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Future plans; checking out the old chicken coop

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While doing my evening rounds today, I decided to take a look at the building that we had used as a chicken coop, when I was a kid.

Since we first moved here, the roof/attic has been slowly settling downwards by noticeable amounts. The board you see me puling away from the wall used to be directly above the door. As things settled downwards, this board ended up over the top of the door, making it impossible to open. Now, it has dropped further but has weakened to the point I could just pull it away from the wall and the door.

That meant I could pull the door open.

Sort of.

When I pulled on it, that top hinge came loose (the bottom one was already loose). I ended up just lifting the door out of the ground it was being pushed into, and sliding it to the side.

Previously, the only way I could get a look inside had been to shove my phone through the gap in the door and use voice commands to take pictures, hoping it was angled half-way decent. Today is the first time I could actually go in and see what’s in there since… well, since we still had chickens, when I was a kid.

I didn’t go far.

Why are there so many old tires, all over the place? And so many of them still on rims!

At the far end you can see the nesting boxes, and to the right is the roost.

It was so strange to look at it. In my childhood memory, that roost was much, much higher. In my mind’s eye, I was expecting it to be a couple of feet from the ceiling. I actually remember looking UP to the roost, when I went in to tend to the chickens!

I’m pretty sure this old cabin did NOT have a dirt floor, but it was always covered with straw, except for the part under the roost, which was covered in chicken poop, so I can’t quite be sure.

I’m kinda hoping I am remembering that wrong, and this really is a dirt floor. I remember helping clean out the old straw, but not well enough to remember if there was a floor under there.

Whatever it is, I did not go any further in than I could while stepping on some boards near the door.

I don’t know what that material is that’s covering the walls. It’s almost like asphalt shingles, except much thicker.

You can see where the clay between the logs crumbling out in places, such as right by the door in the above photo.

This little side area is where we would keep new chicks. There is another little space at the far end with a door that was basically a frame with a screen finer than the chicken wire I’m taking this photo through. New chicks would have been small enough to squeeze through chicken wire. I can’t quite remember, but I think that’s where the feed was stored.

You can also see the outlet where we plugged in the heat lamp for the chicks. Below the window is an opening for the chickens to go outside. There was chicken yard enclosed around 2 sides of the cabin, with the area on the other side of this wall sectioned off, and another door to access it from outside. This way, the new chicks could be kept away from the older ones, even when they were big enough to venture outside. When they were fully grown, the doors into the chick enclosures would just be left open. In the summer, we would leave the main door into the enclosure open during the day, so the chickens could wander around the barn yard as they pleased, then closed them up in the coop for the night, making sure to close up little opening in the wall, too. Skunks, foxes and weasels were the most common predators we had to keep them safe from. Especially skunks.

To take the above photo, I am standing in what used to be part of the smaller chicken yard. You can see the piece of electrical cord coming out from under the right side of window frame. The cut end is hidden behind a dried up leaf. The outlet itself is in a different location than where that wire is, so I don’t know what it’s actually for. You can also see signs that the outer wall used to be covered in plaster and painted white.

It’s in rough shape and kinda gross, but of the 3 log buildings we’ve got, this is the one that’s the most solid and least damaged. If there is any chance of salvaging it, we’ve got to take care of some things.

One of those things is to cut away the trees that have been growing against it. This one here is growing partially out from under the back wall. Though efforts had been made to protect the roof by adding what looks like a corrugated tin over the original wood shingles, the branches of this tree has torn off a whole section of it, and is tearing more pieces off with every strong wind. You can even see one of the pieces of tin from the roof half buried under debris at the bottom of the tree. Which gives an idea of just how long ago it was torn off and has been sitting there.

Quite a few sheds and outbuildings have trees growing right up against them. They are almost all maples. One near the pump shack had been cut down; there is a rather large stump there. Maple stumps throw out new growth, though, which might be great if you actually want to coppice them, but not so good if you’re trying to protect buildings.

When we moved here, my original timeline has been to work on the inner yard for the first 2 years, then start on the outer yard in the third summer. Last summer was a bit of a write off in some ways, so it’s going to take another year to finish that, but there are things that need to be done in the outer yard that really shouldn’t wait.

