Do you ever win the cleanup battle

I have been trying to get a fire going outside for two days and it just ain't happenin. I get so frustrated with state of the property sometimes. I have a friend coming from ontario in three weeks, a good incentive. We live on acreage with a lot of trees and bush as well as fields and a lot of grass. Sometimes it feels like too much of everything. There are always trees being taken down and piles of brush to burn, broken and old and unused stuff to go to the dump, Sheds and chicken coops to clean out. I don't know if its because I turned 60 and don't have the same energy I used to or what. But I can never seem to get ahead of it. I just needed to rant so that I can tackle that stupid fire again.

I don't think a person ever wins! Especially on acreage, it's never ending. Where does it come from?

Darn stuff seems to appear every spring and fall. Getting older doesn't help. We know all about it. No fun!

Good Luck with that fire.

I thought you meant inside the house, and I was going to commiserate with you! I for one NEVER catch up inside! With 3 dogs who live mostly inside, and the big hairy one who comes in at night, plus a cat, and a woodstove in the living room, and working fulltime+....I just never feel like my house is better than swiped-at clean. Nevermind the FOREST out back!

farmchiq wrote:I thought you meant inside the house, and I was going to commiserate with you! I for one NEVER catch up inside! With 3 dogs who live mostly inside, and the big hairy one who comes in at night, plus a cat, and a woodstove in the living room, and working fulltime+....I just never feel like my house is better than swiped-at clean. Nevermind the FOREST out back!

I'm with you on this one farmchiq, sometimes I think my coops are cleaner than my house.
With the kids home all week, trying to get ready for lambing, and trying to organize birds for hatching eggs, it is all too overwhelming...But setting a list and getting to tick off each accomplishment sure does make me feel better.

Hidden River wrote:

farmchiq wrote:I thought you meant inside the house, and I was going to commiserate with you! I for one NEVER catch up inside! With 3 dogs who live mostly inside, and the big hairy one who comes in at night, plus a cat, and a woodstove in the living room, and working fulltime+....I just never feel like my house is better than swiped-at clean. Nevermind the FOREST out back!

I'm with you on this one farmchiq, sometimes I think my coops are cleaner than my house.
With the kids home all week, trying to get ready for lambing, and trying to organize birds for hatching eggs, it is all too overwhelming...But setting a list and getting to tick off each accomplishment sure does make me feel better.

I was thinking inside too. Hubby drives me crazy! How hard is it just to pick stuff up when you are done with it??????!!!!! I am not the tidiest in the world, but I look after my stuff, well, and his too. Sometimes I just clean up my stuff and leave his, but it never seems to sink in.........

Nope. It never ends.

Except when the first good dump of snow arrives. Then you at least get a few months off. Around here, anyway.

We at least have enough land that we can dump organic matter "out back" somewhere - no neighbours to look upon our piles with disdain. I can't imagine trying to keep things tidy enough for neighbours.

We've done a TON of clean-up in the past few years, having inherited the place from people who didn't believe in ever throwing anything out. 80+ years of junk is a LOT of junk.

At least we've finally got the in-laws to stop bringing more junk. We are not a storage facility!

VIc's Chick...I hear your pain!

On another thread I was wishing for more sunlight for gardening and contemplating dropping trees. But oh my Gordon, the MESS there is to clean up after trees hit the ground! THe limbing, the bucking the lugging away and splitting, the burn piles. I want to cry just thinking about it.

Here too it seems stuff grows in the bush. I hear myself shrieking at Hub, "I thought you got rid of that rear end!" As he slinks guiltily away from the scene of vehicular carnage. We have tires, tailgates, doors and bumpers from vehicles we haven't owned in years. He also has a stack of lumber that he is saving for when the world ends and he needs some clear tongue and groove cedar. To start the world with again. To build a teeny, weeny ark to fit two chickens and a rooster in. Whatever. It makes me homicidal.

How do people get so much crap? Crunched rolls of fencing wire, odd sized pieces of roofing tin. Half used rolls of building paper chewed by squirrels. A 1973 Chrysler boat motor that hasn't run since 1975. (falls on floor weeping) I just don't know...I just don't know.

i was thinking inside as well, with a 2 year old, hubby and a shedding bulldog.... cleaning the house is like eating oreo cookies after going to the dentist...LOl

Uno ... you need a scrap metal bin. Or a bunch of them.

Husband has access to these things, so we always have one on the go. We throw all of our scrap metal into it - busted parts, roofing tin scraps, fencing, whatever. When it gets full, he hauls it off to the scrap yard.

We had some nice Mennonite men come and haul away the old vehicles that got dumped in the back by some relative or other. They offered to pay us for them, but heck, I woulda paid them to get rid of the stuff!

A couple of other trucks that just needed one or two things fixed got sold for cheap to some guys who enter the smash-em-up-derby every year.

Yet another guy happily came and picked up the barrels of mystery fuel/oil that had collected here over the years. He used them to heat his shop.

If you give it away ... they will come and get it.

triplejfarms wrote:i was thinking inside as well, with a 2 year old, hubby and a shedding bulldog.... cleaning the house is like eating oreo cookies after going to the dentist...LOl

I have a pug/boston cross and I DO NOT KNOW how one little dog can lose so much hair! I vacuum every day or two, but there is always hair!!

i bought a chipper last year so i don't have to burn anymore and I make great mulch.
I think the concept of being finished outside will only happen when I am outside but six feet under until then it is a process. It drives my wife nuts more so than me. I have piles of stuff people have given me that I use to build with, so the more I build the more my piles disappear. You should read uno's post it addresses a lot of these issues which I think more and more are about aging,

Ok I'm gonna be the smarta$$! I was gonna say GAS makes a great fire starter but watch the eyebrows

I too have the same issue. I have learnt not to worry about the inside of the house rainy days are for that. Don't get me wrong I'm NOT a pig but we spend so much time outside that I can keep up with it for the most part. I have officially booted out every animal we have and don't have that kind of mess anymore. Which I love/hate because at some point in time I would love a small dog, anyways...

I love to burn stuff I have burn piles everywhere and at any given time will light one up if the weather and conditions allow. With our snow not gone yet we still have some time before I have to get my butt in gear. Our busiest weekend is the May day long weekend planting, brushing, burning, raking, shoveling........

Best of luck with your fires

Ruffledfeathers wrote:Ok I'm gonna be the smarta$$! I was gonna say GAS makes a great fire starter but watch the eyebrows

Not such a smart arse, add some diesel to it and you don't have to watch your eyebrows, just watch the fire burn.

Ahhhhhh but there is "nothing" like a good bonfire.

It's not a battle if you refuse to fight.

However, I wouldn't turn up my nose at a nice chipper!

I come from a family that was born & bred city peeps. I can remember my mother's words on home ownership: "When you own your own home, always something needs to be fixed, repaired or done. You are always working, doing something."

I used to point out that having your own home means it's yours. That is what makes it worth it. However, as I am getting older, I do see her point some days. Some days I simply do not have the energy as by nature I am a lazy bone.

Having only a large yard on someone else's farm, we might have less to do, but it all revolves around chickens and gardens and what to do with the waste both produce, since I cannot have a pile of any of it in the back corner somewhere. Last year, with only 9 chickens, it wasn't too bad, but I will be having nightmares this year, with about 50 chickens to clean up after; what to do with all that waste, never mind disposing of the stupid rooster that fell off the ramp and broke his neck. I know, pass it all onto hubby! Then I can just enjoy my chickens and my gardens.