Clean Up

Off the to-do list

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So this has been a productive day!  Most of my to-do list for outside is now complete.  The last thing is to do a dump run, which will be taken care of soon.

Beep Beep made things a little more difficult. :-D  As I was getting my supplies out of the sun room, I paused to respond to a message on my phone.

Beep Beep climbed me like a tree!

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She did it again, while I was working in the garage, too.

What a girl! LOL

The first thing on my list was to use some metal rods I found while cleaning up at the garage recently, to set up markers at our driveway.

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I don’t know how well they will hold out over the winter.  We shall see.  The main thing is, once the ditches are filled with snow, we’ll be able to see the outer extremes of the driveway.  One of them has some reflective tape on it.  I’ll have to remember to pick up more.  There are a few places where we want to add reflective tape.

Once that was done, I reclaimed our wheelbarrow from the junk pile; an old, cracked rain barrel is now being used to hold things like broke glass and other small things that we didn’t want to just throw on the pile.  Then I took the plastic I’d used to put water in an old bathtub for the cows to cover the whole thing (and added the bathtub to the pile, too).  I tossed some stuff to weigh down the plastic, but I rather doubt it will stay.  We shall see.

The next thing I wanted to do was cover the post pounder.  First, however, I wanted to try pumping up the tires, to see if I could move it.  In order to access the compressor, however, I had to finish cleaning up and putting away stuff we had to clear so we could rescue Doom Guy.

Beep Beep “helped” by jumping up onto the counter, then onto me!

I found a little hand broom and swept off the counter, then had to figure out how to put the shelves, back, without a second person.  In the end, I took the drawers out of the top one, to lighten it.

This is why it was so heavy.

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The one drawer with the long bolts probably weighed about 15 pounds, all on its own… and it got stuck.  I managed to get it out, though, which made moving that shelf easy enough.

Then I went to clean off the second shelf before trying to remove the drawers.

I don’t know how I failed to notice this, when we first took it off.  Probably because we were too distracted by the need to free Doom Guy from behind the counter.

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Yeah.  That’s shedded snake skin.

With this shelf, I wasn’t able to take any of the drawers out, but it was light enough I could just pick it up and put it on top of the other one.

Then I set up the compressor which, thankfully, has a hose long enough to reach both tires on the post pounder.

The first one, much to my surprise, pumped up rather well, and seems to be holding air.

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Cool!  Now, if the other one would hold air, it might be possible to move the post pounder into a shed or something.

What a hoot.

It pumped up, all right, but as soon as I turned the air off, it quickly deflated.  I could even feel a breeze on my hand!

From this.

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A big ole crack in the tire!

Ah, well.  It was worth a shot.

I had noticed a tarp in the side of the garage my mother’s car is stored in and was happy to confirm it was big enough to cover the whole thing.

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I don’t know what was used to fasten the old tarp – if anything – but I’m hoping that this one will stay.  Between the bale twin at the top (which is what had been tied around the folded up tarp, and the zip ties, it’s pretty secure.  I just wish I didn’t have to poke little holes into the tarp to thread the zip ties through.

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It should hold for a while, though.  It would take some pretty major winds to tear it off, at this point.

That done, I moved the toilet “art”.  I decided to leave it near the outhouse for now.  I think I really will put dirt in it and plant flowers next year.  Just for a joke!

Then I took the oil drum that was along the garage and set it up as a temporary burn barrel.

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Here it is, next to the remains of the old one.  It’s not in very good shape, but until we can chisel off the top of the other barrel we found by a collapsing log building, it will do.  I didn’t have to make drainage holes in the bottom.  It already had holes.

And now it’s time to move on to the other things on the to-do list. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove perimeter – the junk pile!

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Okay.

So, I knew there was a fair bit of junk piled on and around a piece of equipment next to the garage.

I didn’t realize just how bad it was.

Wow.

Continue reading →

Clean Up: spruce grove perimeter, south side

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It was such a beautiful day today – we hit 8C today – I couldn’t resist!  I started working on the spruce grove perimeter again.  With the manual labour, the cooler temperatures are just perfect.