Cutting away the self-sown trees that are causing damage is one of those things!

The Re-Farmer

Replacement door: that didn’t quite work

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After all that work to resize the replacement door for the sun room, painting it, carving out the recesses (and fixing my goof), touching up the paint, the door finally got hung up today!

Aaaaannnnd…

It doesn’t fit.

Part of the problem is the hinges. The original hinges on the door were put back on, not the hinges from the old door. The screws are stripped on some of those and we weren’t even able to get all of them off to salvage them. The hinges that were on the replacement door position the door slightly differently. Once the door was hung up, the girls found it was too “tall”. By mere millimeters!

The easiest thing to do turned out to be removing the top molding of the frame.

So they did that.

It still didn’t fit.

This is the door, at the middle of the frame.

We’re looking at about 1/8th to 1/4 of an inch here.

This is the door at the top of the frame.

Yeah.

There’s a gap.

So, weather willing, tomorrow we will get that table saw out of the shed and see if it works. If it does, we’ll take the molding off the top and side, cut it and reinstall it.

Straight.

Then carve out a new recess for the plate that gets installed in the frame, because that’ll be cut right off.

Once we’ve got that done, we’ll just repaint the frame.

What a pain in the butt this is turning out to be!

If the table saw turns out to not work… I’m not sure what we’ll do. I’d hate to have to take the door off and trim the door knob side! We can’t trim any more on the hinge side at this point. We’d have to take the door knob assembly off, and I suppose we could use the circular saw again. It would be very difficult to take off such a tiny amount with that, though.

*sigh*

Ah, well. It’s not like we have a lot of choices. We’re just making do with what we have for now.

Speaking of making do…

When my brother and I visited our mother earlier today, I made sure to ask him about the sump pump hose attachment, showing him the pictures I’d taken.

I learned all sorts of details from him! Like why he had to McGyver the pipes in the basement, adding an extension. Someone else had tried to replace the pump and pipes for my dad and… well, let’s just say, after my dad called my brother to come fix it, he found the pump dangling at about a 30 degree angle, because the person who did it couldn’t be bothered to add a section of pipe to extend it, so it could stand straight in the reservoir. So my brother did that, and the pump is now nice and straight. It may not be the prettiest job, but it’s solid, and I should not need to replace any of it.

I also learned that he had installed a flexible hose on the outside. No, not the one that’s there now. He used a proper sump pump hose kit, like what I bought two of. He said it was about 50 ft long, and drained over by the storage house.

Then one day, he came over and the hose that’s there now had been attached. The long one was gone.

From what he’d been able to gather, someone had run over the hose with a lawn mower.

So my dad used what hose he could find and, rather than getting a fitting to attach the larger hose to the smaller pipe, he wrapped something around the smaller pipe, then clamped the bigger hose on. I had thought the stuff looked like batting, and he thinks it was probably stuffing from an old couch or something like that.

I confirmed that the pipe going through the wall is 1 1/4″ pipe, and that it should be just the end of the pipe on the outside of the wall; nothing weird done to it – though it might have been cut shorter on the outside. I’ll know that when I take off the broken hose.

The fittings that come with the hose kit won’t work, though, since they have a threaded end to attach directly to the sump pump. I should have what I need to attach the hose to the pipe, though, in among the extra parts and pieces I got, just in case.

Now that I’ve double checked details with my brother, this is something I hope to get done, tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer

Aaaannnd… something else to fix

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One of the odd things we have on this house is this window cover that the visiting goat discovered.

When I was a kid growing up here, this did not exist, but I think I understand why it’s here.

It is over the window we used to toss firewood through, when we had the wood burning furnace. The window is about 6 – 8 inches below grade. I clearly remember tossing wood through, bouncing logs off the ground in front of the window, into the basement. Sometimes, the log would hit the window frame. So the bottom of the window frame and the dirt in front of it got pretty bashed up. At some point, someone fixed the frame and added a dense, hard plastic to the ground in front of it, and made a sort of retaining wall out of bricks and paving stones on each side

Judging from the shape of this cover, it was meant to hang over the window, with the thinner portion fitting between the little retaining walls, to cover the basement window completely. It’s hinged, so it could be lift up as needed.

