Hidden Treasure

While I will never attain the mastery of finding hidden treasures or forgotten gems among my possessions like Stephen over at Standing Outside Looking In. Stephen could arm and supply a short company of Infantry men just with the ammo and guns he finds "laying Around".

Nor be as lucky as SwampDog over at Double B Homestead who can drive around for a few hours in the middle of nowhere and find hand tools literally springing up into his path waiting to be claimed and used.

No I am no where near their rank but I did come across a few hidden gems myself today.

As my brush clearing, painting and fixing progresses into and around the barn I have now hit an area made up of about five or six old broken chest freezers and stand up refrigerators.  The freezers were suppose to have been used to store feed in and the fridges worked until they broke down and then became storage bins themselves. All well and good until they became filled with stuff my Mother no longer needed. These days they are just junk but some one has to empty them before they can be hauled out of here to make room in the barn for real storage construction.

Such was my job today along with putting up a floor to ceiling brace in the tack room. If you remember the roof of the tack room is rotting out and that big wet snow storm we got last Spring almost caved it in. Eventually I need to take the old roof off and fix it but ya know I got a list and that is not near the top yet. I did have time to put the brace in which should keep it stable until I can repair the whole thing.

Anyway while going through the first of the chest freezers today I found a few gems in there long forgotten and they fell within my right of salvage I informed my mother I was instituting for the barn clean up.

Namely - Any hand tools or construction materials I find are MINE. Horse stuff she wants she can have back.

Well today I found two brand new pair of pliers. This is funny because just last week she came up pounding on the door to barrow a pair of pliers from me because she didn't have any.

A brand new pair of channel lock pliers.

About a pound of number 2 nails still in the box and bag with a receipt dated 1986.

30 foot of brand new rope, strength tested to 2000 pounds (or so the tag said).

a box of electrical wiring screw on splice caps. Unopened.

a box of 2 inch construction screws also unopened.

And a brand new lead rope with matching quick release trailer ties still in the plastic bag.

I let her have the lead rope and ties the rest went right into the shop for use around the place.

All in all roughly about $100.00 worth of stuff that will be put to good use. Why I have probably bought scores of nails and screws this past Summer alone and I used one of my good ropes to store the post hole auger and almost bought a new one this week. Now I won't have to.

I consider this practice for a post collapse scavenging life.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!