I remembered to ask my brother about the insanely heavy-for-it’s-size object I’d dug out of the grass.
He called it a worm drive.
Inside are gears that convert the energy from high speed rotation into slow speed rotation with high power.
I did some searches and found it under terms like worm gear box, worm reduction drive, worm gear reducer, and so on. I even found some similar to ours, though none quite like it. It even looks like the Ohio brand is still around.
Another one of those “ah, one of those things I understood but didn’t know the name of.”
Definitely something we want to try and protect from further damage!
Today is supposed to be our last warmish day in quite some time, and we are very fortunate to have it. Just yesterday, a major system passed through. To the north of us, they had near blizzard conditions. To the south, it was rain instead of snow. Yet, there on the weather radar, was a clear spot in the system, passing over our area!
I am quite grateful for out continued mild weather! It gave me one last day to patch the other window in the pump shack.
Here is how it looked before I started.
In the forefront is an old forge my dad made. My brother told me he’d cobbled it together using an old blower that the tray of coals is attached to.
I’d already cut away the bigger saplings that had self sown in the area. Before I could start, I had to cut away some more, move the steel bars and that flat piece of metal with a slight curved shape to it (it turned out to be partly buried), out of the way.
I also pulled this out of the grass.
I don’t know what it is, but it’s in the pump shack now. My brother had said something about it in passing, but I just can’t remember. I understood that he felt it was worth salvaging and protecting, so that’s what I’m going.
After clearing things away, I was able to pick up all the broken pieces of glass.
As I looked more closely at the window itself, I realized it was just held in place with three bent nails. All I had to do was rotate them, and I could take out the whole thing!
So I did.
It’d hard to see, but each piece of glass has tiny little metal things holding the panes in place. They have pointed ends driven into the wood frame. The glass was then caulked to the frame, but most of that has long since fallen off, revealing those metal bits in the process.
I decided to use some rigid foam insulation to fill in the hole, as well as support the wooden pieces that were holding the remaining glass in place. I trimmed the inside edges of the insulation so it would fit more flush into the recesses of the wood.
Everything was very loose. Even the corner joins. Though the thickness of the piece of insulation would help keep things from moving around, there was still a pretty high chance other pieces of glass could fall out.
So, I got out the silicone caulking I had left and caulked it all, then put the window back in place.
It looks horrible, but it’ll do the job for now.
Here is how it looks from the inside.
Any work done on this building is just keeping it going as long as possible. It really needs to be replaced completely. Even the concrete floor is cracked and heaving. But it still keeps things inside dry, and it isn’t collapsing, like other buildings, so it’s worth it to keep patching things.
That done, I turned my attention to the old forge. Now that things were cleared away under the window, I wanted to move it next to the wall, for a bit more protection from the elements.
It had sunk into the ground and, as I was looking around to see what I had to work with, I found the plug for it! :-D
I tried lifting and shifting, and while I could move it a fair bit on one end, the end with the coal tray was much heavier. The tray itself has only two screws holding it to the metal, so I couldn’t even use that as a grip to lift.
I ended up grabbing one of the steel bars I’d set aside, using it as a lever. The ground was pretty soft, so I also tried using bricks, as well as another, shorter, bar I found in the grass, as support.
I was having a hard time getting things under it, though. There was something blocking me.
Did this thing have legs?
No!
Are those… wheels???
By now, I realized I would need to tip it over onto its side, because I just could not lever the heavy side out of the dirt and over the overgrown grass.
The coal tray had stuff on it, though, so I took that off.
It was asphalt shingles, covering the coal. The yellow metal piece was on top, but the round metal piece was something I found under the shingles, lying on top of the coal bits.
I then tried to use the bar to lever it around some more. There was really just one place solid enough to put the bar. The piece you can see under the coal tray is hollow, which I discovered when it started crumbling when I pushed the bar against it.
I did, eventually, manage to get it on its side.
Yup. Those were wheels! But they weren’t attached to the forge!
There was still some rotted wood attached. It was like a little wheeled scooter that the whole thing was resting on.
It wasn’t until I uploaded the pictures that I realized where the motor was. It is on the light end!
I kept trying to shift the forge, but the weight on one side made it very awkward to do anything.
