DUMB Questions from a Country Living newbie...

[Larry Caldwell]

1) Where can I find 55 gal barrels without a top so I can use them for a burn barrel?

Try an ice cream company. They get syrups, chocolate, etc. in teflon lined 55 gallon drums, and the tops come off so they can get all the goo out. Sometimes you can get a couple pounds of chocolate left in the bottom of a barrel. :licking:

I have one that started life as a shooting target. It has several hundred holes in it, from .22 caliber up to shotgun slug size. Burn barrels take a lot of ventilation.

2) The prior owner had a burn pit that is full of stuff you should NEVER burn due to either it is inflammable, toxic, or other. Glass, fiberglass, plastic, car seats hot tub covers, etc. It is a MESS, some is burned, some is not. It is very close to one of my ponds, I dont want to poison the water (it is spring fed). Do I get a dumpster and dig it all out? What is the best way to handle this?

Yeah, the best thing to do is dig it out and haul it to a landfill. I bet you have other artifacts that need to be disposed of. When I bought my place, I hauled 28,000 lbs of scrap metal to a dealer, and filled six large dumpsters with the contents of the barn. You really don't want to burn anything plastic. It generates toxins that settle out and persist around the burn pile for years.

3) I have found a couple 55 gal drums with I think diesel in them scattered around the property. I also have a totally rust covered old style propane tank that is (of course) FULL! Can I siphon the diesel and use it? do I burn it? what can you do with a FULL but useless propane can? See question 1, can I empty the diesel (and water in some cases) and cut the lid off to make a burn barrel?

Some states have programs for decommissioning buried fuel tanks that will pump out and recycle old fuel oil, which is the same stuff as #2 diesel. They donate the proceeds to winter heat support for poor people, and the process doesn't cost you a dime. If it's fuel oil or diesel, the stuff in those barrels is worth about $2 a gallon even if it needs a lot of rehabilitation, so don't let anyone charge you for taking it.

Keep at least one barrel around if you plan to get a tractor. Rinse it out, give it a coat of paint and get a barrel pump and it will save you hauling tractor fuel in 5 gallon cans. Stabilize diesel that will be stored over a year, add a filter to the barrel pump just in case, and keep it someplace dry.

Use the propane tank to run the propane weed burner. You really want a propane wand. It's great for getting brush piles started, burning weeds out of gravel, heating castings before you weld them so thermal stress doesn't crack the weld, etc. etc.

4) One of my daughters is terrified of snakes. I've seen a 6-7" black rat snake and several smaller snakes on the property (none lately) but no copper heads yet. Is there a simple and easy way to keep snakes out of the "Yard" area?

Teach her to love king snakes, which are easily recognizable and eat rattlesnakes.

Those little windmill thumpers that are supposed to run off gophers work pretty well on snakes. Snakes hate vibrations in the ground. They are afraid of being stepped on, and will leave an area where the ground vibrates.

5) My other daughter is terrified of ticks. I got guinea fowl patrolling the yard and I hope that works. Is there anything else I can do non-chemical (my wife is VERY pro-organic type).

Your daughters will adapt to country life. So will your wife. Give them time, and buy them boots. Teach them to keep their pants tucked into their boots while walking. Insect repellent also works on ticks, but gee, that's a chemical.

6) Grass in the gravel drive. The 1 year total kill (I only use it on the gravel) only lasted 3 months max. How the heck do I keep the gravel clear of grass/weeds?

Get a 3 point blade with your tractor. You will need it to maintain the drive. Blade the drive smooth before adding gravel. Blade the gravel thrown to the sides by tire action back onto the drive. Your "total kill" sounds like glyphosate, and 3 months is about how long it takes new seeds to get established. You can either use glyphosate in between tractor blade jobs, or there are more effective soil sterilants on the market.

7) Related to gravel drive. when to buy more gravel? I know that the immediate "driveway" and the "y" in front of the house NEED more gravel, as does the main hill portion. What season is best to add gravel, and must all the weeds be dead first, etc. The driveway is how I get to work, which pays for all my tractor parts and tractor payments...

You need to crown the driveway so you don't get puddles. Drive through a puddle and the splash throws gravel out of the puddle, which just gets deeper and deeper until you have lakes in the drive. Water running down the hill will carry gravel along with it, and turn your driveway into the Grand Canyon. You have to get the water off the road. Ditches and water bars are called for if you can't crown the driveway to keep it dry.

The best time to blade a drive is when the soil is moist but not wet. It takes moisture to compact fill. If you really want to do a job that will last, blade the drive, top dress with gravel with plenty of fines, then compact the gravel with a vibrating roller. You might want to add a couple speed bumps, because a compacted drive is almost as smooth as asphalt. If your hill is steep you might want to post a sign limiting traffic to 4wd vehicles. Tires spinning out cause washboarding. If 2wd is all you have, post a sign telling people to stay off the gas. Lead footing causes washboarding.

