by Margret Mueller
Due to dire warnings about severe afternoon thunderstorms, our workday began a bit early, spanned lunch, and wrapped up around 3:00—just as the skies opened for the first round of rain. On the workday agenda were several clean-up tasks: bringing trash out of our otherwise beautiful woods, breaking up and removing the concrete and stone around the abandoned well up by Kim’s house, and clearing tailings and soil from around the new farm well.
Jeffry and Anthony brainstormed about the farm well and came up with a plan to not only level the site but dig a circular trench for a pump-house foundation while they were at it. Paul gathered up much of the fine gravel the well-drillers brought up, and used it to fill potholes in Ben Jones Drive. Meanwhile, Margret led a contingent of 
volunteers into the woods at the Far Field to begin trash cleanup. She and Tain were joined by Earth’s Turn Community members Tami, Whit, and Rico (thank you!!). As is often the case in rural areas, a few spots on our property are long-ago dump sites for a curious variety of items; we extracted, among other things, washing machines, a kitchen range, bicycle parts, a car bumper, a dishpan, a large amount of bright-blue plastic, bottles and cans (but sadly, no treasure). We plan to take all these items to the local trash/recycling site in the near future.
After lunch, Jeffry and Margret started breaking up the old abandoned well. After many Herculean swings with a maul (Jeffry) and many chunks of stone and cement tossed into a trailer (Margret), we were about half done and called it a good start. Anthony declared the chunks of stone perfect filler for the pump-house footing, so they were immediately re-purposed! As the skies darkened, Paul led a quick impromptu tour for 4 young people who came by to visit. Fat cold raindrops ended another successful Hart’s Mill workday.
