I was in a similar situation, maybe someone could benefit from the experience:
We're in a cold climate here, so one early goal was to have more deciduous (leafy) trees on the southern side. This provides shade in summer but solar heat in winter.
Right now in that southward location is an overgrown ~60 year pine replant. Bad for sun, bad for fire. We ended up taking down a total of 50 (!) dead spindly pines. The building now gets noticeably more sun, but (intentionally) you can hardly notice a difference in forest density! However it gave a lot more room and sun for the maples and oaks already coming up, which are the species we want to encourage.
To choose trees, I took a sun path app and walked back and forth along the south wall. This let me choose only dead pines that were shading the building in winter.
Another goal was to avoid burning. The pine logs now rot peacefully (waterlogged) on the forest floor, feeding fungus while they buffer rainfall and cover chipmunk holes. Don't worry, there's still abundant dead stand habitat as well.
For ticks, you might consider chickens or ducks. Note that they will eat and scratch everything, so you might get one of those cheap solar electric fence enclosures. You can enclose a large area for little cost, leaving some habitat areas where toads and salamanders won't get gobbled up!
We're in a cold climate here, so one early goal was to have more deciduous (leafy) trees on the southern side. This provides shade in summer but solar heat in winter.
Right now in that southward location is an overgrown ~60 year pine replant. Bad for sun, bad for fire. We ended up taking down a total of 50 (!) dead spindly pines. The building now gets noticeably more sun, but (intentionally) you can hardly notice a difference in forest density! However it gave a lot more room and sun for the maples and oaks already coming up, which are the species we want to encourage.
To choose trees, I took a sun path app and walked back and forth along the south wall. This let me choose only dead pines that were shading the building in winter.
Another goal was to avoid burning. The pine logs now rot peacefully (waterlogged) on the forest floor, feeding fungus while they buffer rainfall and cover chipmunk holes. Don't worry, there's still abundant dead stand habitat as well.
For ticks, you might consider chickens or ducks. Note that they will eat and scratch everything, so you might get one of those cheap solar electric fence enclosures. You can enclose a large area for little cost, leaving some habitat areas where toads and salamanders won't get gobbled up!
Cheers and good luck all