Paging rural GRMers: Learn me clearing land

Lots and lots of great advice in this thread.  I really appreciate it!

STM317 said:

nderwater said:

Ideally I'd like our result to look like a meadow sprinkled with nice mature trees.  It will be a lot of work to get to that state, and I'd love to find a way to do it in a single season.

What's the plan for routine maintenance? If you want to keep it like a "meadow sprinkled with nice mature trees", you're going to have to mow it pretty often. That's going to take a whole bunch of time with 5-10 acres sprinkled with trees and other obstacles. For reference, I've got 17 or 18 mature trees that I mow around on my 3 mostly flat acres. With a large, commercial ZTR mower I spend about 2 hours/week on yard work. With more trees or more acreage that time could grow very quickly. I don't care how much you like yardwork, mowing 5+ hours/week would suck for anybody with a job and normal obligations.

For that reason, most people with that amount of land tend to clear out an acre or two around the house that gets mowed and treated like a lawn, and the rest is just left wild. That would greatly reduce your time commitment, both in the clearing phase and the routine weekly maintenance.

I'd clear your homesite and drive first. A pro could make quick work of that and you wouldn't have to buy any big equipment that you'd never use again. Then, you can focus on the light clearing a bit at a time as you want, starting from the house and working your way out until you've had enough. This can be done with a smaller tractor (that you'll want anyway) and chainsaws.

This is the way people tend to do it Oklahoma as well. My girlfriends old house was the same. 17 acres, about 2.5 were "cleared" there were some big trees, but essentially a lawn with her house on it. 

The rest was woodlands/scrubs/etc. 

You might want to look at Ventrac and Steiner “tractors”. It looks like you have some hills. Sometimes hills and top heavy tractors don’t mix well. They have all the same attachments (maybe more) as the normal tractors, but they’re built for work or hills and uneven sites. 

When I did a similar thing the answer ended up being a Kubota L3200 with quick connect front loader. 
Accessories:
Skid steer forks (most useful thing EVER)
5' brush hog
6' York Rake
6' finish mower

Getting the tires loaded with calcium eased my need for a rear ballast box when doing heavy lifting.

DaveEstey said:

When I did a similar thing the answer ended up being a Kubota L3200 with quick connect front loader. 
Accessories:
Skid steer forks (most useful thing EVER)
5' brush hog
6' York Rake
6' finish mower

Getting the tires loaded with calcium eased my need for a rear ballast box when doing heavy lifting.

berkeley, this is hawt. I need a tractor.

A mid thirty HP compact utility tractor(JD preferably)and a front end loader with a tooth bar. The following are budget driven...a grapple and or a detachable backhoe. I've found that what the tooth bar doesn't turn loose the back hoe will and the tooth bar on the front end loader pushes it all to the BURN pile.....buts that's here in Texas. I mention the grapple only because it will make life a lot easier when trying to move a brush pile a fair distance.  The tooth bar on the front end loader will basically do the same thing, but the cut brush has a tendency to roll out from underneath as one moves forward. Price diff ...toothbar $300 ......grapple $1500-1800  

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My family has excavating equipment, including four backhoes.  My dad uses the bottom one in this pic often.  His dad bought it new in the early 1950s.  The top one is from the 70s and my uncle restored it.  Neither one is worth anything to a professional, so they're relatively inexpensive, for the amount of useful that you get.  We also have track loaders and wheel loaders, but a few hours with a backhoe then maintaining with a good mower is most effective.  Rookie operators can learn quick enough how to run these, so rent if you don't want to buy, repair and maintain.