An enormous and daunting task we’ve faced since purchasing our home has been cleaning up the property. It seems like for years, people had just been hauling junk out to the barn for storage, sticking it in the hog shed or tossing it in the attic for “insulation” (really though, how effective is an old girdle as insulation?). We’ve had a lot of help from people willing to come haul away the scrap metal and thankfully, Iowa allows for rural burn piles without a permit so a lot of downed limbs and weeds have been taken care of pretty efficiently.
One place that makes me scratch my head is the sheep pen landfill. Someone dumped tons–TONS–of all sorts of non-biodegradable garbage out back. Now the girls and I get to haul it out, bucketful by bucketful. Everything from forks and spoons to glass bottles, mattress springs, sea shells and toys have been tossed.
