Outside Cleaning!

May 30, 2019

Outside Cleaning!

I had an appointment with the bank today about my loan, so my uncle asked what he could do while he waited on me. I told him to go around and look for metal and concrete and rock around the property and pick it up. He did AMAZING with this task.

Some of the metal my uncle put on the "junk" pile.

He found all kinds of random bricks and concrete blocks and hauled them to the junk pile.

So much junk from this property! Notice all the "riff-raff" on the opposite side that was picked up.

So today my uncle and I tackled the exterior wood clean-up. Over the course of this house clean-up, I have accumulated a LOT of wood next to the barn. It's good wood, but I don't really have a use for it right away. Most of it is 2x6's dismantled from various home-built fences on property. And these pieces of wood are long and heavy! It's actually kind of crazy to think about how much money was spent on these over the years. I think about that a lot at this property. The sheer amount of money spent on TEMPORARY fixes just boggles my mind.

The large amount of lumber on the east side of the barn. Messy!

The area is just an eyesore.

A wood mess everywhere.

It's all gotta go!

So today was clearing up the east side of the barn. Whereas the inside of the barn became a catch-all for the barn wood, the east side of the barn became a catch-all for all of the exterior wood.

So we just loaded it up in my truck and hauled it to a different area of the machine shed. It's amazing just how much wood there is! And these were all treated boards. I don't have a project for them right now, but it's good wood! Just a bit weathered on the exterior. That would clean right up with a power washer, though. You could build a strong pig shelter or playhouse or...whatever! I may just sell it, too! It takes up a ton of room in the machine shed, something I am looking to avoid!

The boards were LONG!!!

So much wood. Expensive treated 2x6's.

Stacking them up in the machine shed.

We had to move all of this aluminum in order to make room for the pile of wood inside. I plan to recycle this aluminum from the house.

With the massive fences, the previous owner had used nails and bent them over. The amount of work to get these nails out would not have been worth the time and effort, so I just sawed them into smaller pieces, kept the shorter boards, and burned the middle pieces with all of the nails.

The fence was cut down. The good wood was kept, the rest burned!

If it had any sort of weakness, it was burned.

The wood is all inside and stacked nicely.

Before...

After! The area is clear now!

I plan for this to be added to the pasture one day.

With that project complete, I started looking elsewhere for projects for my uncle. He is just a go-getter! So it wasn't even on the list, but I put it on there! Weeks ago Dad and I had cleaned up the fence area for the pigs. Part of that involved squaring up the pasture on the northeast corner. Well, we dismantled all of the fence we could, but one fence was actually enveloped by a maple tree there!

This fence was totally enveloped by this maple tree.

And not just a little enveloped! But this tree had overtaken the fence for probably 15-20 years!!! It's unsightly, not good for the tree, and it needed cleaned up. So I grabbed the sawz-all, and we cut the fence and volunteer trees out of the big tree.

The old post unfortunately has to stay in the tree.

Before...overgrowth and a fence stuck in a tree.

After! The area is clean!

Oh, so clean!

What a difference!!!

Before and After.

It's just another step in the right direction. The east side of the barn looks SO much better. It makes me want to extend the pasture area over to this side, as well. That way I can have more pasture for more pigs but ALSO utilize the east side of the barn. Somehow all of that concrete has to go. I don't know who will take it or how expensive it will be, but I can't wait for the day (maybe years from now) when the concrete east of the barn, west of the barn, and the huge concrete grain bin pad are long gone. I just want grass, grass, grass!!!