The Scavenger Hunt...AKA Our Re-purposing Journey

The farm we live on has been in my husband's family for four generations now. The main house was built by his great grandparents. The stairs to the basement were being poured the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed...and I have heard that story, as well as many others, only about a zillion times and I still love hearing them. My Father In Law is the type that can't hardly throw anything away, someone might need it someday. (He can't seem to put anything away either, but that's another story!) At first, it was annoying with piles of this and that around the farm...I tend to be anti-clutter. Now I am thankful for his habit!

There are outbuildings, of course. Among them a big barn, a hog barn, 2 big sheds, little sheds, and a chicken house. I only recently ventured out to the hog barn for the first time to poke around and man, did it get me excited! In it I found an old wood door. And it still had hinges! JACKPOT! It will become the lid to the cold frame I am building. That inspired me to go on a scavenger hunt to see what all I could find to work on my new endeavors. Hubby and I jumped in his truck and around the farm we went.

In a large shed, a pile of all types and sizes of building wood. That will make the rest of the cold frame as well as other things, like a frame for the seed starter. Fencing for the chicken house was found. Materials to use for a duck pen, found in the hog barn. In an old stove I found racks to use for drying. In the old red barn (picture of it on the right), lots of well rotted cow manure and on the top level straw bales. In the shed, a florescent light fixture to use for the seed starter I am building. And my absolute favorite (and I must take pictures!) is the top cover to a horse wagon - it is a steel frame that is going to make a wonderful my-first-greenhouse! We also found shovels, shovels, and more shovels as well as rakes - can never have too many of them around. And there are a whole bunch of big black mineral buckets that I have already used one to start a compost bin and plan to use several more for that purpose. I'll post as these projects get underway.

I have to say, I now am looking forward to cleaning out the basement and the attic! There are generations worth of stuff there and it will be exciting to see what we find and see what we can use or re-purpose. Our trip around the farm and our time will save us a ton of money and it was actually a great fun "date" for hubby and I. I look forward to doing it again! And quite frankly, all these empty farm buildings have the wheels in my head going...

I'd love to hear your scavenger hunting and re-purposing stories!