How would you use 20 acres of forest?
 

I live in a little subdivision in Maine, near-ish to town, but also near-ish to what city-folk would mistake for "wilderness" (or the rest of us just call "rural").

My house came with 20 acres of land out back, and I don't know what to use it for.
Bad: I can't subdivide it, it has no road access, some of it is wet in certain parts of the year, and I'm technically not supposed to have a business on the property.
Good: The land is all woods, has a nice little stream that runs through it, some little hills, rock walls, and abuts a community multi-use trail.
So far all we ever use it for is to take the dog for woods walks, and one neighbor has asked me if he can hunt back there, so he does that in November.

What would you hide back there?

ITS EVEN IN THE WILDERNESS:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c07f866a55.jpg


Seriously though, it all depends on your likes/dislikes. You could put a wood working shop out there, quad/motocross track, pave a karting track, distillery, brewery, winery, god I'm thirsty, archery range, rifle range, farming, livestock, 20 acre man cave, list goes on.

Outside of Miatas, what are your hobbies?

I would hunt it and let it be, honestly.

I'd probably have a dirtbike, but having rode my dirt bike on my grandpas 40 acres of woods / farm i can tell you that it gets boring quickly.

People keep telling me to get into mountain biking, but I think even 20 acres would get pretty boring quickly.

Biking, ATV, hiking, etc. by yourself gets boring fast. You need to go with someone else to make it fun.

I'd love a little place like that to hunt. I'd clear 1/2 an acre right in the middle for a food plot.

There is only one answer:
https://www.miataturbo.net/insert-bs...ead-you-75304/

This, my buddy has this, so much fun

Cut the trees down and build a go-kart track.

Like this:
https://robbreportedit.files.wordpre...331.jpg?w=1000

https://robbreport.com/shelter/homes...track-2808807/

--Ian

1. Cut a few trees and make a rally track
2. Do up one of those lifted Miatas
3. Send it

+111111 on the CRF50 track.

You guys sound boring.

great Idea, thinking of this myself. Watching buddies make great money doing this.

You get it 100%

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bb56364fc4.jpg
Im going mtn bike route. Building lots of trails through the trees and then wood ramps on the grasslands, so I can move them around. Photo was about 2 seconds after I decided it was finished enough to try it out.

And this is precisely why I get bored with karts. I see one lift and turn, and three braking zones. Our local "big," outdoor track is 13 turns. But in reality, there are only three since they are the only places you have to even touch the brakes.

Plant a huge marijuana crop. Don't ever harvest it, just let it grow.

Leave various knick-knacks lying around the field which all point to a specific geographic location / language which is completely foreign to you, and uncommon in the area in which you live. (Eg: candy-bar wrappers, magazines, cigarette packs, and so on which are indigenous to Belgium, or something like that.)

Act totally confused and surprised when the DEA shows up. Claim you didn't even know that you owned that land.

Habitat... call some local fish&wildlife trust/org/non-profit and have one of their pro's come out and take a look at it. They'll tell you what animals would really love to live there and how you can make it better for them. Then set up a feeder in the offseason to draw them in and wait for opening day.

I think that's called "baiting" and a felony offense. saw it on tv. some redneck dumped a truckload of apples about 50 yards from his house. said he had no other place to dispose of them.

It's legal here, for one more year. I guess they're going to add more rules to it.

There are rules now, but they're pretty open.

I always thought it'd be cool to have some land with a little stream, build a little dam and make a small pond with some fish in it. Even if it was just something as small as spending a few days with a shovel and moving around some rocks. I've got no idea what kind of potential legal or ecological issues someone could accuse you of though.

That and definitely the 50cc dirtbike track.

Having family that has land with "drains" and creaks running through their land i can say that there is almost no way you'd get away with that.

Putting bridges over the "drains" around here is tough.

need to move to Va. You can do whatever the f u want. My 5 neighbor's have rerouted a stream in each property to build ponds and really cool tributaries.

nice moves 3rd Gen!

All of VAs water does not flow into 4 of the 5 biggest inland bodies of fresh water in the world.

​​​​​​

Well now were getting all hippie around here. Do what he said ^, it's the responsible thing to do. Then when you die, your family can sell it off and it will become home for the Amazon/Wallmart merger hub.

That man wins the kewpie doll!

Now I just happen to have a couple of hundred kangaroos surplus to requirements (actually, just plain surplus) ... I'm sure Qantas would come to the party on shipping.

When you and your friends have got them down to 10 or 20, I'm sure my neighbours can chip in for another five hundred or so.

PM me your shipping address, and we'll get this under way!

Please pack roos in crate with carbon fiber fastback tops. Willing to pick up at small local airstrip late at night.
Also include invasive Australian pine seedlings for my native plant buddy above. Thanks in advance.

My uncle hunts from his back window in his living room down here in SC. He has enough land to legally hunt on it. He used to get up early, go out, put out the deer piss, and wait in a tree. Then one day he saw the deer just walking around near the house and he had the idea. Next time he went hunting he put the deer piss within seeing distance of the window. He cracks the window enough to see out of it, then sits in a lazy boy, and watches TV until a deer comes.

