What NOT to do on your property![emoji849]

[JethroB]

I had a couple hundred feet of heavily overgrown barbwire and T-post fence bulldozed once. Lesson learned was to watch the dozer as he pushed along and account for every T-post. Several sheared off at ground level. A bugger to find them and then pull up. Stray pieces of barbwire scattered about too. A cheap metal detector came in handy.

 

[buck12]

Old overgrown fences are no fun. My property has been in the family for well over a hundred years. There are cross fences old garden lots and 113 years of junk buried in brush. I am slowly cleaning it up. The fences are by far the most work.

 

[Tinhack]

Sometimes I have to wonder how little past farmers and current ones too care about the environment. The landscape is just their garbage dump. Why not just put all that stuff in their living room instead? I can trace the route to one farmers house by the beercans and packaging along the roadways. I know, I cleaned up a sideroad a few weeks back. Not even my road.

I've got about 1500' bordered by a county road. I pick up about two large trash bags full of garbage every month. The worst is down by the stop sign where it meets a state road. Neither are my roads but I pay for the privilege of having one boarder on the state road. I clean and mow that one too.

What I hate most is the advertising signs that show up near the corner. Most are the plastic cardboard type. I tear those down when I see them. Whose going to complain? There's a state law forbidding the signs within 1000' of a state route. A new neighbor kept putting up garage sale signs at the corner every weekend. I kept taking them down. He went so far as to drive rebar into the ground for stakes. That was no match for my Kenbota. He finally called the Sheriff when he saw me taking down his signs. The deputy came over to my place to ask about the signs. I said; yes, you want them? He said no but wanted to see them. I showed him about five or six I had collected with his address on them. He laughed then left. I think my neighbor was issued a ticket. The signs never showed up again. And he moved away.

 

[Williy]

Our garden was fenced in with chicken wire and metal T posts we haven't used the garden in over 10 - 12 years and the chicken wire
is rusty so when tractor comes in will use the bucket to gather up the
wire and when I come to a T post will pull out with bucket and I'll make
a rack on the back for the T post and get it cleaned up. Grass & weeds
have taken over the fence so its gotta go.

Ya know that the I'll do it later always seems to bite you in the rear!

willy

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

I've got about 1500' bordered by a county road. I pick up about two large trash bags full of garbage every month. The worst is down by the stop sign where it meets a state road. Neither are my roads but I pay for the privilege of having one boarder on the state road. I clean and mow that one too.

What I hate most is the advertising signs that show up near the corner. Most are the plastic cardboard type. I tear those down when I see them. Whose going to complain? There's a state law forbidding the signs within 1000' of a state route. A new neighbor kept putting up garage sale signs at the corner every weekend. I kept taking them down. He went so far as to drive rebar into the ground for stakes. That was no match for my Kenbota. He finally called the Sheriff when he saw me taking down his signs. The deputy came over to my place to ask about the signs. I said; yes, you want them? He said no but wanted to see them. I showed him about five or six I had collected with his address on them. He laughed then left. I think my neighbor was issued a ticket. The signs never showed up again. And he moved away.

We had the exact same experiences at our last place. We were on a busy corner of a county highway and one of only 2 roads going down into a "bedroom community". Trash in our road ditches constantly, and every swinging Joe would put yard sale and garage sale signs on our corner all summer long. Every weekend I'd be down there in the ditches cleaning up garbage and taking down signs.

We're no where near a busy street now, can't say I miss it.

 

[oosik]

After removing the woven wire fence and all the weeds - out to the open land fill that I maintain. I burn/bury the yearly accumulation in the winter. Once the woven wire has been burned - it rusts away very nicely.

 

[Jstpssng]

I hate barbed wire. It's nasty stuff which keeps working long after whomever put it up is dead. I see it strung through the woods along what was fields 70 years ago, and you don't need to look very hard to see where a deer or other animal has left a piece of meat on it. Back around WWI the previous owner of the orchard that I worked in erected two tiers high of 4 foot two strand, topped with barbed wire. The sheep fence has long rotted away but the barbed wire hasn't; rather, it's grown into trees. Some places it's sagged, so there is barbed wire hanging off the ground... right about at throat level.

 

[oosik]

I hate barbed wire also. I had to fence my 80 acres. It's a pure rectangle - 1320 x 2640. Mile and a half of 4 strands of EverSharp barbed wire. 775 - T-145 posts and an untold number of those heavy rolls of barbed wire. 160 of the posts had to have holes bored in the basaltic lava bedrock. OH, boy - was that ever a damn blast.

I wish the neighbors cows would simply recognize my property line and stay on their side without a barbed fence. Unfortunately - they don't.

I quit having dreams about all the work involved about 35 years ago. If I NEVER have to lift my 45# home made post pounder again - it will be too soon.

 

[thebmrust]

The former owners of our property also bulldozed the land. Then they pushed everything into a pile and tried to burn it:
Steel. Lead. Aluminum. Wood (all sorts), Glass... I find several pieces every time I walk around.

 

[Oaktree]

The former owners of our property also bulldozed the land. Then they pushed everything into a pile and tried to burn it:
Steel. Lead. Aluminum. Wood (all sorts), Glass... I find several pieces every time I walk around.

Dunno how things were done in your part of the country, but here in New England before there was such a thing as the town dump (or maybe people who couldn't be bothered to use it), they just dumped every piece of trash behind the house...in the woods, over an embankment, etc. Over the years it all got covered over, but try to dig anywhere and all you hit is bottles, cans, old shoes, bedsprings, you name it. Even after 18 years I'm still picking rusty metal & pieces of broken glass out of my garden. The house is ~200 years old, so I'm sure there's lots of it.
OTOH, a couple years ago I did find an early 50s vintage Chevy hood ornament.