Might not be a good title or the right forum, but, got about between 1, 2 acres of treed land behind the house. Soild is VERY rocky with stones of all sizes, some pretty hefty. Trees of all sizes and varieties.
The intent is to be able to put up an out building for work and storage and, maybe, make an area suitable for a small food garden plot.
Already been cutting down some of the saplings on up to 8" or so and cutting them stove length. I've had some old timers tell me to just drop 'm and leave 'm till the leaves brown up, then cut as they would then be ready to burn in the fall. That's a tale for another day.
I found digging out roots with a normal bucket to be almost a fool's errand. It's only a B21 after all. But, I did some internet digging and found BXpanded that makes a "ripper tooth" for about $300. Finally got around to using it and, after a bit of practice find it works every bit as well as the maker and the comments claim. Almost fun now.
Gotta be careful as a lot of the trees are very close and no doubt have interlocked roots. But that's not really why I'm here today.
The unpleasant surprise has been the far greater number of rocks than imagined. The bigger ones, say over a foot wide, I just try to move off to the side for now. A bit dicey with the tooth as I am fearful of bending it if not careless.
Guess the question really comes down to ways to clear a lot of the smaller stuff out? Not to "topsoil" grade, but reasonable to where you could stick in a spade or shovel and not hit a rock every time.
I've seen static screen units where you dump on top of a slanted screen and let gravity be your friend. Even those are very pricey, to me. Tractor has a 4 in 1 bucket and I was thinking of making a temporary screen out of rebar I have lying around, to fit the bucket, allowing it to scoop then open wide sift and dump. Not thought that out yet, may not by practical given the geometry(s) involved.
So, looking for comments and suggestions.