I think he is in the 5-10 acres of ownership of property. All of it is wooded except for the parts around his house and most of where he used to keep the horses.

If part of it is seasonally wet, and you'll never really develop it, look into your state's watershed credit trading laws. At least in the PNW we have a thing where you can set up a long term lease of the land's pristine watershed as an offset credit for developed land elsewhere. It's basically a contractual agreement that says you won't develop that land for a set period of time.

Now this is all I can think of.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c60a5b22bb.png

Yes, that would be a good way of getting pretty second-hand hardtops, CF or not.

Six, you speak of the dreaded green weed - radiata pine? Place I drive through to get to mine is now covered in seedlings, thanks to the cockatoos. After the bad fires of 2003, the black cockatoos came east and settled - largely because of the food that the pines provide I reckon. Now, between the white and black ones the seedlings are everywhere.

Depends on the state.

This one:

http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/in...ustralian-pine

Wow! You learn something new every day!! They don't behave that way here, not in my area anyway. We have those problems with introduced species too, no natural predators and/or different environment and they can go gang busters, and obviously it goes both ways.

Yes, but more than that.

There's nothing illegal about setting up feeders or licks out-of-season unless a state has specific laws that sound like "feeding of blah blah type of animal is illegal year round". Some states do... some counties or geographic regions of some states do. Some states make it illegal on public land, but not private. Yadda yadda.

In some states, it's illegal to feed animals, but NOT illegal to use bait to hunt.

In states where it's legal to "feed animals", whether it's corn or protein or donuts, you just have to remove that stuff before the season starts. Each state does have different rules regarding "hunting over bait"... and how "bait" is defined. Most states are ---- with a capital A-N-A-L in the definition of bait. However, for deer, theres nothing ever illegal about planting a an acre of something you know they eat.

Even with states where bait is illegal. You can always put up a tree-stand halfway between your bait and known bedding areas as long as the bait is "far enough away" that the warden doesn't (lots of discretion on his part, which can be good or bad for you) want to fine you.

HOWEVER, BACK TO THE THREAD:
There are wildlife non-profits who will come out to your house for free and tell you the best way to set up your property to make it friendly to specific types of animals. What to plant, how to manage ground vegetation, water features, etc... Normally, they'll ask you to sign up with with some sort of management practice where you pledge, as the private landowner, to put in so much effort every year and only kill animals of a certain size or age. Obviously this program works best if your neighbors are in on the deal and all abide by the same rules. QDMA is a no-brainer.

Some berry bushes do really well in area's like yours like currants and elderberries. I would plant some of those and some decent trees, but avoid and cut down "weed" trees like ash, silver Maple etc. It would really add some value and quality to your property. Also some thick, thorny parts are great for wildlife. And hunting is good since deer really can decimate young trees. I have a similar set up, and buy the daffodil sacks from Home Depot in the fall and randomly place them in the woods. It looks pretty neat in the spring.

I dunno what your states laws are regarding being able to grow medical/recreational marijuana but if i had 20 acres of land I'd definitely make it for farming that. Being in the woods with lack of road access is good because the probability of thieves stealing your crops drops quite a bit, but the downside to that is animals eating your plants.

Could be extremely profitable if done right.

Maine is recreationally legal as of this year, and this was my first though too. Potentially very lucrative.

I used to grow marijuana (illegally) and had good results with hydroponics. If you did decide to use land for that, I highly recommend doing an outdoor hydro setup. The yields would be twice that of soil based grows, plus the benefit of proper nutrient control and not having to worry about root binding.

You'd need a central water container such as a 55 gallon plastic drum (collect rain water if possible) and a few air pumps/air stones. Get a cheap solar power kit to run the air pumps unless you decide to do a water fall setup into the main reservoir. A water fall setup will provide oxygen to the water pr you'll need an air pump and stones. Do you have access to a creek or water source? If so you can use water pressure from that to feed your main reservoir and you just need a small bucket/hose.

The only other cost involved would be nutrients. I used the Lucas method when growing my plants and didnt spend crazy amounts.

One of our 'money no object' customers is from the jazz cigarette industry. They manufacture hydroponics equipment.

Meh, you'd be surprised. All the states where it's legalized the prices have been coming down for quite awhile because so many growers started.

True enough, but with 20 acres even just putting 1 acre aside and using autoflowering varities could mean a decent income stream. Minimal effort for the return.

I do envy you guys living in legal states!!

:rofl:

I got that from The Goldbergs. I love that show.

Used to be a common term.


I find it amusing that I suggested marijuana cultivation as a joke, assuming that it was still illegal in Maine, which I perceive to be kind of stuffy and conservative.

I'd heard jazz cabbage before but not jazz cigarette. Must admit I didn't know Maine was legal until I checked earlier. Rolling on to federal legalisation soon enough eh

No one grows decent herb outside anymore.

Also see: Left handed cigarette.

Oh well, he's got plenty of space to put up a massive greenhouse!

The northern have is (or can be at least) but the southern half is pretty progressive.