Land Clearing in Perry, FL

Clearing Land on Perry Timber Tracts

Taylor County picked up the name Tree Capital of the South in 1965. Perry holds the Florida Forest Festival on the fourth Saturday in October, with the King Tree parade down Jefferson Street. Forest Capital Museum State Park sits in town. The Foley paper mill on the Fenholloway River shut down in 2023.

Most farm ground in this county is woods rather than row crop. The 2022 federal farm census counted about 43,000 acres in farms across Taylor County. Close to 28,000 of those acres were woodland. Pasture came to under 10,000 acres.

Pine ground needs work between rotations. Rows fill with palmetto and gallberry until nothing else gets through, and a cut leaves tops, limbs and stumps behind. We can grind that brush back into a mulch layer. We can also take a tract to open dirt and pull the stumps with the excavator.

Storm Debris and Downed Trees in Taylor County

Hurricane Idalia came ashore near Keaton Beach on August 30, 2023 as a Category 3. Hurricane Helene landed just southwest of Perry on the night of September 26, 2024 as a Category 4. The east side of Helene's eyewall ran over Perry and the towns north and east of it. Trees and power lines went down all through the county.

Plenty of that wood is still lying where it fell. Root balls sit tipped up where pines went over. Brush got pushed to a field edge and left there. Blown down tops lie across fence lines and old woods roads.

Florida requires a burn authorization from the Florida Forest Service for land clearing and pile burns. Yard piles wider than eight feet need one too. On most jobs we grind the material into a mulch layer on the spot. The other option is to load it up and haul the storm debris off.

Flatwoods, Wet Ground and Ditch Banks

A lot of Taylor County is pine flatwoods. University of Florida extension puts flatwoods at about half the land area of the state. The ground is low and flat, with acid sandy soil over a hardpan. Water perches on that hardpan in the wet season, and the same field bakes dry later in the year.

Water is never far off here. The Fenholloway River runs past Perry, fed by Spring Creek and Rocky Creek at Hampton Springs. The Econfina River runs 44 miles through the county to Apalachee Bay. North and east of Perry the land runs into San Pedro Bay, the swamp between the Suwannee and Econfina rivers.

Soft ground is where the excavator does what a skid steer cannot. We run a mulching head on the excavator boom. The tracks stay on firm footing while the boom works down a ditch bank, creek bank or pond edge. Old ditches choke with wax myrtle, titi and sweetgum until water quits moving.

Cleaning and reshaping a ditch pulls standing water off a field, a pasture or a driveway. Call Sunshine 811 at 811 before any digging so buried lines get marked.

Homesites, Small Tracts and Fence Lines Outside Perry

Perry had about 6,900 people at the 2020 census and Taylor County had about 21,800. Roughly 70 percent of the county lives on rural land, out around Shady Grove, Boyd, Salem, Eridu and Foley. Farms here run small. The 2022 farm census counted 73 farms between 10 and 49 acres and 66 more between 50 and 179 acres.

Putting a house, a barn or a shop on one of those tracts starts with the ground. We clear the building lot of brush, small trees, stumps and debris, then cut a gravel drive back to it. Partial clears are common on wooded lots. We can open the homesite and the drive while the pines and live oaks you want kept stay standing.

Fence lines need the same attention. The 2022 census counted about 3,900 head of cattle and calves in Taylor County across roughly 9,900 acres of pasture. Vines, briars and saplings grow into the wire until a fence cannot be seen, much less repaired. The reach on the excavator lets us clear a fence row from a few feet off the fence.