Retired

Well, I know I've been saying this for ages now, but I think finally this time it's the last of the tires. I mean not that I'd be all that surprised if we uncovered a couple more here and there; I mean I do know how these things go by now. Also, there are a few axle-type contraptions kicking about that still have the wheels with tires on them, and the guys at the junkyard have been known to grouse about that a bit and then take some off the total, so it may be best to remove them and get rid of them ourselves. Still, this load of tires in the back of Tara's new bug will at least do it for that area over by the shed. So yay!



So that is (again, in theory) the last dozen tires we've got. Out of how many, I don't know. Several years back we had a full gross, yes, one hundred and forty-four of the damned things set aside to be picked up. Those went (though not by the people who were supposed to get them, the bastards), but there have been many many more since. Several loads of from a dozen to something like twenty I'd guess in the back of Larry the Volvo station waggon just since we've started this blog back in June. And before that there were plenty other trips to the dump (sorry, Recycling Center) that did not include the gross of them. So if I had to guess how many tires we've gotten out of here it's something like two hundred fifty, three hundred? I might be low-balling that, too, who can even tell. Though given the way I tend to minimize things like oh I don't know achievements, it might realistically be rather higher.

At any rate the fuckers are gone, and good riddance.

Where We Were.. Where do we even start? - Summer 2004

We've got a new problem with Tetanus Burger, and it has to do with an overabundance of things...

No, not the hoard of junk, but the hoard of photographs taken of the junk, that predate this very blog. We've taken thousands of photographs over the past 10 years of the progress we have made. If you thought there was a lot of stuff now, wait till you see what we've already carted away! It's a little recurring section called "Where We Were".

And yet like attacking the junk, it's difficult to know even where to start with posting some of the photos. So for this installment, I've picked at random the Summer of 2004.

Back then, the Red Sox were just another team of lovable losers, we thought maybe John Kerry was a shoe-in for President, and it seems we were starting to make some genuine headway on the crap in the yard. This was the first summer we were more or less given carte blanche to do what was necessary.

Back then we were uncovering piles upon piles of rotted lumber, spare oil tanks (how the hell are you supposed to get rid of those?) 55 gallon drums full of broken glass and mystery liquids (what- we won't say, all we'll say is they're gone), extra storm windows brought home from the town dump, etc. etc..







Piles of iron? I know there's always more, but there was much more in the past, back when we were just hauling it to the dump and not getting any money for it either.



Cars? Well there were a lot more of them, in any color you want as long as it's rust. Keen observers can see that a few of these cars have been offered new leases on life or have simply earned a last minute reprieve from a certain and ugly execution.

What better place to store car seats which someone presumably saved since they were "GOOD!", than outdoors year after year in the snow, rain and sun? Better call Germany and tell those Volkswagen engineers how durable their "leatherette" fabric really is after 20 years of rigorous testing!



Oh, and that rusty rectangular tank to the left of those blue and mold colored seats? Some sort of parts cleaning bin that was half full of some nasty parts-cleaning liquid.. All gone, though I don't recall how we got rid of it. I think we brought it to the dump and dumped it into their waste oil. Anyway, it's gone. When I see people freaking out over recycling a foil wrapper off a burrito or a teaspoon of oil... I can't get very worked up about it considering what we've had to deal with.





Well, that's it for this installment. In our next riveting episode, we pay our respects to some of our honored dead. Yes, they came to this property, believing they would be restored, only to be thrown into the Colosseum and pitted against the undefeated champion, "The Claw".



Who will win? Find out!!

I'm So Tired

My mind is on the blink and I forgot to upload this yesterday, when we did a second tire run; I think we got rid of another fifteen. There are still a few left, here and there, though I'm not sure when they are scheduled to go. Here's the usual Larry-loaded-up picture:



We're getting there.

Almost All Tired Out

Did a tire run today, which, unlike the iron runs, alas, is something that costs money rather than makes money. Still, Tara found a place that charges significantly less than the dump (recycling center), so we brought seventeen tires over today. Some of them were on good or unusual rims that Tara then kept; and while I do question the need to keep them, she also took them away to store in her own garage, so hey, whatever, do as you will.

Here's Larry, all loaded up:



You will notice his back bumper is back. Tara came over one day last week and bolted the thing back on; I saw she was out in the driveway, then by the time I put some shoes on she had gone, making it look like the bumper fairy had come. Poof!