However, we have never seen it down, because a small fence post was put into the ground in front of it, holding it up above the window. My guess would be that this allowed access to the window, while the cover itself served as a roof to keep rain and snow out of the sunken area in front of the window. Otherwise, any moisture would leak into the basement.

We took advantage of this by putting the food containers for the outside cats under it, so rain wouldn’t turn it all into mush. It worked well, and it’s something we would continue to do, once the winter debris is cleaned up.

With that in mind, today I lifted the cover higher, so I could start cleaning stuff out from under it.

It fell off.

But only one one side!

It was an easy matter to rip it loose from the other side, too.

As you can see by the underside, it’s a fair bit of moisture damage.

The screws on the hinges pulled right out of the weathered wood.

Seeing this, I am amazed it didn’t come apart under the weight of that goat! :-D

This cover was made up of two wood panels attached to each other.

Oh, look!

The narrower piece was attached to the wider piece with screws, that were sticking through underneath.

Three of them.

I have gone under this cover, letting it rest on my back while I tended to various things at the window, so many times.

I’m now wondering how I managed to do that and never stab myself in the back, or scrape the back of my head, with those screw ends!!!

Meanwhile…

The hinge screws are still in the hinges. One of the hinges – the one that broke first – is quite loose from the wall, too.

So… this is something we’re going to need to replace. As odd as it is, it serves a purpose.

We’re going to have to figure out how to replace it, and with what.

Now that the old cover has broken off, we can think about making an improved version. Since I doubt we’ll ever have the cover hang down to cover the window, we don’t need to have the narrower end. I would also want it to be all one piece. The little fence post can stay to hold it up at the lower end, but I would like to use a material that is lighter; a hard plastic of some kind, that can handle the sun without breaking down, perhaps. I also would want to set it up so that it can be swung upwards, with something to hold it against the wall, so we can access the space under it without having to be bent over, holding it up with our own backs.

Hmmm… An idea just occurred to me. If we’re building a new cover anyhow, it could be made with legs to support it at each corner, instead of the fence post that’s there now, in the middle. The legs could be on hinges, so when it’s lifted, the legs will fold downwards rather than sticking straight out. That way, no one would be bashing their heads into a leg when it’s up. :-D

There is a piece of dense plastic near the window that may have been used as a cover there before. I could see no evidence it was ever attached to hinges, so it may simply have been placed against the wall on its own, to cover the window for the winter. I don’t actually know. I’m just guessing, based on the shape. It’s even heavier than the wood version, though, so it’s not something we can use to replace the cover, as it’s set up now.

This does remind me of something else for the to-do list, though. For the summer, the basement window, plus the foam insulation cut to fit into the frame, gets removed, and a metal screen gets used, instead. This helps with air circulation in the old basement, helping to keep it dry. My older brother even had a fan set up on the inside (which disappeared before we moved in) to draw air in, along with the big blower fan that’s still down there, to help keep that basement’s floor dry.

The wood framing the metal screen was pretty old and starting to break when we first moved her, and this past winter, it finally broke apart. We will need to find some wood to make a new frame before we’ll be able to use that screen again.

Another couple of things for the to-do list! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Replacement door progress: almost there!

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Today, I finally got a chance to continue working on the replacement door for the sun room.

Cutting out recesses for the hinges.

To line them up with the recesses that are already in the door frame, I dragged the broken door over and lined it up with the replacement door.

After making sure they were facing the right way, I used one of the hinges we took off to line up the recessed area, then traced around it.

And only now, as I look at this photo, I realize that for all the care I took to line it up and facing the right way, I got it backwards.

Dangit!

Ah, well. We’ll work it out.

*sigh*

I ended up carving out the recess with a combination of chiselling it, and shaving it with a utility knife.

