And Then He Is Gone...

My honey came for the weekend. It was soooo good to see him. But, I didn't give him much of a chance to rest. I had a long "honey-do" list of things I needed his assistance with. First and foremost was some long-overdue cleanup at my ranch. It took me awhile to get rolling on Thursday. After a long day of showing, the day before, all I wanted to do was rest up...but my honey only has limited time and finally he got my butt in gear.

We went to mom's, fired up one of the tractors and roaded it down to the ranch...

This is what is left of what was once our "shop"...

The buildings on my ranch are old, old, old.
This is one that my brother started to tear down a few years ago, never got the job finished and last year it finally fell over.

Originally, I had wanted to burn it and then just remove the debris. But since it is close to the house, mom was afraid that any sparks could set the roof of the house on fire. She decided the best thing to do was place the debris along the creek bank behind the house.

Since the bank is washing out and getting closer and closer to the house every year, this seemed like a good idea. The wood will rot and hold the dirt for awhile. I was glad Chris was good enough to do this part. I didn't want to be the one doing it. I could just see me forgetting to put the tractor in reverse and driving off the bank. (Gulp)

So while my honey manned the tractor, me and the kids worked on the little stuff...

Everything is old on this place. This is the forge that used to be in my great-grandfather's livery...

This grinding stone is probably close to a hundred years old too...

Heres an old corn grinder. I can remember my grandpa showing my brother and I how it worked when we were little kids. We thought it was so cool. We were always sneaking ears of corn to grind up...

Of course, moving all this junk, especially this time of year, requires a person to be VERY careful...

Look away Mikey!! My big, killin' machine got himself a little rattler...

The next load produced this much larger bull snake...

He got a little damaged, but I think he will be alright. Megan and I rather like snakes...as long as they are NOT poisonous!!!

Ta-Da!!!

The next day we went back and I put the kids to work on nail detail...

A friend of mine lent me his rolling magnet. Man, that thing is AWESOME!! They ended up gathering up about 20lbs of old nails, screws and odds and ends of little metal. I had to stay on them though, every time I turned my back, it went from nail detail to snail detail. What else can you expect from two teenagers...especially when they are dating-LOL.

Chris and I moved onto moving the rest of the old stuff out of the yard. Aren't these old iron rims cool. Oh yea...I am so saving them!!

This is the neatest little wagon. The box is ka-pute but the axles and rims are good, so I have dreams of rebuilding it. I even found the original wooden seat for it...

The one thing my great-grandfather, my grandfather or my dad never did was get rid of anything!! I forgot to get a picture of all of the old horse-drawn equipment that we moved and lined up, outside of the "lane". Some of it was converted to be used with tractors, so the tongues are gone, but a lot of it still have the original wooden tongues. Very cool...
Now that my hard-working, looking-good in that tractor honey has helped me get this yard cleaned up, it will make it much easier to sort through things this winter. There are trailer loads of scrap-iron that need to be hauled out, both here and at mom's. Never fear, the cool stuff will be staying for at least another couple of generations!!