Past the first two acres which we cleared fairly easily, the last eight acres was a total woodland, populated with hundreds of thorn trees. Some of those thorns were up to 3 inches long and sharp as a razor. We spent months cutting them down and dragging them to an open area and piling them up. It was too dangerous to burn them during a dry summer. We waited until the first snow of winter and then lit them up. I don’t know what the sap in them was, but they lit up like a gasolene fire. Despite the snow and low outside temperature we sat outside without our coats on. The heat was tremendous in the area. Had we burned them in the summer there would have been an uncontrollable fire all through the woods.
It took all summer long for us to clear a 10 foot wide path from the house to the back fence. My battle with the thorn trees took several years to conquer them all. At first, as soon as I cut one down to the ground, they would sprout up with the beginning of a new thorn tree. I went to a local farm supply store and bought a chemical that when I cut down a thorn tree I poured the chemical on the stump and that took care of my problem.
We spent the rest of the winter working inside the house and there was an overwhelming number of tasks to be done.
This completes the first six.