My daughter then turned the door to access the outside of it, painted the carved out areas, and gave the outside of the door a final coat. It’s got some rough areas in the wood, so she really wanted to make sure it was well coated to protect it from the weather.

Now that I realize I goofed on the recesses, I’ll just carve out the remaining bit, so the recess runs across the door, then we’ll paint that over, too.

Ugh. I can’t believe I made such an obvious error. I even remember telling myself, when thinking about it a couple of days ago, to make sure I didn’t do that!

What a goof I am! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Some winter damage to fix

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This spring, our sump pump is actually going off pretty regularly. Which is great, because it means we have moisture in the ground. The last two springs, I think it went off only once or twice, aside from when we drained the hot water tank into it.

Which brought to my attention some damage to the drainage hose outside.

I think it might have gotten stepped on, while frozen… and it was likely me who stepped on it! :-D

So I went into town to see if I could pick up some replacement hose. Something longer, so that I could direct the hose towards the garden by the old kitchen, instead of having it drain next to the well.

At the hardware store, I was very happy to find sump pump hose kits with 24 ft hoses!

Except… well… see for yourself.

They are very different diameters!

On reading the package, I realized that this hose kit is intended to attach directly to the sump pump itself.

That is not what we have.

I found a very knowledgeable employee to help me out. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take any photos before I left, so I had to try and describe to him what we had instead.

We’ve got this semi-rigid hose cobbled together, instead. The diameter of this hose, however, should fit the hose kit. It was on the other side that the size is somehow modified so the larger diameter flexible hose could be attached. I had looked at it before and saw that it was clamped very close to the wall, but could not see what it was clamped too.

I still can’t really see.

Something has been wrapped around the end, and then the larger hose was clamped in place.

That “something” looks, for all the world, like batting. Like quilt batting, or aquarium filter batting.

Whatever it is, it’s been there long enough to be covered in crud.

In talking to the guy at the hardware store, he picked several different attachments that I might need, and a plumber’s adhesive that I would need if I had to use one of them. Once I get working on this and remove the broken hose, I should have the pieces needed to attach the hose kit, if it’s a different size. Or, if the end coming out of the wall is the size I’m seeing from the basement, and doesn’t have something weird done to it on the outside, I might be able to use what came with the kit itself.

He said I could return anything I don’t end up using, but that’s not going to happen. Even if I don’t use the pieces, they are things that will come in handy in the future and will not go to waste!

Plus, just in case, I picked up two hose kits. If things are bad enough, I can replace the cobbled together hose that’s inside the basement now and replace it with the flexible hose that should have been there in the first place. If I do end up doing that, one hose will not be long enough to run along the side of the house and reach the garden.

With that in mind, I asked the guy at the store if I could attach the hoses of two kits together, mentioning in passing that right now, the hose is draining next to our well.

That got a rather dismayed and understanding “oh, dear!” as I continued to say why I wanted to have longer hose!

He then found me the piece I would need to attach the hoses together, should I need to.

I was one very happy customer by the time I left the store!

When it comes time to actually start working on the hose, I’ll have to make sure to have the sump pump shut off in the basement. It would not be good for it to turn on while I’m working on the house outside! :-D

So this is a task prepped for, but will have to wait for another day. At least we’re all ready to get it done, though. Other things had priority for today, which will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Dismantling the failed goat catcher

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Another thing on the to-do list accomplished!

The pen we threw together to try and catch the visiting goat was finally dismantled. Which never did work. :-D

The “door” end was already trying to make its escape. :-D

The straw I hoped the goat would use for bedding went onto the little garden near the old kitchen; another area we’re trying to build up the soil with layers of organic matter.

The chicken wire belongs to the goat’s owner, so that’s all rolled up and, along with the containers he brought to try and lure the goat with food, it is set aside and ready to be returned.

After what happened when I walked the goat over to his place, I don’t particularly want to see him, or even go to his place, so I might just drop them off at the end of his driveway when we have the chance. :-/

The frames are just set aside for now. I plan to take them apart and will likely use them to make trellises for the squash. Before I do, I will have to snag one of the girls to help me get that table saw out of the shed so we can test it out. If it works, I’ll be able to cut straight ends to the pieces, and even *gasp* have matching lengths to work with. :-D

If it doesn’t work, I’ll see what I can manage with the circular saw.

