Thursday, July 16, 2009

All in a day's work

Whew. Tired.

We worked at the farm today. I ordered a 20 yard dumpster to fill up with the garbage left by the previous owners and the trash that I took out of the barn. Today we filled it up about 1/2 way. Bill filled the loader on the tractor over and over and over and over. I continued to take down the summer kitchen - until the boards were too high for me to reach. I balanced for a bit on a cinder block but then, well, that just seemed dangerous. Bill cleaned up all of the trash from the barn interior (that I previously emptied) and the cement slab behind the hog house. We were laughing and joking with each other that we always seem to buy properties and clean up other people's garbage. Bill said, well that's our buying strategy! It's true. Garbage, run-down = affordable. Plus we prefer to do the work ourselves (sustainable and in an historic appreciative way). The trash behind the hog house was disgusting. It was a former burn pile so it had lots of rusted car parts, half-burnt, and trash. Literally trash. I found a curling iron. Children's toys. A busted barbell set. A burnt calculator. I could go on and on. You get the point.

We returned to the church/home tired. A chicken is in the oven. It was a terrific day.

4 comments:

Judy T said...

Sounds like a good day's labor. I hear you loud and clear about the garbage left behind by former owners. I sometimes really wonder how the owners of our new house lived with the way things were. EEW.
Judy

El said...

Wow, this post brought up some memories for me. We filled up a 20 yard dumpster at our house too, and the house was mostly empty when we bought it! But it was the outdoor trash pile that filled it, mostly with concrete and various farm detritus. Sigh. Best way to truly get a decent property, though, is to expend a little sweat equity...

good luck filling the rest. Hope the rest of your mini-vaca has a bit of relaxation in it...

Jena said...

Congrats on all your hard work. I bet things are starting to look way better around there! :)

angie said...

Thanks all for the nice comments.

Judy, you are still the reigning queen of balancing work, renovation, family, gardening and meals.

El. Thanks. Yes, our house is empty. Isn't it amazing? I wonder how people can live this way - and raise children in the debris. It makes me sad.

Jena, Thanks. I was thinking of your Git'er Done challenge while I was working. :)