Normally, Sunday is our day of rest. No unnecessary work is done.

Unfortunately, cleaning the basement has crossed over into the “necessary work” category. Part of the challenge is finding a time to do it when the girls and I are all physically up to it. We need to get it safe enough to use as a cat maternity ward, and we may already be too late for Butterscotch. I haven’t seen her all day today.

We got a huge amount of progress done, and there is still much to do. We’re not even doing much sorting. Though there were some things that very obviously needed to go straight to the junk pile, most went to be stored in the barn. Including…

… lots of motors. In the photo is 5 of the 6 small motors we cleared out. There are more, larger motors that still need to be moved. I will be trying to keep them all together in the barn. I have no idea what their state or status is, but my brother might now.

Of course, we also found all sorts of interesting things. Including this blast from the past for me!

Yeah. That’s a “throwing star”. One of my boyfriends in high school made it for me in shop class. It used to be nice and shiny, and boy could that thing sink keep into a wooden door!

We also found a panel of chain mail. I don’t know if it’s a front or back panel, but it was clearly meant for a very small person. I have no idea who in my family would have gotten themselves some chain mail!

Manual hair clippers! This was a cool and unexpected find! They were well protected in their box, thankfully. The massive towing chain and hook it’s leaning on is another unexpected find. 😀

A light bulb for a type of light I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere, yet.

(Thanks, 53Old, for your comments about this. This is a Made in Canada, 3AU6 vacuum pentode tube, most likely from one of the many TVs we acquired when my parents bought some property many years ago. There was an old shed that had at least a dozen old TVs in there, some of which had their solid wood cabinets converted into shelves we are using now.)

We also found some stuff I was really excited about. They are going to be quite useful!

A couple of modern planers, and a clamp. A bit of clean up, and I hope to get good use out of these.

I was more excited to find this.

A small vice with a table clamp. We have a larger vice in the shed we keep our lawn mowers in that I’ve already found useful, but it’s the type that gets affixed permanently to a surface. I was already thinking of seeing if I could find a smaller one with a clamp at one of the local hardware stores, and now I don’t have to!

We found lots of other things, too, that I didn’t get pictures of.

Here is how the basement looked, after we hauled some stuff out and called it a day.

All the rubber boots still in the shelves will need to be thrown out. They’re so old, they’re brittle.

Hmmm… Three table legs got taken to the barn. I wonder if that round table top is the table they belonged to?

At one point, the floor in the foreground was full of stuff that got hauled out. The shopping cart is full of old wood, picture frames and frame glass that needs to be removed with care. The cardboard box partially visible on the bottom right has broken glass in it.

The sheet of pink rigid insulation was brought down for something you’ll see in another photo. Some of this stuff will stay, while others will be hauled to the barn. The broom is leaning in my mother’s old sewing machine. That’s a keeper, for sure!

Quite a lot got cleaned out of the “bar”. Still lots more to get rid of. It’s still cleaner than it has been, in decades! We’ll need to get into it with a vacuum cleaner and crevice tool, to get rid of the very old mouse droppings and bits of broken glass.

There are still a few bottles to move out, but most of them have already been set aside into the old basement.

Eventually, we will go through these. The ones we want to keep, including for future bottle bricks, will be thoroughly cleaned. Unfortunately, a few of the old wine bottles we dug up still have liquid in them. *shudder* The rest will go to the landfill for recycling. There are a few bottles we found that might actually be collector items, too.

The rigid insulation is now covering an opening (formerly a window, I think) into the old basement. The main focus for here was to 1) make sure that opening stays covered and 2) there is no gap any future exploring kittens can fall into in the back.

The bottom cupboards of this shelf has lots of old paint cans in it. From the smell when I looked inside, there is at least one that is leaking.

The shelf itself is in pretty terrible shape, and I’d love to replace it some day.

Some day.

The other old shelf is in slightly better shape. At some point, I want to set up that drill press in an easily accessible location, and test it out.

Hopefully, we didn’t overdo it today, and will be able to continue tomorrow. Once we have it safe, and access to the old basement is blocked to cats, we’ll be able to set up a cozy area for kitties. I’m just hoping that, if Butterscotch has already had a litter, we can find them and bring them inside. It’s way too early for kittens, and their chances of survival are not that good right now. 😦

Lots of work to do before we get to that point, though!

The Re-Farmer