I’d opened it before and saw someone had stuffed some inner tubes inside. Maybe I could take the blower pieces out or something, and lighten it?
There… is no blower in there.
What on earth was I seeing in there? Hidden away, under the inner tubes?!!
Dear Lord in Heaven.
It’s a grinding wheel.
Why on earth did someone put a grinding wheel in there?
Not that I mind too much. This might be the one I remember as I child. The log building it was in had been burned to the ground to get rid of it, and as far as I knew, none of the stuff inside had been removed, first. So I’m actually very happy to see this.
After moving it away, I started pulling other things out.
There was just so much stuff!!
I found 4 inner tubes, a gas can, a lawnmower blade, the throttle cable from a lawn mower, and even a spoon.
There are also blacksmith tongs, though one has the handle broken off. A couple of objects with lots of pivoting pieces on it. A couple of old metal legs, like off an old-style bathtub. Two ax heads, and more odds and ends
Two things in there really excited me. I don’t know what they are called, but from videos I’ve watched of people using carving benches, I recognize them. One end goes into a hole drilled into the carving bench, and the other holds the item being carved in place. It was something I realized I could really use, if I plan to extend my carving repertoire. I just had no idea where to find them – a hard thing to do when you don’t know the name of what you’re looking for – and some of the carvers whose videos I watched, commented on how expensive they are They’d made their own, instead.
Now I have two!
So I’m pretty excited about that!
Once empty, I was able to right the forge again.
After seeing the remains of the wheels it was on, I decided to take some of the glazed bricks I’ve been finding and put them under the forge.
Even empty, it was still hard to move! The light end, I could grasp and lift, but the heavy end was harder to get a grip on. I ended up using the bar to lever and shift that end, to get it onto the bricks.
I did finally get it in place!
You can see the bar I used to lever it.
The coal tray looked like it was cracked, but I think it was there for a purpose. The “crack” extends to some holes in the middle of the coal tray. Under the holes is the squared pipe. The air from the blower was directed under the coals through there.
I considered throwing away the wheels, but the frame they’re attached to looks like it might actually be salvageable, so I am keeping it for now. I just knocked the dirt and roots out of the spokes, first.
After that, it was time to clean up where the forge had been sitting.
I’d found a few metal bits and wires. Then some nails.
Then more nails. And screws.
And more nails!
I think a container full of nails, screws and other odd bits had spilled there. The last thing I wanted was for someone to step on them and get sepsis or something.
So I dug out what I think is the original lid for our septic tank, to use as a tray, and magnets.
Along with the nails, I found bits of spark plugs, a gas cap, the tooth of a hay mower, and miscellaneous other bits!
Once that was done, and my younger daughter helped me tuck the keepers I’d found into the pump shack, I enlisted her help to move the other thing I don’t know the name off. One of the pictures below is from when I first dug it out from beside the fuel tank, yesterday. This is another of those things my brother said was worth salvaging and protecting, so I wanted to move it into the pump shack.
In the older photo, you can see what looks like a completely sheered piece of steel, in the middle.
There was dirt and roots jamming one of the pieces sticking out the narrow side – in the first picture, it is completely hidden by grass. It now rotates freely again.
Between the two of us, we could not lift it! Not without risking injury, anyhow (and I think my daughter might have hurt her back trying, but isn’t telling me, so I won’t worry. :-( ). I’m astounded by how heavy this thing is.
One thing we noticed after trying is that some ?oil? leaked out.
I ended up rolling and flipping it, end over end, until it was under the coal tray of the forge.
We could hear fluid sloshing inside!
So that’s tucked away as much as it can be, for now.
My goodness, what a lot more work there turned out to be! But it’s done now, and we don’t have to worry about this stuff as winter comes in.
Today, my goal was to board up at least one of the broken windows in our old pump shack.
Which was not an easy job. (Photo heavy post ahead!)
You see, in order to fix the window, I needed to be able to reach the window.
In order to reach the window, I had to cut back some self-sown maples growing in the way.
To be able to reach the trees, I had to clean up this.
You can see part of an old freezer, over on the left. Next to the old furnace is a partially dismantled modern washing machine, next to part of an old wringer washer, and beyond that, a second fuel tank.
