Spring has sprung

Pin It Pin It ... but unfortunately my back has other ideas still. Everything I wanted to do, need to do, and have to do is going to have to be done in a very slow manner.

Here was our plan:

"The Barn"

Project 1: The Barn or should I say what's left of it. Came crashing down after a snow storm and in the spring a wind storm hit it a few years ago. The barn was no match for the wind. Last spring the kids and I took out the front corner of the barn because it was sticking out over the access road to the field. We hauled a lot of wood to this side of the creek. Some we burned and some we kept for a project we were doing. It all lasted most of the day until I saw a "SNAKE"! Then, I was done. Since timber rattlers are common here and I was not sure what it was nor was I sticking around to find out, I called it a wrap for us. So this leads me to another project.

"The Shed, Outhouse and Chicken Coop"

Project 2: The Shed, Outhouse and Chicken Coop. Well let me say this: this pile was much much bigger. A few years ago I was bored to death while the DH, DD and DS were at school so I went a digging. Back then the trailer and mowers weren't there nor was some of the other equipment that is just out of sight of this photo. What is there between those and the shed is an electric fence. Ouch! I know I touched it a few times while working on that darn shed only because I didn't know where the connection was to turn it off. Any how, I tore out the upper section, the outhouse and part of the old chicken coop. I threw the wood over the fence and when the kids got home we put it in the burn pile and for several nights we had a pretty good fire. We are going to have to do that again really soon since its been wet. You wouldn't believe some of the items that we had to bag up and send in the trash and other items that I wanted to cry about that were just left out there to rot. I found an old old singer sewing machine that if it was salvageable was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, other things were chicken crates. You know the ones you see in the old movies that were full of chickens for transporting. They were all busted from where the building initially had fallen on them. There was countless other things in there also. A few items that I did save from in there was the base of that sewing machine. I'm hoping to get it cleaned up and painted for my porch or just maybe as a stand in my living room. 

"Mess"

Project 3: Is the mess around what was the garage. The garage is gone but the stuff that was around it still remains. We will be cleaning that up. We did a lot of it already and took it to the recyclers and dump. Thankfully in may is the free tire disposal. We do that every year. As you can see we have some piled up already. I know where there's a few more that we need to get.

Then we have this:

"The Cellar and smoke house"

Project 4: The cellar and smoke house. I so wanted to save it but as we were cleaning out the smoke house part we discovered it wasn't worth it. Then the bottom, I thought man we could save that.. Umm I was so wrong again. What I can save are the rocks and reuse them on another project. Some are sandstone and some are just rocks. Nonetheless they are all hand layed by my DH ancestors and I want to use them in my flower gardens and such to keep a part of them near. There's books, magazines and jars still in there. We got out a lot of the stuff in there but there is so much more.

This has been the plan for the past few years. But since gas prices have been sky rocketing and we are wanting to add more animals to the farm. We better stay home and get this place cleaned up and suitable for the animals. Don't get me wrong the whole farm is not a mess. Actually, considering at one time there was over 7 homesteads on this farm all of them have been cleared away except these few structures and one more hay shed up the holler. Which we took most of the wood off it for our project since it had fallen also. It won't take a half day to clean up the remains of that building. I have one more important structure to talk about but I will leave that for another post. My DH will be home for the next four days starting tomorrow and it's suppose to be gorgeous out. I'm going to try to talk him into cleaning up the one right behind our house. Who knows I just may get a little work out of him. I may have to bribe him with his favorite meal though. Fingers crossed. 

~ Farm Girl