For now, though, it’s done. We no longer have a pen in the middle of our south yard! :-D

Another thing checked off the to-do list!

The Re-Farmer

Testing it out: new folding wagon

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With having to use a wheelbarrow to haul things from the basement to the barn, one of the things I really wanted to do this pay period was pick up a utility wagon of some kind.

Yesterday, at Costco, I found one. Today, I got to break it in!

Ideally, I would have picked up one of the types with rigid metal mesh sides and bottom, with removable sides. They cost about $250, though, which was not in the budget this month. Instead, I picked up a folding version with fabric lining, which has almost the same dimensions as the metal version I was looking at.

While I ran into town to run errands, the girls assembled it and left it waiting for me in the garage, so I could test it out.

It folds up to a nice, compact size, and it quite light.

It isn’t visible in this photo, but there is a loop in the middle of the wagon to pull on to fold it up again. On the handle, near the frame, is a lever that lets you adjust the handle length. In the first photo, you can see a red button on one side of the handle. That is the release button to unlock the handle for use.

I picked up a lot of larger, heavier things while running errands. One of the reasons I chose this specific wagon is because it’s rated to 300 pounds. Normally, I would have had to drive into the yard and unload at the house. Instead…

… I got almost everything in the wagon!

I did have to use the neck of one of the two 18L water bottles to hang bags off of, and had one last bag I needed to carry, but I was able to get everything from the van to the house in one trip. This included a 20kg (44 pounds) bag of bird seed and, along with the big water bottles, a couple of gallons of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier, and a 12 pk of cola, on top of everything else.

It did a great job of rolling all that over the rough ground to the yard; only the one Amazon box ended up falling off part way through.

This would have made hauling all that stuff to the barn SO much easier! We’re going to get a lot of use out of this.

Because it is fabric sided, though, we plan to cut a board to fit on the bottom. One of the things we expect to use it for is to roll 5 gallon buckets of water around the garden, once we start transplanting things. Having a “floor” will be a help with that.

Oh, and the Amazon box that fell of had this in it.

Yay!!!

It will be some weeks before we need to use the soil auger, but I’ll be putting one of those soil testers in the garden bed we’re working on as soon as I can!

It has been a very productive day today – and it’s only half over. Much better than trying to get things done in the city, yesterday!! And no snarky people. Not one.

One of the things I picked up today was a bottle of white wine. Historical Italian Cooking released another video recently, and I am really looking forward to trying it!

The Re-Farmer

Evening walkabout and… that makes six

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Well, today’s trip into the city turned out to be decidedly unpleasant.

We usually plan the order of stores we go to around whether or not we’re getting fresh or frozen food. Which means Walmart is usually the first stop (after having breakfast or lunch somewhere) and Costco the last. Today, our first stop was actually a pet store to get some long overdue filters for the fish tank. It’s near the Walmart we usually go to, but when we got there and saw the line outside the door, we turned around and left. Walmart lines just don’t seem to move and, after the long drive and having lunch in the van, I needed a bathroom!

The search for one that was open to the public was not a good start to the day. We ended up going to a chain grocery store location we’d never been to before. It had a line, too, but it was a small one and it was moving fairly quickly.

You know those arrows they have on the floors now? At first, I thought that was a great idea.

I was wrong.

Very wrong.

My daughter and I split up, each with our own cart because they use the carts to keep track of how many people are in the store, so she could pick up some needed items and I found and used the public washrooms. As we tried to reconnect, I found that the arrows forced people to all go from one side of the store to the other. We wanted to go back to the produce section, but there were only arrows pointing out. After a while, with no customers around anyhow, I just went in. My daughter saw an employee and, indicating the arrows, asked “how do we get back to the produce section?”

“You don’t,” she was told.

!!!

She did eventually say that, if there was no one around, to go ahead in, so my daughter soon caught up to me.

I was really glad to get out of there.