Rather than start were I left off last time, I started near the outhouse and garage.  I want to be able to go into the area with my wheelbarrow and tools from here, rather than having to go all the way around where I’d already cleared.  Also, there was a pile of junk at the corner of the garage I wanted to clear out.

It turned out to be a much bigger job than I expected!

In fact, I’ll be splitting this up into three posts to cover it all – including when I had to stop and get one of my daughters to help me get out a trapped kitten!

Continue reading →

Not sure how to fix this…

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While out and about this morning, the kittens were out in full force.  Including Doom Guy, who can’t seem to figure out that, if he wants me to pick him up, he has to be in FRONT of me, not behind…

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I’m going to have little puncture marks, all up the back of my legs, thanks to him. :-D

Yesterday, I was able to clean up the platform to the clothes line.  The line itself needs a bit of maintenance before we can use it.  A bit more, if we want to set up three lines again, instead of the one that’s left now.

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Whoever rebuilt this platform did a good job of it.

The original platform doubled as a dog house.  On the side, where the mock orange is growing now, there was an opening, and we kept it filled with straw for the dogs.  I even remember being able to crawl into it, myself, for some canine snuggles!

The cats can squeeze under the stairs.  At least, the smaller ones, can.  I don’t think Rolando Moon could fit through there.  Nor the skunk.

Of the stuff that was on the platform, I’ve only kept the bin, as a potential shelter for the cats in the winter, and a piece of eaves trough that I am wanting to re-purpose, but doens’t fit anywhere else right now.

I noticed, however, that there is stuff underneath, so I used my phone’s camera to see what it is.

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???

Why is any of that, there?

Who thought it was a good idea to shove it under there?

The only way for any of this to be there is by pushing it through the opening under the step.

How am I supposed to clean that up?

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove, fence line, reaching the gate!

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Though we had a trip into town for another medical appointment and some errands (since we were there, anyhow!) in the late morning, I decided I needed to finish clearing the fence line in the spruce grove today.  My siblings and I are working things out in regards to checking on our mother over the next few days, and tomorrow is my turn.  The long range forecasts say it’s going to get colder again, so today was the day, ready or not!

I am happy to say, it is now DONE!  I have cleared the fence line along the spruce grove, up to the driveway gate.  Anything else I am able to do before winter is bonus.  Woohoo!

I took a whole bunch of before and after photos, so I’ll just set up a slide show and let them speak for themselves!

The following photos were taken from the gate side of the fence, facing north.  I started inside the grove, where I left off, but realized I needed to start a new pile for cuttings.  The place to do that was on the south side.  Which required clearing a section of fence so I could toss things over, then working my way north to where I left off last time.

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Here is what it looks like from inside the spruce grove, where I left off last time.

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I managed to save one tiny little spruce tree. :-D  It was in the way, to be honest, but after cutting away so many spruces that were in the fence line itself, I wanted to keep at least this one!  It’s small enough that I could potentially transplant it, in the future.

As you can see in the after photos, I did break out the weed trimmer.  I did the edges of the driveway, first, and even cut away some of the smaller trees on the south side of the driveway, for a bit of visibility.  Next, I followed along the fence line where I worked, as this area had actual tall grass, rather than just undergrowth.

To be honest, though, one of the main reasons I did that was because I got tired of tripping over stumps I’d just cut, but couldn’t see due to the grass!  I will have to see if we have some really bright spray paint, and mark some of them, for safety.

I also tidied up the two strings of Christmas lights, as well as re-attaching the top wire of the fence onto one of the fence posts, where the original U nail was simply, gone.  I used the third string of lights I’d removed previously to replace burnt out and broken bulbs, and switch them all to clear bulbs.  I still intend to replace them with LEDs, but just in case I can’t get to it this year, it is all fixed up for now.

I also discovered that the light strings had plastic clips on them.  While on one of them, the clips were mostly broken off, I don’t know why they weren’t used to clip them to the wire, rather than wrapping them around tree branches.  I also brought out the zip ties for those areas where the clips were broken, and to secure the main power cable, including all along the fence to the garage.