When we got back tonight we went out and looked in the yard, and there actually don't look to be too many tires left. There are probably enough for another smallish run tomorrow but after that I think that's about it. I mean, I'm sure we'll come across the odd one here and there in the future, but we just may have gotten through the quantities of them outside, finally.

Fingers crossed.

Tired

Here's one of the things we did today: we got rid of (another) fifteen old rusty-rimmed mosquito-breeding tires. I'm not sure how many we've gotten rid of so far, but a few years ago we had a full gross of the things in the side yard to be picked up by the tire guys. That's right, one-hundred-and-forty-four of the damned things. And that was years ago now--since then we've made numerous additional trips to tire places, or the dump, and gotten rid of many, many, more. I'd guess easily another hundred.

Before:



Larry the Volvo all loaded up:



And the best photo of all: the beautiful beautiful after shot:



Yay!

So Let's See

I suppose I should start off with some kind of overview of things, here. My father was a compulsive hoarder, born in 1923 and a child for the Great Depression. I say 'was', because, even though he is still alive, several years ago he had a stroke and now lives in a nursing home. He doesn't remember much. Perhaps that is just as well; he'd kill us if he could understand what we're doing to his 'stuff.'

My sister and I were born to either side of 1970; my father had, I think, already begun the hoarding before we were born. Although I, at least, am only just beginning to call it that, and recognize it as such: we just thought he was weird, or impossible, or hyper-controlling, or inscrutable or something. Nothing he did made any sense to me at all until I read about OCPD, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.

Unlike many hoarders' houses the inside of ours was mostly okay. I mean, sure, he piled newspapers and magazines everywhere, took over all the closets and stuffed them full to bursting with new shirts with the tags still on them bought for 19¢ at Building #19, and kept talking about building more bookcases to put his ever-growing collection of cheapo books in (some of which were ones libraries had thrown away); but, for the most part, the house was livable. Well, perhaps I should put that in quotes, 'livable'. Since plumbing, um, irregularities were de rigueur growing up. But that's a whole 'nother post.

I really think the inside of the house only stayed somewhat okay because our mother fought him tooth and nail to keep it 'livable'. There was a lot of screaming going on in here growing up. I shudder to think how bad he would have let it get if left to his own.

But the yard. Yikes.

He was a mechanic, you see, who worked on the type of car I of course hate most in the world now: air-cooled Volkswagens. Once upon a time he had been employed by a dealership, but somewhere in there (and I'm not sure what led to it; there are stories of him being fired from the dealership on Christmas Eve) he decided he was going to do it from his own garage.

And that is why he began, or that is all the excuse he needed to begin, to collect cars. Volkswagens mainly, of course, but sometimes that didn't matter; if cousin so-and-so was done with his crappy Datsun pickup truck, why that might be useful, right? And not just cars, either, but car parts--engines, transmissions, tires, hoods, doors, seats, axles, anything and everything car related he saved. And when he ran out of space in the garage, he built a shop. When he ran out of space in the shop and it was getting difficult to work, he started another outbuilding. And so then of course he also saved building materials--scraps of plywood, boards salvaged from other buildings, moulding, doors, windows, rolls of linoleum, cedar shingles, tin cans full of nails.

There was more, of course. But Rage is tapping on my shoulder, so I'll stop there.

He's been in that nursing home for four years now; and though we've been cleaning it all up, it's still slow going. For one thing, one does not clean up forty years worth of crap overnight. For another, it is very heavy emotional work which brings up all kinds of nasty memories and sets all kinds of negative 'tape loops' playing in the head.

We have done quite a lot already, understand. At one point I believe (and Tara would know better than I) there were eighty-eight cars on the property. It is down to twenty-five now. We have cleared out space and reclaimed land, had innumerable tires taken away, brought carload after carload of iron to the scrap yard, filled bags and bags and bags of the fifty-five gallon heavy-duty trash bags, and even rented (and filled) a dumpster once: and there is still more. Just the other day Tara moved a pile of hoods aside and discovered several more stacks of tires. We brought another twenty-four of the things to a tire place last week and by today's count there are still at least sixty left.

So then, this blog. I have made it a goal to get the yard clean by the end of the year, before 2011 rolls in. And this blog will be a way to keep track of it all and to help us see the progress we have, and will, make. Expect lots of before and after shots.

Also it will serve as a place to vent our homicidal impulses, if for instance we uncover yet another fucking milk crate full of cedar shingles and carpenter ants. Consider it a service to society.