We ended up going to the Costco next – it had a very long line outside, but it moved very quickly – and it now has those arrows on the floor, too. Not in all the aisles, though, and some had arrows only at one end of an aisle. We ended up using two carts, with all the big, heavy stuff that would not be unloaded at the cash desk in one cart, and the smaller stuff in the other. Both ended up very full and heavy.

Then it was time to get into the one line from which staff directed people to different cash desks. I spotted the end of the line, and we had to wrestle our carts back and forth through several aisles to reach it. We got there just ahead of an old guy who was coming straight up the main aisle. The next thing I know, an employee is telling me we have to go behind the old guy. Apparently, he complained that we’d cut him off or something. Whatever. My daughter and I had to wrestle the carts around to get behind him, only to have the guy in front of us make some snarky comments about keeping our distance. We hadn’t actually gone nearer to him, so I thought maybe he meant between myself and my daughter. A little while later, though, he snapped an an employee for getting too close. An employee that had to make her way through the line. An employee wearing mask and gloves, and carrying a spray bottle of sanitizer. The old guy was probably more of a danger to her, than the other way around!

What is it about some people that think they are entitled to be nasty to people and get away with it, just because they’re old? I came very close to just abandoning our carts and going home! It was a decidedly unpleasant experience, overall.

After we were done there, we made one last attempt to go to a Walmart. On seeing the line, we just kept right on going and headed home. Most of what we wanted to get there, we should be able to get locally. Not all, though.

Unfortunately, the entire trip left me feeling ticked off for hours, so I decided to head outside while there was still enough light out and do a walkabout. I headed through the barn, into the old hay yard, to check out the pond that is there. The last couple of springs, there was only a small amount of water in there, but this year, it is nice and full. I decided to keep going through the area behind the barn and check out the bigger pond. Along the way, I noticed some new fallen trees and branches. The area is littered with dead trees. :-(

For the last couple of years, this pond has had almost no water in it at all. This is how it looks now!

It is completely full! Even the lower area at one end that meanders through the pasture has water in it! After the drought of the last couple of years, and especially the horrible spring, this is very encouraging.

Potato Beetle, Butterscotch and Creamsicle followed me the entire time, and I got some pictures of Creamsicle playing on the remains of an old boat.

Also… that’s the remains of an old boat. When did that get there? How long has it been there? How have I missed seeing it there? Okay, that last part, I know the answer to. We’d gone through here at a time of year when the grass was very tall, just before the renter rotated his cows into the quarter section we’re on. So this would have been completely hidden by tall grass.

Since I was out here, I decided to head towards the field where the renter planted corn last year. Since moving here, we just never went beyond this pond, so I figured tonight was a nice night for it.

As I got closer, though, all I could feel was dismay.

I found another junk pile.

Why? Why is this here? Who dumped stuff here, instead of taking it to the landfill?

Also… is that what I think it is?

No way!!

Another toilet.

That makes six toilets we’ve found since moving here. Only one of which could be attributed to the bathroom in the house, where the original toilet got switched out for a higher, more accessible one, as part of the changes made to the house as my father’s mobility decreased. Which means people went out of their way to bring toilets out here and dumping them.

Along with so much junk.

This, however, gave me an answer as to who brought this stuff here.

I remember this concrete filled oil drums. Years ago, my parents had bought what they hoped would be an investment property in the “downtown” of our little hamlet. The place used to be a general store. In the back, there had been a shed sitting on top of these barrels, making it high enough that delivery trucks could back up to it and unload easily. When my parents gave up trying to rent the place out, after years of horrid renters that cost them thousands in damages, we ended up living there for a while. The shed was long since gone, but these barrels were still there, tipped over on the concrete pad that had been under them. My daughters still remember playing among these barrels.

After we moved out of province, my late brother cleaned up at area, taking away the barrels and breaking up the concrete pad. That pile of broken concrete would be the remains of that.

What I don’t understand is, why did he drag it all here, instead of to the landfill?

And this is junk the renter’s cows now graze around, too. :-(

As disappointing as it was to find this, I did find something else that delighted me.

We have a creek with actual flowing water!

