Scrap Iron....and the Story of the Farm

Strange title huh? Well, it started off as just being, "Scrap Iron". But, to tell the story of the scrap iron, I really need to tell the story of the farm.  My parents purchased our farm in 1984. There's an old two story house on the property that they remodeled (I'll write the story of the house another time). The farm is around 200 acres with barns and sheds and a creek and three ponds and good bottom land. It has oak and pecan trees on it and beautiful views. My parents raised cattle, hay, corn, oats, etc.... 

The farm was beautiful. Not a blade of grass out of place. All the fences were painted. Flowers bloomed all around the house. The garden was amazing. There was an orchard too. My mother canned and preserved all the wonderful foods they grew. It was like something out of a magazine. 

But in December of 1995, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Fourteen months later, she passed away. And the farm began to slowly decline. My dad still had a garden. But most of the produce was given away to his friends. He let the orchard die. A few shrubs around the house survived, but there were no more flowers. Of course, he took excellent care of the cattle and hay fields. But the fence rows became grown up with briars. The barn roof started to leak. The house became cluttered. 

My dad wouldn't ask for help. And he wouldn't take any help that was offered. He took pride in doing things himself. And he was the best grandpaw that two girls could ever ask for. He worked hard all day, every day. And he NEVER threw ANYTHING away. Something that we didn't really notice until after he passed away. 

My dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and only lived for a few months. My husband and I inherited the farm (I'm an only child) in December of 2011. And here we are, four years later, still cleaning it up. So there's where the scrap iron part comes in. I felt like I needed to give a little background story before I wrote about how we've been hauling off scrap iron for the last few years.....but we've really put the most effort into it over the past few days. We actually rented a dumpster, and we've filled it up....twice. Along with multiple loads hauled on our trailer. And we still aren't finished. But we can sure see the light at the end of the tunnel now!! 

So the last few days on the farm have been spent throwing things like rusted fence posts, old plow discs, rolls of rusty barbed wire, rusted out cans and buckets, and other various odds and ends, into a huge dumpster. Ahhh.....life on the farm.....