It’s hard to see in the above photo, but there is a black electrical cord coming out of a hole under the eaves, about in the middle.
This cord is eventually buried, and extends to the storage shed, which used to be my late brother’s workshop. Though the cord is plugged in inside the pump shack, it was actually easier to plug my extension cord into the other end of this cord, in the storage shed!
I… don’t know what this is.
I’d moved it aside, only to realize I needed to clean out the stuff I’d just put it on top of. It’s quite heavy, so I just moved it by the old freezer for now.
While following the cord until it was buried, I found all sorts of things. Including this old wiring, which I just put on top of the old furnace for now.
I went to move one of the tanks, and found another mystery item was propped against it. No clue what it is, but it says “Ohio” on it. :-D
I also discovered the electrical cable was not actually buried where I thought, and was still on the surface, under the tank!
The tanks were quite light, so I rolled them completely away, near the storage shed.
Under the big white tank labeled “purple gas”, I found this.
It was on top of those two tires flat on the ground, and propped up by the other stuff.
While cleaning up around the tires, I found the window pane! It had simply fallen out and didn’t break!
Once I moved the big tractor tire, I found a collection of seats from old farm equipment under it.
I ended up having to cut away that tree to get them out, because it had grown around some of the metal pieces.
I decided they could be salvaged and wanted to put them somewhere out of the elements. I decided the old chicken coop was the best bet for now.
I am not looking forward to cleaning this thing out! But, if we have any chance of salvaging the building, it has to be done. The beam across the doorway is sinking, and a board that used to be above the door is now over the door. There’s room enough I can move the door to one side, but it can no longer be closed fully.
Also, there is another maple at the corner that needs to be cleared away.
To get to the old coop door, I had to first clear away a forest of burrs with the loppers.
They attacked me.
Actually, just one of them. Once it caught on my sleeve, that was it. Before I knew it, I had burrs all over the front of my jacket, both sleeves, my pant legs, my butt, and even my hair!
I had to ask my daughters to help get the burrs out of my hair! The burrs did NOT want to let go!
That tractor in the background is another thing I need to clear. It has trees growing through it. :-(
As I was getting the old seats out, I found…
… a cast iron frying pan!
I ended up putting it in the pump shack. Where the wood burning stove used to be, there is a tiny electric stove (I doubt it works) that has only 2 elements on it. I just had to put the pan on it! :-D
There was one last seat I was struggling with. It was still attached to something, which was buried, and part of it was stuck in the tree I had to cut away, and other parts stretched out further.
I was eventually able to drag it all out.
I… have no idea what this is. Or was, I should say.
There was no way that was fitting through the old coop door, so it got set aside elsewhere.
Once it was cleared enough, I took a look at the old kitchen sink, leaning against the corner of the pump shack.
I love this thing!!! I have got to find some way to use it somewhere. :-D
For now, I just tucked it closer to the building. I don’t dare move it until I have someone to help. I don’t want to chance breaking it.
After clearing more stuff away, I found this bar sticking out of the ground.
I don’t know what it’s attached to underground, but it was not moving. It could turn a bit, and I could wobble it a bit, but that’s it. I could not pull it out,
No clue why it’s there.
I made my way to the old furnace, moved another tire and found and an old kettle! LOL Then I went to move the old steel… container of some sort, and found more stuff in it. It doesn’t show in the photo, but at the very bottom, there was a roaster lid.
Just the lid. :-D
As I pulled more stuff out from under the dirt and leaves behind the old furnace, I found some other odds and sots.
Score!!!!! Oh, I was so excited! That bar with a point at one end is solid steel and very heavy for its size. I could have used something like that in the past few years! There used to be a bar like this, except more like 4 or 5 feet long, but it is among the things that disappeared. This is a bit short, but it’ll still be very handy.
The other stuff joined the hub caps and other weird scraps on the junk pile.
This is as far as I could go, though. That metal is under the old furnace. I’ll have to, at the very least, tip the furnace to be able to get it out.
Not today.
This is as far as I got today!
Under the window, coming through the concrete, you can just see a pipe. That is a drain pipe. Back when we were still using the well under this shack, and had no running water in the house, we had a claw footed bath tub in here. We would heat water on the wood stove for our baths, and this is where the bath water would drain out. I have no memory if there was more pipe, so it wouldn’t drain right at the foundation.
