If you have a stash....................

This is an eye-opener for all of us with a hobby where we have amassed HUGE quantities of stuff. We think it's OK to leave it to our families, friends, or guild members to clean up after we can no longer do it ourselves. But have you considered the time, effort, and money that is required to clean it up? 

Here's the thing -- my parents live on a farm. There are no dumpster services to call, there are no handy donation centers, and there is no weekly garbage or recycling service. The majority of the stuff will get left in an old house and buried when the house is razed to the ground, or it may get burned, although burning garbage is not as easy today as there are many rules. 

Now if you live in the city, you have access to services that make it easy for you to get rid of stuff. Even cleaning out a home, you would be able to load a car with recycling and take it to the recycling depot. You could bring in a dumpster, and within a day, you could empty the house and be done. You could call friends and have them carry it away. But it's a very RESOURCE-consuming effort to get rid of what we have collected. 

But let's say that you are a quilter, and you have passed on. You have a huge room filled with fabric, patterns, wool, and gosh knows what else you have, but the house has to be emptied. So who are you going to call? 

Here's an example. My Mom had a MASSIVE collection of ceramics. Not only did she have the molds that formed the shapes, but she had much greenware and already fired items. 

So you find a buyer who is persuaded to bring help. Four of them arrived bright and early (8 AM) with a large truck. I'm going to say that was a 26-foot truck. 

26-foot truck

Then with MANY boxes and four people doing most of the packing and moving, and TEN hours later, you leave with a truck filled. This is NOT the final picture, but the height of the boxes in the truck was half height as this stuff is heavy and delicate, and it was jammed to the end of the tailgate. And I mean JAMMED. 

Almost full

And the SAD news is that it honestly doesn't look like anything was removed from the house. I guess if you look at it this way, the area was SUPER JAMMED when they started, and now it's just jammed. 

So the moral of that story is if you have a LARGE collection of something and you think it's OK to leave it for someone else to clean up, you're saddling someone with a HUGE job. Perhaps it would be better to get a friend or family member NOW and start clearing out things that you will never use. Imagine if a NON-quilter came to clear out your stash. They would have no idea where to even start. And even if the person coming to clear out was a quilter, would they know what goes with what? The sheer enormity would be daunting! 

When I started to quilt and bought fabric willy-nilly, I gave no thought to that, but after seeing the results of hoarding and the challenge it is to clean up, I've been acutely aware of the situation and am doing my best to rectify the situation. I won't go into details, as I think you've all seen enough from previous visits that old papers, books, etc., need to be dealt with. It's a HUGE issue and wastes so much time on everyone's part. 

My brother is into motorcycles, and look at the amazing weathervane that he has over his shop! Yep -- that's a motorcycle, and I think it's specifically a Harley Davidson!

Motorcycle weathervane

How is this for a barn quilt? I spotted this on my Aunt Irene's barn. I love the small barn, and the barn block is perfect. 

Barn quilt on a barn

They have had llamas for years, and look at this guy. I think he's in desperate need of a haircut. He looks like a yak or a woolly mammoth. 

Llama in disguise

But you never know what you'll find on this "funny" farm. That's what my cousin calls it, and a lot of the animals belong to her. She has goats, guinea hens, and loads of cats, and dogs. It's actually a fun place to check out. 

One of the goats

We also spotted a moose on the drive. That's something I've never seen in this area before, although they have been in the area for a while now. 

A moose

And I had the pleasure of following this large piece of equipment for a while. Having him pull over is NOT an option, and the car that was coming towards him had to pull completely off the gravel road to let him pass. When the equipment turned into the farm, it was a track tractor and an air seeder, which comprises two big pieces of equipment. So not only was the entire unit wide, but the length was pretty substantial as well. If you're a car -- you take a back seat and drive slowly behind him. And that allowed me to get a picture! 

Stuck behind the farm equipment

Farming is so different from when I lived here. OK -- so I found a video. Of course, there's a video for everything out there.   In the video, you'll see how LONG this entire unit was, and there are several different setups, but if you watch for the RED tractor, you'll see the tracks on the tractor, NOT wheels. It's amazing to see how technology has changed the world as that entire unit would be driven by GPS, so not an ounce of seed and fertilizer would be wasted by seeding over something that had already been seeded. 

I know I'm a geek, and I'm OK with that. Totally fascinating to see how this works. 

Well, today, we're off to see an accountant to get some questions answered. And what I'm loving about the entire process is that everyone is on the same page. So now -- get the answers, have another discussion, and then attempt to figure out the road map to get from A to B. All very productive, and we'll see what happens. 

OH --- the ticks are pretty bad around here, and well, I'm not walking in any grass if I can avoid it. But even so, I found a stupid tick on my hand. He was still crawling around, trying to find a spot to burrow, but I made good work of it. He will NOT be searching for any spot to burrow!

Have a super day1!

Ciao!!!