I discovered that more of the fence posts on the south side need replacing than I originally thought.  I leaned on one while reaching to clear a tree at its base, and it broke at ground level!

There were some interesting finds.

Earlier in the year, I discovered there was asparagus growing at the fence line!  I highly doubt this was planted deliberately, and yet, how else did it get there?

There isn’t a lot, but they have their berries now!

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I didn’t know they got berries.  Turns out the female plants do.  Interesting!

Also, do you see that rock?

Once I started clearing around it, I realized it’s two rocks.

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I’m.  At a loss.  It seems to random, and strange, to find two rocks cemented together like this.

There has got to be a story behind this! :-D

When all was done, I had a large new pile we’ll need to haul away.

At least this time, the pile is in an area that’s easier to get to!

After cleaning up and putting everything away, I came back to address a concern.

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It’s a temporary fix.  I cut out a section of one of my husband’s empty distilled water jugs (he uses distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, so we have lots!) and popped it on the post.

Why, you may ask?

This is why.

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Once the trees were cleared, what little shelter there was for the outlet was gone.  I don’t know how many years it’s been outside, facing down to make sure no moisture got in. It seemed so very exposed!

So this should keep the precipitation off, until I can come up with something better.  Which will likely not happen until I can work on repairing the fences, so it might be a while!

While I was working on all of this, the girls were working in the West yard.

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They had already done part of the yard and put the leaves on the little garden by the Old Kitchen.  This is just some of the piles they rakes up today – there’s more by the fire pit!

I had commandeered the wheel barrows, so they will move the piles onto the garden tomorrow, while I am out.

They also made supper.  The smell of which is making me very hungry right now!

It’s been a very productive day today!  I’m so glad to finally get that fence line done.

Another thing off the list! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, more progress, part two

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After working my way through the first section, I realized the stuff I’d cleared away had hidden quite a bit.  So here are some before photos of the next section. (click on them to see them better)

The little spruces were far enough from the fence that I found myself wondering, should I take them out, or should I just prune them clear of the fence?  When I’m in that situation, I try to think ahead 10, 20 or more years.  What will they be like if I leave them?

This was made easy today, by looking at the large spruce that’s already there, even closer to the fence.

What tree, you might be asking?

This one.  In the during and after photos.

Yup, those little spruces were completely hiding a huge spruce, right at the fence.

Also, another little spruce that grew under the fence line and even wound its way back and forth around them.

Reaching that big spruce was my goal for the day.  If all goes well, the next time I work here, I should reach the gate.

In that after photo, note the red Christmas light bulb.  Look for it in these next photos.

The first of these three photos was taken from outside the fence line, where I went to clear some of the trees growing there.  There are many more, closer to the ditch, that need to be cleared, but those will wait for now.

If you look closely, you can see that red Christmas light bulb in the first and third photos.

Did you notice something else in the after photos?  Take another look at the top fence wire.  What you can see of it, anyhow.

I found a temporary fix for the broken wire.

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Once I cleared this area of the fence line, I found that when I pulled on the end with the loop in it (on the left of the above photo), it could almost touch the broken end (on the right in the photo, now with its own loop).  I don’t know when I’ll be able to fix it properly, but I didn’t want to leave it broken and hanging, either.  So I went to the garage and grabbed some zip ties, created a new loop on the broken wire end, and joined them by linking 4 zip ties loosely together.  Once they were all linked, I tightened all the zip ties as much as I could, then trimmed the ends with the pruning shears.  Now, the top line that was broken is tighter than the middle line, which got stretched when the tree fell on it, but didn’t break.  :-)

While making my way to the garage, I found this.

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Another bench, made out of logs with a board across the top.  I’ve gone through here a few times, but had to practically step on it before I saw it!  I tried to pick it up, to see if it was usable, but it is so rotten, it started to fall apart, so I left it for now.  It will be cleared out when we get to taking out all the deadwood and continuing to clean up the spruce grove, next year.  Though on this end, it’s not really a spruce grove any more.  Closer to the garage, and the south fence line, it’s more poplar, elms and oak.  The elms and oak are in rows, so those were planted deliberately.  The poplar looks to have sown itself.  There are even what might be some apple trees in here.

