My brother, being the wonderful person that he is, came over to remove the rusted out screws on the trailer frame with an angle grinder.

I told him about the box for an angle grinder I’d found in the garage. The one with human teeth in it. He figures that is probably the strangest thing we’ve found, since moving out here! Though I admit, there are some things that are still competing for that top spot.

I had to pop over to the house while he was working on the trailer frame, and he was done by the time I came back! I did find one that he’d missed, though, so I was able to get a picture of him working on it. 😀

He also removed the remains of old lights at the end, and cut the bolts of a piece in the corner that had been twisted completely around. That corner that you see? Where those squarish marks are? There used to be a sort of bumper there, with a piece on the frame below the bolt hole at the very end. The piece is still there. It’s just now on the inside, instead of the outside.

Some of the old screws he took off still had their heads on them. They were hex screws. Totally the wrong kind of screw for the job.

After he was done, he showed me how to use the self drilling screws I picked up, and we took measurements. Exactly 2 sheets of plywood will fit on there, but we will need to cut openings for the tires and make some sort of fenders.

It is now ready for cleaning and rust removal and, if all goes well, painting.

Then he surprised me.

He had ulterior motives for coming out. He didn’t drive all that way just to take off a few screws for me.

The shed next to the barn, where we found the table saw, has holes in it. I believe it was last year, or maybe our first year here, I’d helped him cover holes on one side, but we weren’t able to do more at the time.

It’s been bugging him, ever since.

We still have sheets of metal roofing in the barn, left over from when the barn itself, and other buildings, had them installed.

Note the piece of equipment with the board leaning on the tank. I’ll have more to say about that, later.

On the left is what we put on last year. We actually dragged them out from a pile outside the barn, and one of them had a piece cut out of it.

On the right, my brother has already covered one hole with a short piece. None of the pieces we had were long enough to cover the whole length, so he put short pieces along the bottom, first, so there would be an overlap.

The scary part was having to go to the peak of the roof and unscrew that top cap, so he could slide the panels under it. He screwed a scrap of plywood we found in the barn down first. There was no way he could have climbed to the top without it.

This was interesting.

There are three types of shingles on here, and so much of one type has blown away, we can see what are likely the original shingles.

What an interesting diamond shape! That roof must have looked great, when it was new!

Here is how the roof looked, at the end.

Bits and pieces, cobbled together, but who cares what it looks like? No more gaping holes!

My brother is just screwing down some pieces of metal we found in the barn that could be used as top caps. After that, he put in more screws as far as he could reach from the ladder, so the winds won’t catch and blow them off.

It was very, very dangerous up there. That ladder on the right was the best place to get up there, but there were tree branches in the way, making it even more dangerous. Once he was safely at the top, I went and grabbed a saw and cut away almost half the tree (one tree at the base, two trunks up the sides).

I’m keeping that wood for future carving!

My brother is really, really awesome. We spent hours out there, working on it, and I couldn’t do much more than pass him things, and hold the ladder for him.

Remember that piece of equipment by the building?

Thanks to ladder holding, I was looking at it from angles I hadn’t, before. I asked my brother if he knew was it was. It belonged to our late brother, and has been sitting there for at least 10 years.

After looking it over, we figured it out.

It’s a boiler system for steam cleaning.

The boiler itself is pretty amazing.

There should be a cover on that round opening.

Just look on the date on that thing!

It had to have been salvaged from somewhere. I wonder if my late brother built it? He certainly had the skills to do it.

The fuel tank is actually part of the trailer frame! On the left, you can see the fender over one of the tires.

Both tires are flat, which is why this end is resting on the ground.

The white tank in front would have held the water. It was most likely used to steam clean culverts or something like that.

That boiler isn’t the only old object of interest we talked about.

As we were putting everything away and getting ready to leave the barn, my brother pointed at a metal object on the floor and told me to make sure to keep that. I had no idea what it was.

It turned to be part of an antique hand pump for a well. A wooden handle would have been attached to it. I was told there was another one, but my mother had sold it to a scrap dealer, years ago.

*sigh*

After all this, my brother couldn’t even stay for lunch. Our mother was expecting him, and by the time we were done, he barely had time to come into the house and say hello to the rest of the family!

Have I mentioned my brother is amazing?

I don’t know what we would do without him! No one living knows this place better than he does! And certainly no one else in the family has the tools, skills and knowledge – not to mention physical ability – to do stuff like this. It’s been many years, since I was physically able to go up on a roof like that! Of course, being a woman of ample proportions, I would have gone straight through a roof in that condition, with or without a sheet of plywood to climb on!

So that was a whole lot of hours in the sun, but the job is done. My brother figures, this probably added about 10 years to the life of the building.

Well. On this side, maybe. The other side probably won’t last that long, and I think we’re out of metal roofing material to do that side, anyhow! It doesn’t get the brunt of the weather, though, the way the side we covered did.

What a job!

While I may not need to do it this year, I should cut the rest of that tree down. It would be a shame to work so hard to preserve the shed from the top, only to have it wrecked from the bottom. The tree is growing right out from under a wall!

Little by little, we’ll get this place fixed up.

The Re-Farmer