Quarantine project: Deforestation and foliage wrangling

This project is long over due...and now I have time.  

This is a aerial view of my house.  The top if the page is North.  To the West, there is a row of tall pines between myself and the neighbor.  

These tall pines have been neglected by me for a long time.  Between the pines a lot of "scrub-brush" has grown and that growth is then encroaching on my front yard grass, essentially making my front yard smaller.  The goal of this project is to wrangle back this growth.  I do not want to eliminate all the growth between the pines because this growth makes for a nice green barrier between myself and the neighboring house to the West.  The pines are the property line.  I just want to work on my side of the property line.  

Here is a random picture from summer time which shows the green barrier.  

It is hard to distinguish where the pines are in the pic above because the foliage is out in front of them.  

Here are some pictures taken today (early Spring):

I am trying to highlight in these pictures that some of what I need to cut down is a thick as a soda can.  

For the small stuff I can cut down with hand trimmers.  The soda can size stuff will need a small chain saw.  

The question I have is as a one man job, how can I best rid myself of these "stumps" to soil again?  Rent a small stump grinder?  Dig by hand?  

How do I best turn this soil back into a grass growing area?  Should I then rent a tiller to turn all the soil over and grind away the roots of the greenery?  

PS: I hate yard work!  

For the smaller stuff, a grub hoe will help you get a significant amount of root.  The pop can sized ones will require persistence, or chemicals, or a shovel and recirocating saw for roots.  Digging roots in that area will be horrible, due to the other trees you want to keep.

https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/garden/garden-care/cultivators/69499-hoe-dag?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1OWH3LO46AIVhp6fCh2_2QDhEAQYAiABEgJC7PD_BwE

Yank them up with a chain attached to a car, burn them or get a PullerBear.  

A puller bear will get them up given enough leverage, and they're a bit safer than yanking on them with a chain attached to your car.

I'd try pulling the 2" stuff with the truck and see how much root comes out. I have lot of larger pines and the ground beneath them is quite loose as it's mostly semi-composted pine  straw. I had a few 1" trunks that I pulled with the lawn tractor last summer. I've also taken Round-Up to a few and pulled them after they died off. That will only work later in the year when they're leafy though.

I bought the tiny chainsaw and hedge trimmer attachments for my weedwhacker for clearing out brush like this. It really saves your back. 

Help has arrived and working on one root. 

I'm currently raking up tons of pine cones about the size of a bratwurst. 

Me and the kiddos have been making morning projects of wandering through the woods taking care of stuff. A couple mornings so far it's been cleaning trash up from the woods (lots of traffic on the street alongside the woods means lots of dummies throwing trash out their windows) but yesterday we spent an hour or more pulling small bush honeysuckles up. It's a nice springtime project.

I'd use my stump grinder to till the area up and prep it for grass seed.  But you probably don't have one so that's out.....

The pop can sized trees, you could use an engine hoist and try pulling them out.  Bolt a piece of chain around the trunk (really crank down on it so the chain doesn't slip off) and use the short (stronger) hoist length.  It works well for fence posts, you might be able to get saplings out the same way.  Using big tools makes any job better!

I have used a comealong and a winch before. If you can get a chain around some and around the truck, that would be my starting spot.

I use my truck with a chain hooked too the front and back out slowly. I have a few bushes to pull this year using that method. 
 

disclaimer I'm slightly redneck and will use a 4x4 truck for all kinds of things. I've even yanked 5 inch round trees out with them over the years 

Here are the fruits of today's labor. 

Mostly pine cones, small twigs and leaves raked from the front  yard grass and the immediate boarder of the wooded areas without raking into the wooded area.

Only making some small progress but making a dent. 

Cut trunk as close to flush with the ground as you can. Drill 3 1" round, 1" deep holes in the top of the trunk. Fill holes with salt. (you may have to repeat the salting)

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

The pop can sized trees, you could use an engine hoist and try pulling them out.  

Hey, good idea. I was going to suggest letting most of the air out of a tire, and using it to convert the chain hooked to a bumper's pull from horizontal to vertical. Your way sounds much less likely to end in tears.

Yanking out trees with a large pickup is about the most satisfying yard work one can do, in my opinion.  I had a row of old, mostly dead scrap trees on the property line - all 3" diameter or less.  Yanked them out roots and all with the Big Stupid Truck in about an hour.  

After watching the Puller Bear videos, I think that would be faster, more efficient, safer, and easier, although maybe less fun than pulling the small trees with a truck.

Like any other lever, you can add cheater bars to the Puller Bear or change the fulcrum by bolting 4x4s to the bottom of it. 

Instead of borrowing my neighbor's, I just need to order one.

Though, I never considered using the engine hoist to try it.

How about renting a flail mower?   If your local rental place has them as an attachment to a skid steer.  It may seem priced high but a half day rental and you could knock that job out.  

https://blog.lawneq.com/different-mower-types-flail-mower/

Get a good one and it will handle the Sprite can size stumps and all the other bruch in the area.

In reply to 68TR250 :

Interesting! 

I could see renting... 

Would this method work on a sapling? 

Pull a post with wheel

In reply to dropstep :

It's easy to tell you're only slightly red neck, everyone knows a real red neck would use explosives.

Some update... 

While I was working on this the thought crossed my mind that what I really need is some day laborers.  But, unlike you might find down south in the LowesDepot parking lot, we do not have the same available to use here in the north.  

My wife is a school teacher, who knows other school teachers and one of those teachers has an 18yr old breaking into the landscape business.  I got ahold of him...the best $150 I ever spent.  

After:

I easily regained 8ft of useable front yard.  Or, 8ft of regained depth across the 100ft of tree line = 800 sq ft of usable space.

The entrance to my house is a shared drive that leads to my place and a 4 unit condo building next door.  Yesterdays project was to clean out all the leaves under the hedge row of that drive.  

This then resulted in another heaping load to take to the county compost site.  The third load this week.