There’s a bit of stump in the middle that I am leaving for now. My poor little reciprocating saw was really starting to struggle by this point!
I could finally fix the window!
The glass pane fit perfectly in a recess in the frame. It looks like it was held in place by a single nail at the top! The metal side, where a stove pipe used to go through, has about a dozen nails holding it!
As the cats go through that hole, I screwed scrap boards across both halves to hold them in place.
Also, I’m short. I found the cinder block by the storage shed to stand on, so I could reach the top of the window. When cleaning up later, it joined the 5 or 6 glazed bricks that I’d also uncovered by the old furnace.
I keep finding those, absolutely everywhere! I would not be the least surprised if I move the old furnace, and find more of them under it.
One of these days, I need to remember to ask my brother if he knows where they all came from, and why my parents got them! Or maybe my mother might remember.
Now, what am I to do with all the tires I dragged out?
Why, drag them back again, of course. :-D
The stack on the left is covering that bar that’s sticking out of the ground, so no one will accidentally hurt themselves on it. Those tires all have rims. The others are by the window so the cats can still get in through the opening. The ones lying flat have no rims, so they can potentially provide critter shelter.
Yeah. I’m a suck.
I am keeping a fair bit of the maple I cut. I’m sure I will be able to find something I can make with them! :-)
There is still a small window at the end of the shack that needs to be fixed. It’s made up of 4 squares of glass, framed by a + of wood in the middle. One of the three squares is gone, but I have yet to find it on the ground, so I don’t know if it has broken or not. I’m just assuming it’s broken, since I saw the cat that jumped through it.
Tomorrow is going to be our last warmish day for quite some time, so I’m hoping to be able to get that done. I might end up just boarding that one up completely. We’ll see.
That’s assuming my body is up to it. I’m feeling pretty sore right now! :-D
Little by little, I had been working my way towards the junk pile. With a litter of kittens living in it, it was not as high on the priority list. Still, I’d been clearing access to it, and had even gone digging into it to find scrap pieces of wood.
The junk pile is actually a wood pile, with lots of junk around it, too. The wood had been neatly stacked and covered with tarps, which have long since torn up and degraded, which means the wood at the top has a lot of rot happening, but the further down it goes, the better the shape of the wood.
Unfortunately, in sorting through the pieces to find the least rotten ones, I also discovered that many were also full of nails, screws or staples. I’d set those aside to deal with another time. With having to go through it so much more today, and having to set aside so many pieces, “another time” was today!
While trying to get at the wood to find better pieces, I ended up having to move the remains of old tarps to access it, and finally had to move the grey tarp that was draped across the end of the pile.
That was my first surprise.
It turned out to be huge!
I then had to remove the even more torn up orange tarp, though I found another, smaller orange one (it actually looks more like the remains of a larger tarp). There are also the remains of a blue tarp on the pile of wood, but it’s so disintegrated, I didn’t even try to dig it out, yet.
I also finally dug out the yellow tarp I was seeing just bits and pieces of. This one was so brittle, I could hear it cracking as I moved it.
When it came time to do something with the wood I’d set aside, I was a bit at a loss. I didn’t want to just make a pile on the ground. I also wanted to stack it in suck a way that no critters would hurt themselves on all the nails and such.
After thinking about it for a bit, I went over to the garden shed and hunted through the stuff we’d piled around it while cleaning out the maple grove.
I ended up bringing over an old metal bed frame – one of three I found in the maple grove. It has metal slats held in place with springs, so I put the longest boards I placed the first few boards in such a way that none of the weight was on the slats. After that, I layered the pieces in such a way that all the pointy bits were facing down or tucked away somehow. Critters can still get under it, without the risk of scratching themselves on rusty nails.
Once the rotted and dangerous pieces were stacked, I started to pull up the disintegrating orange tarp that was mostly on the side, tangled in the things that had been leaned against it to keep it from blowing away in the wind.
That’s when I started to see wheels.
By the time I was done, I’d pulled out all of these.
That’s a metal dump truck in there! Too bad it is so rusted out. The paint is coming off in chunks, too.
I think these might have belonged to one of my nephews.
All of my nephews are adults now.
