Rural waste disposal, otherwise known as the family dump!

It is apparently common practice in rural America for many farmers and others to dig a hole and fill it with their trash over the years, sometimes covering it over and digging a new pit. Then there are the people who just throw their trash on the ground. At least the family that used to own my land drove it up into the woods on the hillside to toss their trash instead of out in the front yard. I knew about this "family dump" for the past 3 years. and decided it was time to fix it. I had a friend bull doze it into a giant pile so I could more easily attack the problem. It has been drying out for a month. Fortunately some trees were knocked down in the clean-up effort, so...

...we had a little dry firewood mixed in with the "trash".

Our biggest fire ever!

We lighted it yesterday morning when there was not much wind, and what little there was blew north, down hill toward my stream.

Oops! the dry grass caught fire. I had previously called my neighbor to give him a heads-up about burning, so he was on hand with his Bobcat to put it out.

Caution, cancer zone. I visited the fire several times during the day to keep an eye on its progress. I was afraid to breath in the unknown fumes.

It burned and smoldered all day and into the night with many pops and explosions - whether from bullets, spray cans, shot gun shells, or what ever - so I kept my distance.

This is what was left 24 hours later. We now have to wait a few weeks and hopefully get some rain, but eventually the boys and I will have to rake it and pull all the metal scrap out of this pile and take it to metal recycling. There is old furniture, bed, bike, hub caps, barrels, and other assorted metal. Then get my neighbor's Bobcat and push everything into a smaller pile and burn again. Someday, we should have very little to pick-up or bury. Its a real shame these knuckle-head folks and their friends tossed all this trash over the years, because this would have been a great site for a pond for watering cattle.