Brush Clearing - Buckthorn Beware!

I spent a significant chunk of time clearing out the space "behind" our shed. Technically it's to the left side, but that's where the forest begins and where the previous owners threw things, mostly wood scraps. Mind you, I use the term forest loosely. It had been cleared in the last 5-10 years so a lot of crappy shrubs/small trees had grown up - primarily buckthorn, an invasive species around here. I really wish I had done before pictures so you could really see the impact... but you can imagine, right?

See how clear that looks? That was packed with undergrowth up to and overhanging the fence. (the fence goes around the back lawn, keeping the kiddo from making a headlong run down to the gully) All in all I cleared around 250 square feet. Hells yes. I'm so friggen proud of myself.

Good trees versus bad trees: The turquoise arrow points to a maple sapling that will now have a shot at growing up to be a tree. The yellow arrow points to a buckthorn that was too big for my recriprocating saw to handle, so I girdled it and will take care of it later when it's dead. And by I will take care of it, I mean I'll have someone with a proper chainsaw come in to take down the larger trees. Between the two arrows you can see one of the two brush piles I created. My friends are all excited about a bonfire, but I really don't want to deal with that so I'll plant some morning glories on them and calling it good enough.

Oh, and it wasn't just brush - like I mentioned, the previous owner used it as a dumping area. Mostly for scrap wood, but also trash. I came out with a large trash can full. Nasty.

 See the clear-ish area between the arrows? That's the other view of the cleared area. A little harder to see in a photo, but that used to be brush right up to the pile of scrap wood (almost all of which used to be thrown back between those arrows). And I'm not done. <sigh> Thankfully the majority of the remaining work will be just brush and the occasional bit of trash, I shouldn't have to deal with too much more scrap lumber. Though there is a bit of fallen down fencing that I need to deal with, but that requires much more heavy duty wire cutters than I own so I'll have to wait until I can borrow some.

And did I mention that part of my method to remove dead brush was to jump on it? (I didn't want to waste the battery on my saw) Yeah. So I knew I was going to fall a few times, no big deal. I did miss my anticipated landing spot a couple times tho -

L: my side, R: my calf

They look worse than they feel.