I ended up tucking them part way under the pile of rotted wood, to partially cover them. I’ll figure out what to do with them, another time.
As I was pulling those out, I also found this…
A rather large white tail deer antler! The discolouring shows the parts that were in contact with debris that would have gotten wet, regularly.
While I was working, I was eventually able to get closer to a tree stump than before. Which is when I noticed something odd.
There were nails in the stump!
Looking closer, I could see the board on the ground. Assuming that was what the nails had been holding in the past, I’m wondering if maybe this had been a platform bird feeder at some point? It’s too high to be a seat, and too small to be much use as a table.
Once I’d done as much clearing as I was going to today, I put the partial tarp that was still useful over the wood pile, having thrown out the torn up one. Then I spread out the big grey tarp.
I’m not sure it’s actually a tarp. It might be a canopy cover of some sort. Whatever it was made for, it’s really big! It’s unfortunate it was left out the way it was, and got all torn up by the elements.
I ended up folding it up and setting it aside. It’s not much use at full size, but it’s big enough that, folded in quarters, I might actually find a use for it for one more winter, before tossing it.
At some point, I want to finish cleaning up the junk around the wood, then go through the wood itself to sort out the rotten pieces from the ones that are still useful.
Somewhere in there is a space big enough for Butterscotch to have a nest for her and her babies. I’m curious to see it!
While tending the garden beds where we have the beets and carrots, I was looking into the area behind it. It had been part of the plan for this past summer to clean up further into there, and I was thinking of what I might still be able to manage this year, while we have some co-operative weather.
Of course, with the leaves turning, I was seeing all sorts of yellow and reds and…
… reds?
Those aren’t leaves. Those are apples!
Yup. I found another crab apple tree!
It is easily the tallest of any of the crab apple trees we’ve got, including the ones that aren’t buried by other trees. I honestly can’t remember if I’d noticed anything blooming here in the spring, but if I did, I probably thought it was another cherry tree, since there are so many in this area.
It’s not like I could get closer to see. There are at least 3 dead trees that have fallen by it (the leaves in the foreground are cherry suckers, grown from the bases of dead cherry trees). Through the matting of crab grass and various other undergrowth, I can see wood from other dead trees, but not well enough to tell if they are separate trees, or pieces of the ones that I can see more easily.
There is even a big fallen dead branch, stuck in the apple tree! I suspect this one fell during our more recent high winds, though, and was not part of the fallen trees at my feet when I took this photo.
I was able to get around one side and reach a single apple to pick and taste. I notice the apples are a pretty decent size for crab apples. It was sweet, but the texture wasn’t very pleasant. That could be due to the recent frosts, though.
Well, if I do get a chance to start doing some clean up this fall, I know where I plan to work! I want to clean out up to and around this tree, and get that dead branch out. That will open things up and give it more sunlight and space to branch out.
I suspect I will be finding little surprises like this for a few more years as I continue to clean up further into the spruce grove. :-D
Looking at the weather forecasts, it’s looking more and more like our planned outdoor gathering with family to celebrate multiple birthdays and anniversaries is going to be an indoor celebration!
So today, I focused on tidying up the Old Kitchen a bit more, so my mother, at least, can sit in it comfortably. Between the Old Kitchen and the sun room, we should be able to fit all of us, if a bit tightly. Of course, if my mother is up to doing the stairs between the old and new parts of the house, we can always move to the dining room.
While wiping things down, I started doing a more thorough cleaning of the old wood burning cookstove. It’ll probably just have a tablecloth thrown over it and be used to hold the food, but I wanted to get some more progress in cleaning it out. Including several decades old ashes in the fire box!
Here is how it looked after I removed the top pieces, and brushed the ashes through.
I should be able to remove the metal plates at each end, which would allow me to remove the grate at the bottom, but I couldn’t see how to do that. For now, I just tried to sweep away as much as I could.
Doing so revealed something strange about the inside wall.
The middle plate looks absolutely destroyed!
I left that for later. First, I wanted to get rid of the ashes. Under the grate are three rollers that can be turned from the outside; a crank handle to do that seems to be missing, but I was able to turn them with my fingers. This allows the ashes to fall into the box below.
I had mostly emptied this box before, so this is all ashes from the fire box.
