Organizing and decluttering the homestead

[Beekissed]

There is a big pile of old railroad ties down the track right where my property ends. We dragged out three of the best to take to Mom a few years ago. I think they went on to support the steps into her shed at the cabin.

I found these advertised for free in a local ad only to find a long lost cousin had them. Since my truck couldn't haul more than a few of them, he delivered the rest to me on a big flat bed trailer. They are old and more than a few have some rotten places in them, but still very solid, heavy things. I'm using them for around the flower beds, to stack lumber on, as a foundation for a small log cabin playhouse we want to make the grands in a few years, etc.

I'm sure they will all find a good place before it's all said and done.

 

[flowerbug]

I've had to start getting realistic about my wood hoarding....I tend to store small scraps as I find myself using those quite a lot. This season, with many wood projects going on, I found I had no more room for small scraps...none. I have enough.
...
wood......Houston, I think I have a problem.....

any bits of wood i can't use get stuck along the edges of the hedge or other edges where they can rot and the animals will pick them apart or the fungi will take care of them. if you have any woods they'll be glad to have those pieces of wood instead of burning them. when people keep pulling dead wood out of a forest they are eventually removing good habitat for other creatures and also nutrients that the trees would eventually get.

up here there is a problem in some areas where the forest floors are getting eaten back by deer and the worms are eating all the leaves so much that the native flowers are no longer able to survive. that's right, worms can be destructive pests in places... my lil buddies... if you go fishing don't let your worms escape into the surrounding forest if it hasn't already got them.

railroad ties are so heavy! i won't move them now myself but as a kid we'd get four of us to move them. to surround a flower bed they are ok, but i'd not use them for surrounding a vegetable garden. too much gunk in 'em. yes, gunk is a technical word...

 

[CrealCritter]

Maintaning a ample supply of different varieties of wood is NOT hoarding! I have a sawmill, so yes I have wood up the ying yang and lots of it.

 

[tortoise]

I need to take another pass at decluttering and organizing too.

I'm working on my kitchen today. Cooking up stray bits of things in the pantry. Somehow I always end up "eating down the pantry" in January.

I found about a cup of slivered almonds and then went online to find a cookie recipe to use them all. They're okay-ish. I mean, for keto standards for baked goods, Recipe here: https://foodschmooze.org/recipe/dorie-greenspans-3-ingredient-almond-crackle-cookies/ I used erythritol instead of sugar, same amount. I baked them in silicone cupcake liners, so clean up was easy! Definitely met my requirements for easy.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

One can never have too many screws, nuts, bolts, hinges, and other hardware. I keep a paint tray on the corner of one of the shop work benches and toss the screws in that. Have a bin system for nuts and bolts, and a covered tote for hinges and other hardware. I have a couple jars of screws in the house, so I don't need to run to the shop when working in the house.

 

[flowerbug]

Maintaning a ample supply of different varieties of wood is NOT hoarding! I have a sawmill, so yes I have wood up the ying yang and lots of it.

i really like chunks of bark as a mulch material especially if i have cardboard to go underneath 'em. they'll last several years and even if they don't it's all good humus, scrape what you can to the side, put down some new cardboard, scrape 'em back the other way, done...

i'm decluttering today by sorting through old papers. we won't get into the technicality that it would have taken up less space had i just left them alone, but at least the "TO BE SHREDDED" pile has a chance of that happening in the next six months as compared to where they were before.

 

[CrealCritter]

i really like chunks of bark as a mulch material especially if i have cardboard to go underneath 'em. they'll last several years and even if they don't it's all good humus, scrape what you can to the side, put down some new cardboard, scrape 'em back the other way, done...

i'm decluttering today by sorting through old papers. we won't get into the technicality that it would have taken up less space had i just left them alone, but at least the "TO BE SHREDDED" pile has a chance of that happening in the next six months as compared to where they were before.

Credit card offers, seed catalogs, junk mail, cardboard packages burn, in the burn barrel every week around here.

 

[Beekissed]

One can never have too many screws, nuts, bolts, hinges, and other hardware. I keep a paint tray on the corner of one of the shop work benches and toss the screws in that. Have a bin system for nuts and bolts, and a covered tote for hinges and other hardware. I have a couple jars of screws in the house, so I don't need to run to the shop when working in the house.

Now THOSE are downright necessary! Hardware is where I want to have MORE stashed away, as I've hit Dad's stored old hardware pretty hard these past few years. I have started a sorting system for screws and such but most of the odds and ends of hardware just defy a category....they don't even have a title. Some are hard to identify as to their original purpose, but I know they'll come in handy for fashioning something else to fasten something to something later on.

So, it's necessary to just have an odds and ends bin/jar/bucket for those types of things. Then I just paw around in it and hope I can spy that thingamabob that I saw last time I was on the hunt for a doohickey so I can make a fastener for a whatsit I'm making.

 

[baymule]

One can never have too many screws, nuts, bolts, hinges, and other hardware. I keep a paint tray on the corner of one of the shop work benches and toss the screws in that. Have a bin system for nuts and bolts, and a covered tote for hinges and other hardware. I have a couple jars of screws in the house, so I don't need to run to the shop when working in the house.

Woman after my own heart. The best present I can get is a 5 pound box of deck screws. I love those things! I hoarded wood too. I worked at a garbage company and would go through the roll off boxes and toss out the used lumber. I pulled nails and stacked it in the garage. I also hit the cull rack at Lowes. My husband thought I was a loon. He humored me and we went from Livingston to Sugarland to get old power poles, 100 miles away. Heck, I got 22 of them for $80!! I had piles of lumber. When we bought this place, of course all my carefully hoarded treasures came with me.

We had a 36'x36' barn built from all my hoarded lumber. We paid to have it built as that was above my building abilities. We were one power pole short, but we had cut a large cedar tree, so we used it. We had to buy twenty two 2"x6"x20' for rafters because I didn't have enough. We bought new plywood decking for the roof and all new metal for the roof and sides. We had less than $8,000 in it and over half of that was the metal. Insurance appraised it for $30,000. My husband quit making fun of me. LOL

 

[flowerbug]

Credit card offers, seed catalogs, junk mail, cardboard packages burn, in the burn barrel every week around here.

burning plastic in a burn barrel does not give complete combustion and so that means a lot of nasty pollutants are being released (or left in the ashes). by nasty i mean things like dioxins which can hang around for many years and cause negative results for people and other creatures.

i'll continue cutting the plastic windows out and send them to the landfill (or to a real incinerator). the shiny stuff can be recycled. the useful stuff i'll keep feeding to the worms or burying. it doesn't take me that long to deal with it.