We spent a few weekends this summer doing yet more clean up–would you believe there was even more random garbage scattered about by the previous owners?
There were old fence rails in the south pasture where we had the new gate installed last autumn. Granted, a few of these boards were left by the crew that put in the gate, but only when I told them to just chuck them into the pile that was there. We used Barbie to collect these, but instead of attempting the dirt track down through the south pasture, it was easier and far less scary to go out the main gate and around via the lower road.
Then there was the random clutter at the well tank. Again some of the garbage was our doing, as the old well tank that we replaced back in July of 2015 was steel and needed to sit atop some wooden boards. The new tank is plastic poly and is just fine sitting on the concrete pad, so all the boards got chucked to one side to join some other random debris on that hillside.
In the case of the well tank boards, which were primarily 2×6,s it was easier to cut them in half. I drove Barbie up to our pretty new gate by the tank so the trek was a bit easier, and my workers and I simply cut the boards, walked the short distance through the gate, loaded up Barbie’s bed and, once full, drove down the road through the main gate and to the waiting dumpster.
Then there was the mess behind the stables–three bathtubs, an old wood chipper, a few tons of rotting wood and some old metal drums were all lined up behind the stables. For this mess we could use Giggles. With forks instead of a bucket, it was easy for the guys to load the boards up, and I could then drive out from behind the barn to a waiting dumpster and a quick unloading would commence. We chose to unload by hand so we could stack the wood inside the dumpster, thus fitting a lot more in than if we had just tossed the stuff in.
One of the interesting things we found under the wood pile were a colony of salamanders.
And even more interesting, the workers disturbed a young rattlesnake. They were so startled by it that they dropped the boards they were trying to pick up, and one of the boards had a nail that impaled the snake’s head. This made us sad, as this meant gophers and ground squirrels would sleep more safely and we really don’t want rodents to be able to do that.
That was just the start of the work though, as we spent two weekends getting rid of the last of these messes.