I’m not sure where that unburned piece of… paneling? … came from. I might have simply missed it, before.
The piece to hold one end of the handle is broken.
After taking the ashes out to the compost, I hosed it down. Then used a chisel to scrape off things stuck to the sides and bottom that were definitely not wood ashes. :-( After hosing it down again, I set it aside to dry, then went back to working on the fire box.
I ended up taking out the bottom of that destroyed panel completely.
This is thick, cast iron. Just how hot did things get, for this top happen?
Once it was out, I tried to sweep away more ashes.
I ended up knocking out chunks of packed ashes, like this one. More was jammed behind the top piece of the metal panel, and I took that out to get at the rest.
Ashes are not supposed to be able to get in there!
I then started sweeping out the space the ash box fits into. In the ashes I swept out, I found some odd things, like old nails and…
What is this???
That, my friends, is the screw end of a light bulb.
Later, I found the filament in the ashes, too. No glass, thank God!
Why on earth would someone toss a light bulb into the fire? The nails, at least, I can see happening. Scrap wood would have been burned, and if they had nails in them, no one would have taken the time to pull them out, first.
But a light bulb???
Then I used the miracle of technology that is my phone camera, to see what I couldn’t see otherwise!
This is where the as box slides in. The flaps above divert the falling ashes towards the box.
The camera focused on the flaps, but you can see the rollers above, that keep the hot coals from falling into the ash box.
I did as much as I could for now on the fire box side. Next was the cook top above the oven.
As you can see, the oven box is covered with ashes. Now that I’ve seen the broken panel piece in the fire box, I know why.
I didn’t even try to get those out. The metal pieces can be removed for easier access, but…
… they are held in place by screws, and there is no way I’m going to try and take those screws out now!
Though I’ve taken the ring plates out before, somehow I never looked at the bottoms of them.
!!!
It seems the fire was allowed to be built up too big and too hot to cause all that damage in the fire box, which then lead to ashes and sooty smoke getting into the space around the oven box. I was quite young when this was still being used, and don’t remember much about it, but I may well have been among those causing the damage. :-/
I really wonder, at times, how we didn’t burn the house down back then!!
I just brushed off as much as I could from the underside of the ring plates. The panels over the water reservoir didn’t need as much.
I didn’t even try to clean the inside of the water reservoir this time.
I did go into the drawer under the oven. The handle and a piece of hinge from the broken oven door is in there, along with …
… the lifter for the ring plates.
I just used my hands to lift them, but when the stove is in use, this tool is vital.
I… can’t imagine what was done to it to cause this damage. !!!
The final thing to do was give it all a wipe down, then leaving it to dry completely before closing it up and putting everything together again. The cook surface and parts like the front of the fire box, and the panels below it, are the only things that are not enameled. Eventually, I want to use stove blacking on those parts. The rest still needs a very thorough scrubbing and rust removal, but I really don’t know far I’ll bother to go with that. We can’t use it – partly because of the damage, partly because we’d lose our insurance if we did – so mostly, I just want to keep it from degrading further. It would be great if we could get it all fixed up but… I’m not sure that it’s worth it. Especially since, there is another one in the storage shed that I know my late brother used, back when that building was his workshop. As far as I know, it’s in good shape. It’s not as old as this one, but is almost exactly the same design.
Who knows. When we finally build our outdoor cooking area, maybe we can include the wood cookstove as part of it. I think I’d really like that.
One of the clean up goals that got shifted back a year, due to my husband’s hospitalization and other issues last year, was to clear the spruce grove. Not all of it; parts of it will be left overgrown to shelter critters. I do want to get most of it cleared. This will be a multi-year project, but at the very least, I want to get the perimeter done.
That was supposed to include clearing around and into the junk pile, but now that we know Butterscotch’s kittens are in there, that will wait.
We never did get a chance to clear things out to reach the Saskatoon bushes near the junk pile, but I still wanted to get that done so we can reach them, and the chokecherry trees beside them.
Here is how it looked when I started.
The spruce tree in the foreground is still alive, while the tree on the left of the photo is dead, as is the one by the junk pile on the right of the photo.
(Also, I set up containers for kibble and water for the babies, and yes, they’ve already discovered them!)