Once I’ve cleared the East fence line to the gate, I will work my way down the south fence line, along the driveway, just enough to clear it.  There are poplars growing right at the wires, and while the south fence line has good posts, just like the East line does, many of them are falling over.   Especially right next to the garage.  It is along this fence line that the power cord from the garage runs.  We might not get to straightening them out this year, but if there’s going to be electrical cord supported by this fence, I want it to be able to stay upright!

We shall see how far along there we will be able to get, before the weather turns.

Looking ahead to the future, I hope to have a number of seating areas scattered about – with seats made of materials that won’t rot or degrade as quickly as the wooden benches I’ve been finding.  The goal is to clear this area enough to give it a park-like feel, plus I want to be able to see through the trees from the house to the driveway.  At the same time, I do want to leave some of the undergrowth, too.  Dogwood.  Wild roses.  False spirea. Junipers.  I look forward to planting shade loving plants and flowers in areas where they can naturalize, and ground cover that can be walked on.  Over time, I want this yard, including the spruce and maple groves, to be a sanctuary, not only for us humans, but to shelter some of the native wildlife, and to provide food and shelter for native pollinators as well.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, more progress, part one

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The chilly weather we’ve had for the past few days has really got me wanting to finish this fence line along the spruce grove!  As long as I can clear to the driveway gate before winter, anything else is gravy! :-)

I took a whole bunch of photos, so I’m splitting them into two posts again.  Here is the first section I worked on.  With how I was finding things, I decided to go with before, during and after photos.

This is where I left off, last time.  I was able to leave the oaks, just pruning them a bit, for transplanting next year.  They are really leaning towards the fence, where they would have been getting the most light, but once they are planted somewhere more open, they should start growing straight again.

Over the years, I could see that someone had trimmed branches back from the fence line.  A lot of those have died, but are high enough and short enough that I will leave them for now.  I pruned the undergrowth only as much as I needed to, to clear the fence and access things.

That meant cutting away some of the things growing in the juniper, as well as some of the dead juniper branches.

The ground cover (I am not 100% certain that they are juniper, but that’s what I’m calling them for now) stayed as well.  I had to walk all over them, but they can handle it.  They did make working in the area more treacherous, though!

I know these have been growing here for a long time, but seeing this stem really shows just how long.

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It takes a lot of years for these to get such thick stems!

Clearing this first section revealed enough that I took before and after photos of the next section, too.  Which will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 3

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Yes!  I finally got to the area where the trees had fallen on the fence!

What the area looked like before can be seen in this post.

First, I got rid of part of the tree further into the grove, so I could drag things by.

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The next area actually had three fallen trees in it, each having fallen at different time.  One had fallen with its top just touching the fence.  In clearing that out, I discovered it was so rotten, the branches I grabbed to move it just broke off.  Then, when I tried to shift the trunk itself, to decide where and how to saw it, it broke, too.

I cleared away the broken part and left the rest for now.

Another fallen tree was under the three that had fallen the most recently, but it was small enough, and smooth enough, I was able to just pull it out from underneath, then carry it away.

Then I cut branches from the one that had fallen onto the fence, before cutting through the trunk itself, a few feet away from the fence.  Once that piece was free, the reduction of weight shifted the center of gravity, and the rest of the tree lifted and shifted!  I ended up rotating it a bit further, and left it.

This left things clear enough for me to continue on the fence, so I’ve left it for now, too.

Here are the after pictures to match the before pictures from the previous post.

I will leave pruning the little stuff for another day.  If I had a heavy duty enough weed trimmer, I’d just use that, but my little trimmer isn’t able to handle more than grass and smaller weeds.  When I’m done clearing the fence line, I plan to use the trimmer outside of the fence.

Here is another view.

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I will leave continuing outside the fence for another time, too.

Also, the beer can I had noticed before turned out to be a bottle. :-D

It’s the brand my late brother drank, which means he was probably the last person to do maintenance on the fence itself.  He passed in 2010, so it’s been there since before then!

