Land clearing in Franklin, TN

Low ground and thin rises

Franklin sits at 643 feet, low for Williamson County, and the Big Harpeth runs through the middle of it, then turns northwest on the way out. The bottoms along the river hold water long after a rain, and the understory closes up under the hardwoods, privet and bush honeysuckle mostly, until you can’t see forty feet. Up on the rises it’s the opposite. Limestone close under the surface, thin soil over it, cedar and hackberry perfectly happy. One property can hand you both.

Horse ground and paddock edges

Harlinsdale bred Tennessee Walking Horses on 198 acres off Franklin Road, and the city has run it as a park since 2007. On a horse place the trouble is the edges. Brush closes in on a paddock line and hides old wire, groundhog holes and locust sprouts, none of which you want a horse finding first. A mulching head run down those edges gives the fence its clearance back and leaves chewed ground, not a pile in the middle of a pasture.

Hollows west of town

Past Old Hillsboro Road the ground stands up and folds into hollows. The Natchez Trace bridge crosses Birdsong Hollow 145 feet above State Route 96, which tells you the scale. Down in ground like that there is often no road wide enough for a truck, and hardwood canopy overhead. Mulching handles it where it stands. What comes down stays on the ground, and the shade keeps standing.

Getting over from Lebanon

It’s I-40 west out of Lebanon, then I-840 around the south side of Nashville and up I-65. Franklin changes fast once you leave the interstate. Exit at Cool Springs and it’s pavement and parking on both sides. Keep going south and the county turns back into farms, fence line and standing timber. Five acres off Columbia Pike and five acres out toward Leiper’s Fork are not the same piece of work, so Shaun walks it first.