There had been quite a few bushes and spirea at the base of the live spruce tree, and crowding the horseradish, that I cleared away a couple of nights ago (it was too dark for photos at the time), so a start has already been made in this area.
The first thing to do was cut away the elms that have been growing in the old wine barrel planter that used to be such a favorite place for the kittens to nap and play in. Then I began working a bit towards the junk pile. Not too far, though, as the spirea in there creates places for them to hide in.
I’d forgotten about that tire rim that was buried in there… :-D
After moving the tire rim into the old wine barrel planter, I discovered something else.
Those are concrete blocks, buried in the soil!
When we first moved here, the wine barrel on its side in the bushes was intact enough that the cats would sit on it. It was another favorite spot for them, until it rotted out enough that the staves collapsed! :-D
It looks like the tire rim was placed on top of the blocks, then the barrel on top of the tire rim until it eventually got knocked over. Unlike the planter, this was a whole barrel, not one cut in half to be a planter. I don’t know what it was set up for.
I’ve left the blocks for now, and did not clear further around the remains of the barrel. I figure this makes a nice spot for kittens to play in!
I didn’t want to go any closer to the junk pile – I don’t want Butterscotch to move her babies! – so I started working around the other side. Some of this area, I’d cleared before, but it doesn’t take long for spirea to spread out again!
Here is how it looked when I stopped for the day.
I would have liked to continue, but even working in the shade, it was just getting too hot.
The Saskatoon bushes are still loaded with – now dried – berries. I’m sure the birds will enjoy what we could not harvest. The chokecherry trees in there should be ready for picking fairly soon. It is likely too late in the season to make a difference this year, but clearing up around them will likely result in better growing and fruiting conditions, too.
Here is another view.
For this photo, I’m standing near the horseradish and facing right into the Saskatoon bushes, with a few chokecherry branches hanging over from the side.
This is how it looks from further in.
All those skinny little trunks you see on the right half of the photo are chokecherries and Saskatoon bushes.
When I worked in here previously, I’d cleared away the spirea up to a spruce tree with an extension cord hanging down from it. So most of this area had already been done. I only worked closest to the Saskatoon bushes and chokecherry trees for now. Eventually, I want to clear all the spirea out of here. There are wild roses growing not far from here, and I would like to encourage those to spread, instead.
As for this area near the edge of the spruce grove, I want to keep it clear of undergrowth. It’s one of the areas I want to eventually set up a bench and create a little haven, near the stone cross my late brother set up at the very edge of the grove. If possible, this would be an area I’d like to encourage moss to grow as a ground cover.
It was a fairly small area that got cleared, but there was a lot in it! I was able to pull most of the spirea out by the roots. With some of them, there was a LOT of root coming up with them! The topsoil here is decades of decomposed spruce needles, so it’s quite loose, making it much easier to get those roots out.
Eventually, we will have the tree company that cleared our roof and power lines come back and take out the two dead spruce trees here. We were supposed to get that done this spring, or at least get the chipping done, but we ended up spending all our money fixing vehicles and replacing appliances. We probably won’t be able to get it done this year at all.
Which gives me more time to clean up the area, which will make it easier for them to get at the dead trees.
Not too long ago, I wrote about my daughters installing a new kitchen faucet. One of the issues was, we have no shut off valves. There is one main shut off valve that shuts off water to the entire house.
Today, that became a problem.
One of my daughters had gone into the basement to clean out the litter boxes, when she discovered water dripping from the cold water pipe leading to the kitchen sink.
No, the pipe was not leaking. The water was coming from above, and from the damp state of the floorboards above, it had been leaking a while.
My younger daughter started clearing out under the sink to see what was going on, while her sister and I started cleaning up in the basement.
Suddenly, the drip started dripping even faster!
Which is when the water for the house had to be shut off.
My daughter had tried to tighten the flexible pipe between the copper pipe and the tap, and it started spraying all over.
Did I mention there are no shut off valves for the sink?
It ended up falling apart, and try as they might, the girls couldn’t even rig something up to hold overnight, so we could turn the water back on.
While they were fighting with that, I went hunting in the basements. There are so many parts and pieces around, surely there must be something we could use to at least plug the pipe, so we could turn the water back on?