Now, as I grew up here, I somehow never seemed to have gone into this area before. I have no memory of it. I knew there was a low area here – it is even visible on satellite maps of the farm. It’s part of the municipal drainage system which, in this case, took advantage of a natural marsh system. I knew it got wet and muddy along this way, too. I remember going with my mother into the trees to a hazelnut bush she new of, to gather nuts, and losing my shoe in the mud.

And yet, I never, ever, saw it as an actual creek with fast flowing water! It was always more like a bit of a ditch, or a marsh, of either standing water or much.

I’m still blown away! I ended up following it all the way to the road. Then I continued to the old gravel pit area. I was eager to see how much water was there, too.

I found this along the way.

Actually, I found three of them, not far from each other. These are cow sized vertebra! They weren’t here last year, either.

Then I reached the old gravel pit area.

I don’t remember ever seeing it this full of water before – and my late brother and I used to play in it.

Which, now that I think about it, is rather gross. The pond that formed where my father dug out the gravel pit became a watering hole for the cattle.

I must have anti-bodies to all sorts of things because of the things I used to play in as a child! :-D

The marshy area at one end of the pond extends to the pond in the very first picture of this post. It is also near the car graveyard, which I decided to go through.

The cows eating down so much grass last year meant I could see quite a few things more easily. Including this.

It’s really hard to tell, as rotted away and covered with grass as it is, but I believe this is the remains of an old sledge or wooden trailer. Possibly a stone boat.

I also think it might actually be upside down.

One my way back to the barn, I also paused to check out a shed near the barn that’s still standing – next to another building that collapsed many years ago. I’ve gone into it before but, after living here for a couple of years, I am looking at things with new eyes. And today, those new eyes spotted something else to be excited about.

A lovely stack of boards, leaning against a wall. They’re pretty old, to be sure, but they are clean and dry, and may be exactly what I need for some projects I have in mind. There was also what looks like a full package of asphalt shingles.

We can use this stuff!

At some point, I think I will move the wood into the new part basement, along with anything else of value or use in there. This old shed has some huge holes in the roof, and I could see through the back wall. I’d rather not loose useful stuff to a collapsed roof.

I’m glad I took this walkabout. It was just what I needed after such an unpleasant trip to the city!

And now, I am going to give myself a thorough check before bed. I’ve found two wood ticks crawling on me since I started writing this, and now my entire body is feeling creepy crawly!

:-D

The Re-Farmer

My new toy

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After bringing my mother home from the hospital yesterday (I called her this morning and she is doing well today, and did not have any episodes during the night), I’d gone to the hardware store in her town to pick up the paint we needed to finish the replacement door for the sun room.

I also got myself a new toy.

Since I am cutting so many slices from the lilac wood, and plan to do more with maple and cherry that I’ve set aside. I even have a couple more branches of lilac waiting outside, so I decided it was worth the splurge. With the kittens in the basement, I’m not as comfortable using loud power tools. I have hand saws that are done the job, but when I saw this saw – and its affordable price – I went for it.

This is a fine toothed, fine bladed pull saw. I hoped that it would cut more smoothly than the saws I was already using, so of course I had to test it out.

On the left are the round slices I’d cut using a regular carpenter saw, which is what I had that worked the best at the time. To the right are slices I cut using the new saw, in the miter box at 45 degrees. None of these have been sanded.

It’s hard to see, but the cut edges with the new saw are smoother than the other ones. They also didn’t leave that jagged edge that sometimes happens at the very end of a cut. The larger saw also left occasional black marks that need to be sanded away. So, right off the top, the new saw will save me on sand paper. I also splurged on sheets of sand paper in grits starting at 50, up to 220. The slices I cut with the old saw needed that 50 grit, but the new slices don’t need to be started with such coarse sandpaper.

