More Virginia Creeper battling in a brief break from the rain yesterday.

There's a full size rake in there for scale.

Spent a lot of time ripping and tearing the root network that criscrosses the area just below the ground, but there's always more of it.

With some luck I break enough of it to separate it into smaller areas which I can attack individually. Divide and conquer!

Good anger therapy: Tearing on the Virginia Creeper tendrils until a whole lump comes off the shed wall and roof.

But now I gotta rip and tear the bottoms out too and then put it on the burn pile.

Not a big fan of burning stuff without at least using the energy, but no other way to kill this stuff. Unless you mulch it into tiny, tiny pieces, it grows back. For the same reason you can't throw it on the compost.

EPA outlines next steps for J.H. Baxter site cleanup in Oregon

EUGENE, Ore. — Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) presented…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Environment #Cleanup #Contamination #environmental #EPA #J.H.Baxter #oregon #risk #Science #Superfund
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/17539/

https://www.europesays.com/us/70753/ EPA outlines next steps for J.H. Baxter site cleanup in Oregon #Cleanup #contamination #Environment #Environmental #EPA #J.H.Baxter #Oregon #risk #Science #Superfund #UnitedStates #UnitedStates #US

Been reclaiming some more jungle. Discovered the hazelnut bush actually has a few hazelnuts, so I tried to clear better access to it.

Found another blackcurrant, big but so infested with Virginia creeper that we'll probably have to cut it down together. It's possible to pull the creepers out of an apple tree, but the blackcurrant bush just tears out with them.

The little blackcurrant we planted did ok initially but some ants chose to build their home in its roots, so now it's sad.

The ants are crazy this year. So many heaps everywhere. Eggs under every rock. Probably not just us, I see Norfa has a sale for 1kg packs of ant powder

And a little cherry tree that planted itself and is already pretty tall and bearing some cherries, yet to be sampled.

New Bamboo Plantations Are Healing Villages Choked by Toxic Ash from Coal Plants in India

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/new-bamboo-plantations-are-healing-villages-choked-by-toxic-ash-from-coal-plants-in-india/

Scrap collection.

After sorting that sheetmetal, I drove around the farm and picked up some scrap metal that is definitely destined for the junkyard.

Piled it up behind the big barn for now. Should have a car trailer full soon.

Since both northern scrap dealers are being accused of cheating (not letting you see the scale when weighing in/out, wtf), I think we'll wait until the road to Vilnius is upgraded and haul it there. I hate cheaters :-P

Another full day of work complete. Gotta push hard when the weather is good, can rest on the rainy days.

Noodle the Boat Kitty would like to encourage you to get out and enjoy your local waterways

https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2025/07/kayakers-work-to-fix-reputation-of-polluted-river-with-help-from-their-boat-kitty.html?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

Sorted a bunch more old clothes, so now the locker in the garage is finally cleared out and I can use it to stack my oils, coolants, paints and other fluids in it.

The garbarn cleanup is taking forever, because as soon as the weather got warmer I just dropped it and and opened up a hundred other projects outside :)

Ah well, all steps in the right direction. Slow progress is still progress.

There's another two lockers full of old clothes in the tractor parts shed, two trunks in the beekeeping hut and one locker in the grain barn, although that one I can clear with a shovel because the mice have chewed it all into a pile of coloured fabric scraps.

Some of the more intact bee houses. Unoccupied, last I checked.

Jungle all around them.

Slowly sorting out the old beehives in the overgrown orchard, as I'm making progress clearing around them.

Some might still be usable, but many are just too rotten, like this one. Someone wrote 1988 5 (May) in the lid, probably when the first colony moved in. And June 2000.

These are cold climate hives, they're insulated on three sides with cushions stuffed below and above the frames (now gnawed to pieces by mice).

I saved the metal roof, some of the frames, wax and a separator in good shape.

The planks are full of nails and difficult to re-use.

Stuff stored in a closet in the garbarn.

The purple one is going to the textile bin, the other two look like something someone might want, so we'll try Vinted/Skelbiu I guess.

One is faux fur and the other some fancy soviet era coat, very heavy and actually looking like good quality. It was made in Kaunas. Maybe some old guy wants it.

Parisians go in Seine

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gk7nk35l2o?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

Two old planes I found in the big barn cleanup.

The smaller one is pretty beat up, blade bent, rounded at the edge and a large chunk of the bottom torn out.

The larger jointer plane seems worth restoring. Some minor woodworm damage but the sole is flat and the blade looks like it's not been used much, just rusted.

'Like a clear-cut forestry operation': Cleanup begins at downburst-hit Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park
Crews with Ontario Parks and some contractors are busy clearing downed trees from a provincial park devastated by a recent downburst. One official says the storm destroyed dozens of trailers and vehicles as it knocked over trees. Alth...
#weather #accident #cleanup #SamueldeChamplainProvincialPark #News #Canada
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/champlain-park-cleanup-1.7572595?cmp=rss

“ #climate-related #disasters have cost the US economy at least $6.6 trillion in higher #insurance #premiums, #cleanup #spending and other expenses over the past 12 years.” www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti... #ClimateChange

Ignoring a $7 Trillion Financi...

Anybody lost their sunglasses here, around 1968 or so?

The old man's firewood sled. Someone built it from two ancient wooden skis and a wooden crate nailed on top. A stick joins them at the front with some string for pulling.

Recycled this today as we have no use for it and it was falling apart.

There's another pair of those wooden skis in the barn, in better condition. They look hand made.