 

[radioman]

you have many good posts here. as you found out, country living just takes time to adapt to. As for me, the garbage gets thrown out in july/aug nearly weekly or biweekly. during the winter, I can go 1-3 months with no issues since it too cold for anything to cause issues where I live. I compost what I can and throw the rest. If I were you, I would get all the old burn pile ashes and top 2 inches soil picked up and thrown out in garbage bags and dispose properly.

As for your driveway, I suspect you may need a tractor with a boxblade to "turnover" the top layer to keep weeds at bay and recrown it as needed. This is the cheapest way I know of unless you dont have a tractor yet.

 

[turnkey4099]

(1) Buy one of these and cut the top out of the drums that you already have (3) Super Duty Air Hammer with Chisels

<snip>

.

Or save your money and use a cold chisel and heavy hammer (2lb). Doesn't take long but wear gloves and ear protection - gets noisy.

For burn barrel: cut BOTH ends out, prop up on a couple concrete blocks or rock with old angle iron, bed rails or like to form 'grill' under it. Burns like a blowtorch, leaves absolutely no unburned scraps, shovel the leavigns out easy. It only took me a few years to learn the "punch holes in the bottom/sides does not make for a clean burn and leaves you will a half barrel of junk to dip out eventually.

Unfortunately, the year aftger I built a nice concrete block enclosure for mine the state made it illegal to use a burn barrel - to the point that I can burn prunings, limbs, branches, etc on a pile next to it but cannot burn them _in_ it. To add to that they even encourage people to rat out poeple using them.

I can see their point but I always burned clean and did not burn plastic and the like.

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

Gravel for drive. If you have a solid base what you want is to blade what you have, get it leveled off and then buy a "topping mix" (IIRC that is what they call it). Has lots of 'fines' in it and packs down solid. This will need to be done every 5 years or so but I haven't done it in over 20 .

You will still have to fight weeds/grass but that is life. The only other reasonably cheap recourse is a blacktop (no! no! no!) or concrete. Brick, pavers, and the like make a beautiful drive but are expensive and very labor intensive to install and keep up. I say no to blacktop as they can be a constant maintenance problem patching cracks, etc. and they need a _really_ soid base.

Harry K

 

[shadskey]

For the tick problem. We have found that aggresive removal of non-native, invasive, and exotic species throughout our property (like Chinese privet, bradford pear, Nepalese browntop, mimosa, Japanese honeysuckle, and Indian beefsteak plant) has allowed the native plant species to repopulate, and thus has brought back both insects and birds that eat ticks. We also plant native plants almost exclusively with an eye to what the birds and insects like, in addition to what is missing in our ecosystem. The difference is night and day. When we got here 4 years ago, the ticks were so bad you could get 5 just standing on the porch. and we actully had NO birds.. Now I only see the odd tick I pull off the dog, maybe once every six weeks. We no longer have to bathe in OFF to go get the horses.
Recommended sources include the book 'Bringing Nature Home', advice from your local Audubon Center (ours is Strawberry Plains), and 'Gaia's Garden', and any local native plant nursery/society you have. I don't know if you have privet, but ticks love it, and nothing else lives in it.

 

[lockhaven]

If you have recycle why not do that instead of a burn barrel?
Education is the key about snakes, they do not wait around to attack..just the opposite they try and get out of the way because they are fragile.
Ticks like high grass and brush keeping that down and the grass cut ticks are seldom a problem
Never use anything in an old barrel in you equipment no telling what it really is.
Scoop out the burn area put it in trash bags and a few at a time are put in with the regular garbage. Unless the previous owner was a chemical company everything there was at one time just household garbage.
Good idea about the old propane , use it for the grill or anything else. Get a hose and valve keep it away from the house and fill your own smaller bottles.
Once empty fill it with water and then cut it up for the scrap steel.
Why worry about grass in the drive way I just drive over it and mow the center.

 

[lockhaven]

OH about the trash I have found just a little splash of ammonia will keep just about everything away

 

[JDgreen227]

Burning barrels are more bother than they are worth, IMO. I had four half-round galvanized steel window wells with flanges that were taken off basement windows, I just bolted each pair back to back, set the rounds atop each other, and tack welded metal bars on the inside. They have been used as a burn pit for 15 years now and still have not rusted out. I did dig sod out and set them in the ground, then lined the outside with stones.

 

[whistlepig]

And don't forget to enjoy the life in the country. It's all worth the effort.

 

[LBrown59]

Here are pictures of setting up my burn barrell.
I use a jig saw or a saws all with a metal cutting blade to cut out both of ends of the barrell .




The problem with this is I had to shovel and scrape out the pit from time to time.




To resolve this I widened the pit so that I can just scoop out the ashes like this with my FEL.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My brother worked at a plant and could get a pass for as many free empty drums as he wanted .
He would get a pass for 4 or 5 drums and I'd go to the plant and pick them up for him .
Strange how none of them ever got to his place.
That worked well until he got sick and had to retire about ten years ago and later the plant closed down.
I still have about 6 of those drums.
I was pretty well stocked up at the time.