When we were cleaning out the basement, some things never made it to the barn. Including a box I’d shoved under the stairs. It’s full of parts and pieces of taps and faucets and pipes…
… and balls, and parts of shower heads that have never been used, and other unidentifiable things.
I also found this.
Actually, I found the box with an eyedropper and what appears to be the instruction sheet inside. I found the bottle that should have been in it, buried in the bottom of the box.
You’d think, by now, I’d no longer be surprised by the things I find in the strangest of places, but … really. Why? Why was this here??
I’ve since tucked it into a place the cats and kittens can’t get into.
Meanwhile, the girls were able to seal up the top of the cold water pipe in the kitchen, allowing us to turn the water back on to the house.
Tomorrow, I’m off to the hardware store, as soon as it opens!
I figure, we may as well replace both of the flexible hoses, which I’ve seen in kits for both hot and cold water.
Last night, while heading out to do my evening rounds, I had a little surprise – a stinky friend coming out of the sun room!
I wanted to use water from the rain barrel, but Stinky had other ideas! :-D
He is not, however, the furry friend I was alluding to in the title.
While mowing the outer yard today, I saw a little dark shape, running across from the deep grass to the pile of junk that needs to be hauled to the dump.
Then a mostly while shape followed.
Two little kittens! About the same size as the inside kittens.
I am guessing they are Junk Pile cat’s babies, but they might be Rosencrantz’s, too. I saw no mom around.
This means we might start seeing kittens show up at the food bowls soon!
Which reminds me. I noticed, a couple of days ago, that Butterscotch is no longer pregnant. After what happened with her last litter, it’s hard to guess how many will survive. :-(
Also, this evening, I won lawn mower chicken! I was doing the very last patches of grass for the night, when the mower started to stutter. I just managed to back it up over the last bit of grass when it coughed and died, completely out of fuel! :-D
While I was finishing up with the lawn (though I still have the area in front of the storage shed to do – tomorrow!), the girls tended to the gardens, including thinning out the carrots. We now have lots of little, bitty carrots to snack on. They are all new varieties for us and, so far, they all are quite tasty! :-)
This morning, before I headed into town, I had a conversation with one of my daughters. Later, when I was at the hardware store, that conversation had me looking extra hard at the display of 20 x 20 inch box fans. We need at least a couple, including one for the old basement to replace the one that disappeared.
I finally broke down and bought one.
Plus a package of 20 x 20 furnace filters.
We now have a poor-man’s air filter! :-D A furnace filter is attached to the back of the fan with a few little strips of duct tape. For now, it’s sitting on my husband’s leather working desk as we test out how it works, before deciding on a final spot to put it. This one will stay in the living room, though. Depending on how things go, I hope to pick up another when we’re in the city, for the basement window. For now, I want to see how well it does in keeping the levels of cat hair down! :-D
I also had to pick up a round file while in town. I still haven’t been able to put on the second latch on the screen window. I did find a round file in one of the miscellaneous drawers in the basement, but it’s the wrong type, and was doing absolutely nothing as I tried to enlarge the opening for the new latch post. Hopefully, this new one will do the trick.
The cats and kittens have, of course, been exploring the counters and shelves in the basement, and I’ve been finding a few things knocked to the floor. Yesterday, I found a piece of wood with a rose design carved in relief into it, lying on the floor. Today, I found another piece of wood on the floor; this one had floral designs on one side, and my late brother’s name carved on the other. I don’t recall seeing those when we cleaned up the basement before bringing Beep Beep and Butterscotch indoors. I’d forgotten my brother had tried his hand at wood carving, too, and you can see quite a skill improvement between the two pieces.
While looking for a round file, I also found a small carving tool. I recognize it as part of a set we had, when I was quite young. There were at least a dozen different types of blades in the set. In fact, I’m pretty sure the wood box it came in is what’s now under my computer monitor, raising it up to a more comfortable viewing height. That box now holds my late father’s hair cutting supplies. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the wood carving tools. Considering how long ago we had them, I’m surprised to have found the one that I did!
I set it aside for sharpening. It has a flat tip, like a very fine chisel, that I think I will find useful.
Funny how, after being here for more than 2 years, we’re still finding things like this! :-D
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!
The Re-Farmer 