Major progress with the barn and outhouse

Last week was very productive, as my parents were visiting me at the cottage to help me out with some bigger tasks. We felled all the trees growing between the barn and the road. In the picture above we've already cleared half of the trees, the barn was completely hidden behind maples and rowans.

We had to fell the trees over the road towards a power line, so we had to be extra careful.

And here it is, after! I'm so happy and relieved to have this done. Now you can see that there is a bit of a mound between the barn and the road. I'm hoping to get an excavator and flatten out this strip of land, remove tree stumps and bushes and add a drainage ditch.

We continued work on the barn courtyard slash future parking space. It used to be very dark, almost no sunlight made it through the tree canopy.

Me and my dad felled most of the trees growing in the courtyard. Dad was on the chainsaw, I was removing and collecting branches. Previously we took turns on the chainsaw but it was more efficient this way. 

Lots more light on the courtyard afterwards! The inside of the barn also got a lot lighter, now that natural light has ways to get inside.

Because I had rented a small van, I wanted to clear some rubbish away from the loft inside the barn. This was the before - lots of old fruit boxes, glass bottles, paperbacks etcetera.

It cleared out very nicely! I left some furniture that may be of use, an iron bed frame and three little tables. I also left a couple smaller objects, such as a cute miniature log house. I still need to clear out a bag of concrete that I couldn't lift. 

The previous owners used this space as a sleeping loft, I'm hoping I can do the same with a bit of more cleanup. The space needs to be proofed against squirrels and the ceiling needs panelling. But for now, this space will serve as is as storage during the house renovations.

We also removed the old electrical pole that was just lying in the garden. I love having it gone as these things are full of toxic chemicals.

We built a temporary wood storage out of an old junior-sized bed. (The bed had some mold on it so not necessarily appropriate for sleeping anymore.)

Mom cut some dead branches off my apple trees. She also did a lot of chipping of branches I had cut down earlier.

We also finally cleared the fallen tree off my outhouse, hooray! I'm so relieved to have this obstacle course gone. Chopping the stem that had fallen to the ground was fairly straight forward, but the stems that had fallen on the roof we had to first pull to the ground to be able to clear them safely.

Now I have a safe outhouse! No more climbing over and under trees and hoping that nothing falls on me. Or my guests. Such a relief. Although, I'm still ducking when getting out of there out of muscle memory 😄