat's Claw is a vine with hook shaped thorns that originates in the Amazon and is used as herbal preparations. Got a picture of your briars?

Sounds to me like you need a good, tight fence and a flock of hair sheep! They'll take a LOT of that out for you! Mine eat the black berry leaves like candy.

 

[maudejames72]

Well... with the good, there's also the bad. Briars are thick, painful, and almost impossible to kill! The great thing about briars is the berries that most of them produce. Isn't that something that something so ugly can also be beautiful? I guess you can say that briars are like life. Yin Yang yadda yadda yadda.

 

[maudejames72]

I tell you what I'd hate to fight.. kudzu.