There were a couple of other benefits I noticed. The sawing itself is quieter, which means less noise to disturb the babies nearby. It cuts faster, and with less vibration, so things are not being shaken off the shelf on the work table quite as much. :-D

The blade is so much thinner, there is less loss of wood as sawdust, and it’s easier to cut thinner pieces. However, this also means the blade bends more easily. Since it’s shorter than the other saw, I had to take greater care while sawing in the miter box, as the blade would sometimes bend and hit the inside of the miter box rather than go through the slot. After a while, because the piece of wood I was working on was wonky in shape, I started to use the miter box just to start a cut, then take it out and hold it in my hand to finish the cut. After a while, I didn’t even do that, and just eyeballed the angle and started it without a guide. I don’t know that I would have been able to do that with the other saw. Previously, I’d used the vice to hold the wood, but this branch had too many bends in it for the vice to be able to grip it.

As before, I use the last 3 1/2 inches of the branch to make lengthwise cuts in the miter box, and found an unexpected problem. Cutting the wood lengthwise resulted in sawdust clogging the teeth very quickly. I kept having to pull the blade out, remove the sawdust in the teeth, then make a few more passes before I had to do it again. So while cross cutting went faster than when using the other saw, cutting lengthwise took longer.

Of the branch I brought downstairs, I’ve now cut the two thickest sections into pieces. There are more smaller branches I’d taken off to work on later. I’m still thinking of what to make with the pieces I’ve already cut, but the smaller pieces will be of a size and weight suitable for earrings, so I know I will be making at least a few of those.

My new toy will make it much faster and smoother to cut the pieces to size. I hadn’t planned on getting a new saw, just for this project, but now that I have, I’m already glad I did. Definitely worth it.

The Re-Farmer

Taking “finding strange things” to a whole new level

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While doing my morning rounds, I decided to go into a couple of the sheds and look around.

The first one is among those that is falling apart and really needs to be torn down. There are many holes in the roof, so the dirt floor is quite wet and muddy inside.

We would need to go through its contents and figure out what to do with them. We can’t tear it down yet, because that will leave a gap in the fence into the hay yard, and the renter’s cows go into there. I want to change where the fence is, eventually, so I don’t want to put in new fence. It will stay there for probably a few more years. If it doesn’t collapse, first.

I’ve been in here several times, but didn’t really look closely at the pile of stuff in the corner. I might have noticed this before, but it feels like I’m seeing it for the first time. I’ve tried to outline it and make it stand out better, so you can see it, too.

This is a small plow. I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be pulled with a horse.

When my dad bought the property, he upgraded to tractors, but a horse and her foal came with the farm. No horse drawn plow has been used here in something like 50-60 years.

This is definitely a keeper.

There’s also an object near it; you can see the metal wheel and a gear near the front of the plow. I can’t see it well enough to even guess what it is. It should be interesting when we finally get to cleaning up that corner, and finally see all of it.

I next went into the side shed of the garage and moved the snow blowers to the back and lawn mowers to the front. There is a shelf against the back wall that seems to be tipping more and more. Thankfully, there is lots of stuff in front of it, so it can’t actually fall over.

While looking in it, I noticed this box.

Cool! That would be so awesome, if there were an actual angle grinder in the angle grinder box.

Of course, I know by now that the likelihood of that is very low.

Even so, this has got to be top of the list of weird things we’ve been finding.

Yes. Those are teeth.

Human teeth.

I’m pretty sure they are real teeth. You can see that one molar has cavity holes in it.

Judging from the adhesive on many of the plastic pieces, it looks like quite a few have fallen off. The bottom of this box is likely covered with loose teeth.

Now, I can probably imagine how these were acquired. My late brother did demolitions, and this was one of his workshops here at the farm. When tearing down buildings, he often found unusual things, and was able to bring home some things that would otherwise have ended up in the landfill. Many were quite usable. For example, he tore down old restaurants, and we still have commercial quality table cloths he’d found, and my favourite cutlery is from one of those demos. It’s amazing what gets left behind in places. He likely was doing a demolition of a place that once had a denturist or something in it.

However they were found, the questions remain: why keep them? Why leave them in this shed? What was the plan for these?

As we find keep finding odd things, I now keep them in mind for some future found object art pieces I plan to make and set up around the property.

These teeth will likely have a prominent part in this! :-D

The Re-Farmer