Whew, thanks guys, I can stop pacing the floor now! As for site prep, the area is along a creek in an old cow pasture. There are about 200 small scrub trees in this 7 acres that I will have removed with a bulldozer or backhoe as soon as the snow melts and the frost comes out (hopefully soon).
Other than that the ground cover is just very short pasture grass. I had initially planned to spray 4' strips with round-up, but the County boys thought I may be better off not spraying. Their theory is that the grass is well established and will choke out the weeds which will surely pop up in the dead area, and that I should just mow the grass short and keep it short. They did recommend spraying the strips with a pre-emergent after planting to prevent weeds from growing in the soil that the planter disturbs. This area should get plenty of moisture so I would think the biggest concern with competition would be sun light. I hope my trees do better than the ones I saw that the County boys planted last spring, but they were working with old crop ground.

Brian- I sure hope I dont have any problems with the tractor as I will be borrowing that too. That sounds like a pretty good method for maintaining proper spacing, thanks. I also thought that $20 / acre sounded like a pretty good deal, especially since I had no equipment anyway. Of course that doesnt include seed or site prep, but since it was a corn field last year, a little discing ought to do it. Do you usually get a soil test and fertilize for prairie grass?
Thanks.....Timber.