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The next section has these oak trees at the fence line, and some juniper.  I’m going to leave the juniper as ground cover, clearing out any other trees that have started to grow in them, and I am deciding on whether or not I should leave the oak to transplant next year.  When I get back to this area, I will decide based on how in the way they are, or not.  I’ve seen quite a few oak saplings about that can be transplanted, so if I do end up having to cut these away, there are others I can use.

At this point, I’m about 3/4 of the way to the gate.  If all goes well, next time I work here, I should be able to reach it. :-D

I love how much better it looks, even if it’s not quite finished.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 2

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I’ve got some before photos, and some taken during the clean up.  By this point, I had pretty much stopped with the pruning shears, except to clear things that were in the way.

These three before pictures were taken in an area just before there a tree had fallen on the fence.  I wanted to at least clear that area, as my goal for the day.

One thing that was noticeable is that, over the years, there was some maintenance done around here.  Despite the weird tops of some of the fence posts, they are all good posts, and still straight.  There is a bit of wiggle on them, but that could be attributed to how dry it has been.  The fence wire itself would also have been good, if trees hadn’t fallen on it!

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I didn’t want to go too far into the grove, but this tree top had to go.  It was in the way of clearing things out.  The stump of the tree can be seen where I’d cleared previously, near the open, mossy area.

I also went outside the fence to move away the top of the tree that fell on the fence.

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This is what my older brother had cut, to get it off the fence itself, shortly after we moved out here.  For now, I’m just leaving this here.  It will need to be cut down a bit before being hauled away, due to its size.

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Here’s where it had fallen on the fence.  I took a closer look at that ant hill, and there’s no sign of ants left in it.  It has been abandoned.  Which is good, because I had to cut some small trees out of it!

Then I made some discoveries.

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In the next section of fence, I found the end of a string of Christmas lights.

Notice the wire it is wrapped around.  If you follow it up, you can see it end in a loop.

In this next photo, you can see where it should be.

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This is where two lengths of barbed wire were joined together, but when the tree fell on the fence, on end broke off.

Once the fence line is clear, I will be repairing this.  I even found a tool for tightening fence wire that I can use; one of the few useful things that didn’t disappear while this place was empty!

I started unwinding the Christmas lights and found…

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… the fallen tree had also unplugged the string of lights.

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This is where it had been plugged into.  This string of lights reaches to the outlet box and still works.  I will leave it for now.  Eventually, I want to replace them with LED lights.

After this, it was time to climb back through the fence and start clearing on the inside, which will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 1

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I was able to get back to working on the fence line of the spruce grove today.  I got quite a bit of progress, so I’m splitting the before and after photos into several posts.

I also came back to some updates about my mother, and am happy to hear her surgery went well and she is recovering quite nicely.  She is in good hands, too. :-)

Here is the progress I got done in the first section.  For these pictures, I propped my phone up on a fence post near where I left off last time.

To the right of the fence line, I’d already done some work clearing things around the trees, but not so much the fence itself.

I decided to clear the trees growing on the road side of the fence.  One advantage of having barbed wire fence.  It’s easy to get through.  Handy for work like this, but not very secure.

I discovered something while clearing the trees on the road side of the fence.

Someone had tried to do this before.

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Many of the saplings were like this; new growth out of the remains of an older little stump.  None of the stumps were cut, though.  From the jagged edges, I wonder if someone just broke them?

The pile at the bottom of the tree in the after photo is what I tossed over the fence while clearing on the road side.

Almost all of this was done using pruning sheers.  Which is much more time consuming! A lot of what I was clearing was wild roses, and my goodness, they are a pain!  Literally!  Those skinny little thorns like to slide right through the rubber palms of my gloves.  Then, when I try to toss them onto the pile, they stick to the gloves, instead.

I used the extended pruning saw to take down some of the low hanging dead branches as well, though I am not doing this as thoroughly as I did previously.  I can come back to do the rest later.  I just want to focus on getting that fence clear as quickly as I can, while the weather is good.

Now to process the next set of pictures. :-D

The Re-Farmer