We try to be “green” with the farm, but within reason.  We watch “Alaska: The Last Frontier” and while I applaud the Kilcher’s for keeping everything they have in a junkyard “just in case” they need it someday, I’m not exactly into keeping a junkyard on this property when we are trying so desperately to clean out.

But there are a few exceptions.  There is an old, rusty metal trough in the backyard.  It had a tree growing inside of it, and several small trees growing around it.  It’s embedded in the ground, and no equipment we have is capable of pulling it out of there.  So we decided to work with it, instead of against it.

It’s about 8 feet long, 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep; the perfect place to throw a lot of debris.  We have hunks of cement,  a whole lot of rocks, rotting logs, and loose straw that we raked up from when the grass was seeded last fall.  It all went into the trough, – heavy stuff first, topped off with garden soil, and then I dug 40 little holes and planted 40 strawberry plants.  It is now my raised strawberry bed, and I can’t wait to harvest it.

Not far from the rusty trough I found four large, suspicious stones.  At first I thought they were tombstones that had toppled over, but there were no names on them.  They were curious though, each exactly the same size, obviously man-made, with slightly rounded corners.  Chris hoisted them into the cart on the back of his tractor – and we realized exactly what they were – bags of cement that had been tossed in the back yard, got soaked, dried, hardened and then the paper rotted away – four perfect cement stepping stones.  They are just what I was looking for to give access through the muddy bog in the front yard to get to the stream where watercress is growing.

I also found an old coal bucket.  It’s in good shape, if you don’t mind rust, and I think it will make a perfect planter for some petunias this summer.

But not everything is salvageable.  There is no repurposing the original chicken coop.  It is falling apart, probably hobbled together long-ago “Kilcher-style” with farm crates for nesting boxes.  At some point we will tear it down and burn it.  But first we have to saw some of the tree trunks that have seized some large chains and are holding them captive.  Maybe they can be repurposed.  I’ll put those in our junkyard just in case.

Fill it with debris, of course — chunks of cement, old branches, etc.

 

Perfect stepping stones to navigate the stream.

It’s a little rough now, but just wait till its filled with petunias.

 

Definitely not something that can be re-purposed, it needs to come down.

 

 

But these big chains might go to our junkyard — you never know when you might need something.