Posts Tagged ‘wood pallets’
Wood Pavers
Over the weekend I processed the latest accumulation of pallets that I salvaged from work this winter, removing the blocks from the top for use as pavers on a stretch of trail prone to being muddy.
It frustrates me that the company that sends their equipment mounted to these pallets doesn’t want them back. The least I can do is find additional uses for them. I’ve already built an entire chicken coop out of dismantled pallets. My other common use has been to place them on the ground in the hay shed to allow airflow beneath stacked bales.
Unfortunately, we haven’t been stacking bales for a couple of years now. That doesn’t mean we won’t be doing that again in the future, should we have another chance to have horses on the property, so I need to keep some percentage in reserve.
I plan to offer up any growing surplus to the surrounding neighborhood. What farmer couldn’t use more pallets when they are free for the taking?
Most of the boardwalk that we already created out of the blocks is three-wide. I’ve decided to change things up now to cover more distance by placing them single-wide. We basically walk down the middle anyway, and the 4-wheeler is wide enough to straddle the boards so driving the trail won’t dislodge them.
I have to drive timidly over the existing portion of the “boardwalk” to limit the disruption.
Originally, I imagined the blocks would push down into the mud to become “grouted” in position, but that has only barely started to occur. Now I’m just waiting for decaying leaves to fill the seams between them. Hopefully, the wood won’t all rot before the blocks finally become more firmly seated in place.
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Paving Paradise
We are experimenting with a new way to improve a particularly wet and muddy portion of one trail through our woods. Originally, I was hoping we could simply cover it with wood chips. It worked for a while, but we haven’t been chipping branches frequently enough to produce the supply needed to cover all of our trails.
The piles of wood blocks that I have been pulling off pallets salvaged from the day-job are suddenly proving valuable. Instantly, we have gone from having too many of these lying around, to not having enough to cover the muddy lengths of trail that need the most help.
It is interesting to consider the path (no pun intended) these pieces of former trees have traveled. Somewhere, trees are cut down and milled into boards. Then the wood gets cut into these shapes and nailed to pallets. The company that manufactures the products we receive at the day-job mount their units onto the pallets for shipment and charge the end customer for the wood.
We have asked if they wanted the pallets returned for reuse, but like so many other things in today’s world, since already paid for, they apparently weren’t worth the trouble. We end up with perfectly good, single-use pallets out of brand-new wood, albeit with four odd blocks nailed to the tops.
I’ve been pulling the nails to remove the blocks and using the pallets as a floor in my wood shed and beneath stored hay in the hay shed. I also claimed boards off some pallets to build hay feeding boxes for the 4 stalls in the barn. All the while, the odd blocks that were removed have been piling up.
When Cyndie started looking into a boardwalk as a way to get up out of the mud on our trails, we landed on the idea of using the blocks. She wanted to add some words of inspiration and enlisted Anneliese to join her in creating the enhancements.
Yesterday we laid down the first test run. So far, so good. Only a couple more miles to go. I hope there will soon be a lot of new orders for that equipment at the day-job.
It is poetic justice that we’ve found a way to ultimately bring this pallet wood full-circle, placing it on a forest floor once again.
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Relative Something 