I went back to cleaning up the West yard, by the fire pit area, today, focusing on the area between the other house and the log cabin that’s slowly disintegrating.

Photo heavy post ahead! :-D

The girls finished clearing away the last wood pile from when I cleaned up in the East end of the maple grove.  Before they went into the house, we got rid of the old freezer that has been sitting along the side of the other house, for many years.

It was a beast of a freezer, but it is now finally out of the yard, and in the pile of stuff that will be hauled away in the fall.

The baskets and foam were inside the freezer.  The chair and the plastic thing on it were dug out from between some maple trees.

It took two of us pushing, one pulling and steering, to drag that old freezer out!

Modern freezers are much lighter.  :-D

When I started cleaning up the remains to haul away, I found even more Styrofoam, buried under the leaves.

Time to start working on the rows of trees directly behind the other house.

This involved cutting away dead branches, suckers and picking up fallen branches, just to GET to the stuff I needed to clear away.

The rain barrel that was there appears to not have any cracks or holes in it, so I just set it aside for now.

The roll of wire fencing was almost completely buried in leaves and dead branches.

That plastic bin on top?  It was upside down on the ground.  After lifting it up, I found…

… old cat litter.

As I was clearing away an area at the base of a maple tree, I found more cat litter, under the leaves and branches.

It appears that, when my dad had a cat, this was where the old litter was dumped.  I think that plastic bin is what was used as a litter box and, when the cat died, it just got dumped into the trees and left there.

That cat died many years ago.

I was also finding lots of horse droppings.  I’m told my younger brother had let his horses into the yard.  Considering how many piles of their droppings I’m finding all over the place, this was either done often, or for a very long time.

I’m not impressed.

More stuff to add to the haul-away pile.  Some stove pipe, a roll of cable, aluminum sheets and… I don’t know what that plastic thing is, but it made moving the stove pipe out much easier. ;-D

While clearing dead branches away near the building, I found all sorts of things buried in the leaves.  I’ve just leaned them here, for now, for clearing out later.

More was added, before I was done for the day!

In the foreground is an area I’d gone into with the weed trimmer recently.  I had to stop, because I was finding so many dead branches, so I started a pile at this end that I cleaned up today.  In the background, you can see where I hadn’t used the weed trimmer yet.

There was a LOT of dead branches in here.

I also cleared dead branches from the trees themselves, as well as pruning back live branches and seedlings.

This is another section I’d used the weed trimmer on previously.  For now, I’m ignoring the dead branches and trees on the other side of the fence.

That tree in the foreground?

Completely dead.  I thought there was one branch that still had green leaves on it, but that branch is from the tree on the other side of the fence.

So this is going to have to come down at some point.

While clearing away the dead branches, I found more metal, buried under the leaves.

There was some cable leaning against the building that I thought was rolled up, like some I’d already cleared away elsewhere.  It turned out to be only partially rolled up.  Most of it was stretched almost the length of the building, all buried under the leaves.

When my daughter came out to let me know supper was almost ready, she helped me take down this dead branch from one of the group of three maples near the fire pit.  I started cutting it with the pruning saw while she used a rake to reach the other end and applied gentle downward pressure to make it easier for me to saw.  Then when it started breaking under its own weight, I just stepped back and let her pull it down.

I feel so much better, now that it’s down.  There is another huge dead branch just above it, but it will have to wait for another day.

Here are the rows of “living fence” my mother planted.  There is a third row closer to the log cabin.  I did more clean up and weed trimming after this picture was taken.  We will have to go back and work our way towards the log cabin.  That area is filled with dead branches, so I can’t even go in with the weed trimmer, yet.  There’s quite a bit of oak in there.  I’m hoping my mother will let me get rid of some of these, and encourage the oak, instead.  They are planted way too close together to be able to grow well.

Here is the area that had the old toilet, rain barrel, and other debris in it.  It will still need more clean up before it’s finished, but it looks SO much better now!

The rest of the rows of trees.  There is one willow in there, and the rest are maple and elm.  There are still dead branches on them, but they are too high to be able to clear.

I noticed, as I was clearing up against the house, that the willow has a huge root, running right under the building.  I guess it’s a good thing it’s just siting on blocks, or it would be causing all sorts of damage to a basement or foundation.

Let’s see if I can find some before pictures to include…

What a difference a few hours of work makes!

The Re-Farmer