Cleaning up the barn

I celebrated a milestone birthday this past weekend. Yep, 40. When asked what I wanted to do for my birthday - of course, I said, clean out the stalls in the barn. I guess the majority of women might not say that.

So clean it up we did. Actually I did most of it. Bill repaired the shed for the new tractor (who we promptly named Sparky).

The previous owner of our farm was... well, let's just say it was a dump. Literally. There are garbage piles all over. Several of the stalls were filled with debris. His previous home had burnt down and in the interest of saving money and items, he had claimed a lot of non-burnt items and brought them to this farm where he promptly deposited them in piles around the home and barn and did absolutely nothing with them. When we visited this farm while it was for sale, there were broken down trucks, trailers, farm equipment and piles and piles of debris. Now we are all about saving things for reuse, but in this instance, it was merely left outside exposed to the weather and essentially became trash.

Getting back to the barn. I spent a day and a half cleaning out trash from several of the stalls. I brought out 8 tires (several large, heavy tractor tires) and an entire stall that was filled with insulation. Yes, the pink kind that goes in your wall. This insulation had been thrown onto the stall floor and just piled there for years. It was wet, dirty, full of mice and other assorted garbage (shampoo bottles, lamp fixtures, plastic bags). The stall that all of this was 'stored' in is near a back wall of the barn that leaks. Now.... not just any leak. This is a full-on leak during the spring thaw (yes, fixing this leak is #1 on our list - will post about it when we start it this spring). So, everything I cleaned out was muddy and soaking

Above is the pile of debris that I got from the barn. I feel like I really know the barn and its crannies now. Next step is to get a dumpster and dispose of this garbage properly.