Today was one of those days: throw away, burn, salvage and cleanup. This is not a house or yard cleanup, this is farm cleanup!!! Only a farmer can truly appreciate how much stuff collects on a farm. Keith came with his excavator and dump truck so you know this is serious business! The men are all in a jovial mood with smiles on their faces, laughing and cutting up. Gene is on the forklift gathering up the stuff (old metal shelves, disk blades, discarded lawn mowers, pipes, axles, etc.) and Keith is smashing and loading it on the dump truck to haul to salvage.
They have a fire going for the burnables. Phil is picking up, moving stuff around and making his own little pile of our junk to take to his home all the while muttering “such a shame”. He stashed away an old leaf blower that somehow could become a log splitter. Keith spied several metal plates that were just what he needed to make some needed brackets. Not only do we have farm junk but outdated parts, discarded mowers and other equipment from the small engine repair business we had for years. It is so funny how hard it is to let stuff go. It can lay around for years and not be touched. But pick it up to throw away…. there are instant ideas of possible uses!
My man is a stasher, he inherited that trait, but it is often amazing to me how he finds ways to recycle and use his stashed treasures. I have seen pieces of three different bales rings put together into one, a wagon repurposed into something totally different than its original intent and the list could go on and on. I remember shortly after we were married Gene salvaged a whole pile of fence posts from my dad’s burn pile and they served him well for many years. This cleanup project is motivated by a bigger repurposing scheme. The old feed bunk barn from dairying days has become a terrible collection shed for stuff over the years. He wants to make it into a mixing shed for his cattle rations and loading area for his mixer wagon. And so the time comes…. the day and hour is not predictable….when the mood hits and it is cleanup time. Today I say, “it is boys and their toys having fun smashing things!”
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