Field restoration

Hello friends

I have 10 acres in Western WA. About 2.5 acres is a grass field, formally a forest (pre 1970s) that was clear cut to make way for giant high voltage power lines and poles.

Since then it has sat untouched, other than the power company coming through to spray scotch broom. I have never personally seen them do so since I purchased the property, but neighbors told me that’s what the power co does, and that would explain the lack of scotch broom in the field. I have reached out and asked the power co not to do that, I will manage it myself.

With that said, I’d like to turn this into more of a meadow/pasture than can be used as grazing land for my animals and wildlife. My only animals currently are one horse and 4 pet pigs. Currently there are grasses, ferns, and various other “weeds” that have taken over. There is significant scotch broom pressure in the area, if I do not manage this field it will certainly turn into a scotch broom waste land.

I’d like to go about this as lazy as possible. To be honest my plan is to buy a bunch of native grass and flower seed, throw it out chaos garden style, and keep doing that until I’m happy with the way it looks.

I have no equipment to utilize other than an excavator, which Is pretty useless in this context. I do not have water to the field, and do not plan on irrigating. The only thing I have is roughly 10 goats, who belong to my neighbor, but who free range the area and mostly hang out in my field. There are no fences and I do not have any means of channeling the goats energy, and I have no plans on cutting off their access to the field. I am left to work with nature and these goats as efficiently as possible.

If anyone has thoughts or ideas of how to approach this efficiently and naturally, I’m all ears!