Farm Clean-up: Marathon Style

Buying an old property that hasn’t been managed for a while obviously means work. And a lot of that work is clean-up. Which we knew. But you always “know” these things going into something and then realize how little you actually knew once you get started. Did you get that? It made sense, I promise. This weekend we cleaned-up. And I mean FOR REALS. As in we rented a 40 yard roll-off container and filled it to the max. I’ll break down how much it cost us and how much we fit in there – because it may help take the guess work out for you!

First, I looked up where to rent a roll-off bin. I searched “dumpster rental” for my area and the city in the valley that has the dump {Logan} actually rents them. It was $125 for the drop off fee, $5.71 per day, and an additional $23.00 for every ton. I don’t have the total on it yet, but we had it for three days and I can’t imagine it weighs more than one ton so I’m estimating about $175.00. Now, if we had just hauled it in loads to the dump, every drop off would be $20 + drive time + gas + we would have to unload it. That would have been at least 5-7 loads, so the price and convenience of not having to empty it all equals out.

Dumpster loading tip: Load the flat things first, from the back to the front. If you have rolls of wire, save a couple really heavy things to put on top of those so you can smash them down. Having super awesome neighbors that offer to come and load heavy things and then smash everything down with their backhoe is basically a huge lifesaver. We lucked out in the neighbor department! Seriously.

I can’t tell you how big of a relief it is to have all of that cleaned up!!! Such a weight off my mind. Clutter is my ultimate annoyance, and I had looked at those piles for far too long.

Now, before someone decides to chastise us for being wasteful and throwing a 40 yard dumpster worth of stuff away, let me tell ya what it’s from and how much we actually saved.

When we first moved here, there was a very short and long building {like you couldn’t stand up straight in it short} across from our beautiful large barn.  The front area of the barn was normal height but it went lower and lower from there. It was also very poorly built, basically two halves built and pushed together. We pulled one half down, planning to use the open half as the edge of the pasture and a run-in shed. Well, the wind blew most of the roof off about 3 days after we finished it and before we had a chance to secure everything with hurricane ties. It was a big disappointment! So we left if for the summer, not sure what to do with it.

As we took it down and then cleaned up the roofing, we saved SO much wood you guys. Like enough to unusable wood to burn through two winters. And then enough to fill an entire covered shed AND our wood working shop with useable lumber. I made everyone {think: really nice friends} be so meticulous and careful when pulling it down and I combed through everything that was in there, saving cool old stuff like a shifter from an old tractor, parts to an old plow, and even an old fuse box.

Last summer, we finally decided to turn the last remaining stalls into the chicken coop and chicken run, and  took down the rest of the falling down structure. That was also a huge relief. It was pretty dangerous back there. We reinforced the chicken coop to be sound and safe, patched the roof, and then piled the leftovers.

And there were so many piles. There were weed stalks and overgrown bushes that had to be cut down, totally rotted wood, wood with so many nails it wasn’t useable, and pieces of roofing. We also had a huge metal pile from when we took down the original wire {upon more wire, upon more wire…} fence and put our our electric fence. Needless to say, we had a lot of piles. There was also a massive amount of chain-link we took down from the barn and other odds and ends of trash from cleaning out places on the farm. Phew, I’m getting tired all over again just talking about this!

But now, it’s all gone. The wood shop needs some serious organizational help and I need to go over everywhere with a magnet about fifty times to get up any loose nails and wire, but the piles are GONE! And it was a serious marathon. Andy is a super hero and our neighbor with the backhoe is too. Abram is so patient and listens so well while we are working, we are seriously lucky he loves to play outside so much. Hooray! Life is good.

Final Clean-Up Tip: Do it in the Spring. That way you avoid wasps and spiders everywhere, as well as overgrown grass and weeds you have to fight with.

I just realized I need some after shots! Although it won’t look like anything – thank goodness. Ha!