Hickory Top WMA 30-June-2026

    I spotted this barrel on previous clean-ups and with the recent heat I decided to do a walk out and only pick this one item up. The intent with this was not only to remove an item, but turn a piece of trash into something useful. 

       Left behind was an open spot for plants to grow and fill in. Every piece of trash sitting on a forest floor takes up space for something to live or grow. 





        Even though this was just a single item, this ended up being one of the harder clean-ups in Hickory Top. The heat and humidity were rough and the size of the barrel made it impossible to carry with my gear, so I had to take my gear down the path, drop it, go back for the barrel and repeat. 




        It took longer than I thought, still I removed something and now had material to work with on a project. 

       At a later date I started on turning this barrel into a planter, with the first step of cutting it in half with a jigsaw. 






         After cutting it in half I then cleaned them up as best as I could. This was before they were cleaned and didn't look that much better afterwards. 






       With some leftover paint from another project I painted one of the halves up and added weather stripping to the top edge. The majority of soil I just took from the yard and sifted adding just a little bit of store bought topsoil and compost. Tomato plants were added and the discarded trash was now something useful, it doesn't look great, but isn't that bad. The holes in the side were bullet holes already there when I picked it up, small enough soil won't drain out, but water will, so they worked out too.

      This post comes about a month late, but better late than never. If I find more items I can transform like this in the future I will do so. Not everything needs to go to the dump.




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