still removing lots of trash

Recently I have been working on clearing out under some trees next to the garage. Andy thought we should just cut them down. That was all well and fine but we found a lot of junk that we raked and picked at for a few days. I got some close-ups of the junk just for you. Sometimes this project is just plain amusing.

more junk haulin'

We hauled off one huge load of metal stuff. Included in all of this was two freezers, at least one fridge, two wash machines, a dryer, and two hot water heaters......cmi doesn't pay you for appliances we found out, they will take them though. Anyway it was really good to get rid of it all. I don't think there are any more unwanted appliances on the property now. whew!!!! We had the entire gooseneck trailor loaded up this time and got a little over $300.00! *grin*

big changes

Well, we put on a couple of new garage doors and some white rock on the driveway. It looks so much better! I think we may paint that garage soon. The drastic changes are turning the heads of those driving by. The pictures show the trash heep the way it looked about six months ago in front of the garage and then several weeks ago we cleared out the garage making it ready for OUR stuff. This meant clearing out a bunch of junk that had been left behind. I don't think I've ever seen so much junk! We've come a long way. We have a long way to go.

I don't think I showed you this mess yet

All these tires were being hidden behind the chicken coop. Now they are in plain view! Yikes! Did you ever see so many at once? I don't really think this picture shows them all, I might have to take another one.

more basement demo

There's not much left in the basement. All the old plumbing and wiring have been pulled out leaving a totally clear ceiling. We call this a "blank canvas".

SIT DOWN FOR THIS: the basement before we started cleaning and clearing

Well, the basement was every bit as bad as the rest of the house, but some pipes had apparently broken at some point. Clothing on the floor was totally soaked and moldy. It is a fairly new basement but there are breeches in the mortar probably because there were no gutters on the house and it caused problems.

There is actually food in the refrigerator, it's been there for a while! oooh! It all seems so gross, but when we set our mind to accomplishing something(and pray for God's grace) we seem to be able to just overlook all the grime.

horsepower on our side!

We had the opportunity to borrow this front end loader over the weekend. WOW, is all we can say. Let's just say, things have changed and hun was having way too much fun, again. Remember the eyesore of a pile in front of the garage? That is now gone. It's tucked away back in the trees, but it's not in front of the garage. That's the important thing!!!
We used this machine to clear and transport trash from all over the property and from in the basement back into one pile which we have named Mt. Trashmore. You can see the comparison with Andy standing in front of it. It grew even more after that. This inside corner of a building that you see is behind the garage and was waist high with household
stuff and old wet moldy books. I did find a handful of jewelry in there though, some of it is real gold. I don't know if I took a 'before' picture of that terrible corner. We got a lot done this weekend and we are sore and tired. It gave us a real leap forward using this heavy equipment. I have lots of pictures to post of what we accomplished this past two days. Keep checking back. We pushed buildings and trees over and moved dirt around. We lit a fire, which is still burning, probably will be for a couple of days. We took so many pictures this week and made such drastic changes. I'll be posting some before and after pictures of the basement, the demolition of the chicken coop, and who knows what else!

do we have any more barrels?

We did a little 'small time' burning while we gathered metal. There are three barrels in this picture and one behind me. A few more wouldn't hurt. We have plans to have a huge bonfire soon but until then we just burn a little of what ever is in the way while we are out there doing other things. Yes, that is a freezer turned over on it's side with 'what?' spray painted on it. I'm sure there is another one or two somewhere. One of our neighbors probably dumped it off last year.

junk scrap metal = cash

$89.46 is what this truck full of scrap metal amounted to. We spent Tuesday afternoon scavenging for metal and then hauled it away! Not too bad for a bunch of unwanted junk!

WORKING, WORKING, WORKING

Well, I've been away a while. The house in town is on the market. Spring is almost here. We spent some time out at the country place on Sunday, which was a sunny day, albeit WINDY! Hubby used the trencher plow to push some of the unsightly pile of junk that has been in front of the garage to the back. It does not look like anything was moved from this angle but trust me, he moved a lot! I still have not shown you all the trash! Just wait. A little more work and we can see a garage at the end of the driveway. But notice the budding tree......yippee!

that big dirty pile of junk

well, this is the junk pile I've been keeping from you. this is how it looks as we are adding to it. half of it was there when we looked at the place-can you imagine what we were thinking? what were we going to do with all that junk? oh yea, the great price, I forgot. well anyway, by the time we were done clearing the junk out of the house the pile was so big that you could no longer see the garage! what is worse is that out back in those beautiful trees, there is a whole lot more junk and trash.........oh my.

the power of fire

today we finally lit a fire and began to burn lath and some of the junk laying around. I have to tell you, I have been looking forward to this! while clearing out the house and looking over the property we rounded up a half dozen couches and chairs at least! driving out to our property and seeing that pile of couches just was down right discouraging. today, some of them burned. I haven't really let you see the junk piles yet. I don't want anyone to faint. in fact, I'm trying not to faint myself. tomorrow will be another day of burning junk and debris. maybe some mattresses? yes, there's a few of those too. we rigged up this tarp/sled thingy, it works pretty swell for dragging a pile around the house and down the hill a little ways where the burn pit is. look, only two-thirds of the lath pile left to burn! cheer up everyone. a lot was reduced to ashes today. yay!!!!

yes, we even have a stop sign in all that junk. do you know anyone else who has a crushed bed spring covered in ice?