YARD GLASS

This summer I had some forced time off (laid off for a while), so I decided to do some yard cleanup. Trouble was, it was SUMMER. Eighties and eighty per cent humidity, just like the rest of the summer until late August, when we had the same temps, but it rained every other day. And it hasn't stopped. I'm writing this in MARCH of 2019. Oh, the last rain came down as snow, but the ground has been saturated since August. And though we didn't have much snow until this last week, we have had rain, rain, and more rain. It just froze after coming down.

SO!

Back to summer!

I'd been putting off getting the glass in the yard collected. It's a big job, and there is a LOT of glass. There used to be two large greenhouses at Standish Farm, and though they are gone, the previous owners (old farmers) didn't believe in taking out the garbage. Really. I have two dumps on this land that measure over forty by forty feet, all broken glass, plastic, and rusty iron. The organic stuff decomposed years ago, but I'll need a front end loader to remove it. The briars have covered it, so I don't have to look at it. A future project.

And, as I said before, each of the five outbuildings was filled to head high with household garbage, farm trash, greenhouse garbage, old newspapers, and furniture they hoped to use/repair someday. It took YEARS to clean it out (go back to the beginning of this blog if you want to see some of it), and I have yet to empty the crap from the 1860 barn and the newspapers from the 1835 barn.

But glass is heavy, so they never moved it far from the greenhouses once they disintegrated. And disintegrate they did, as they were made of wood.

I thought about what to do with it, and though I'm not lazy, I am at somewhat of a loss. It can't be recycled; window glass doesn't recycle. I dunno why, it just doesn't.

Piles of double-strength glass

Useless to me, stained and cloudy

 Ugh.

This pile, out by the "garden" greenhouse (so called because it's where my garden is today, duh), is different from the newer double strength stuff in the previous pictures. The frames are still there and the glass is much smaller single strength, a thinner variety. I'd suspected this glass might be older, and older glass is more valuable. Older glass has a convoluted, wavy surface that distorts what you see through it. It has streaks and bubbles and is prized by those involved in historic restoration. Hey! I know people like that! So I decided to set up a more-or-less cool space and tear the frames apart, liberating the glass. I knew some would be broken, but at least I'd clean up the pile.

There was even a little shade. This sumac stand grew up from a small weed five years ago, and I need shade for the shop at the upper right hand corner, so I've let it grow. It comes from the old cold frame, remnants of which can be seen at the trees' base.

As I cleared away the dirt, I discovered that the panes overlapped by 1/4 inch; not a good sign. These would likely be scratched where the two panes overlap, and those scratches would make them unusable. It would look like a foggy haze at the base of the glass. Even worse, the glass size was mostly six by eight, one of the standard sizes for Colonial glass, and also one of the smallest. It was unlikely I could cut it down to remove the scratches. I suspected this was very old glass. Damn.

The frames were hand made for the greenhouses. No horizontal muntins (wood dividers for the panes). A frugal way of making a window, takes half the work, but scratches the glass. The farmers didn't care, they just needed a greenhouse. But it also meant that they had likely salvaged the glass, and that from Colonial-era windows. AUUUUUGH! What a waste. Old glass was worth nothing in the forties and fifties when the greenhouses were built, but is quite valuable now. Note the electric chain trimmer; I did some sumac-sculpting while playing glass zombie. The pile in the background is all modern double strength and is not antique. Modern glass, called float glass, is poured molten onto a surface of pure mercury, making it completely flat. No waves, bubbles or streaks. How boring. Just like everything else today.

The harvesting begins. All of the panes are dirty, some are scratched, and some have CaCo2 staining. This white haze is caused by the calcium carbonate (chalk) in the putty, which is redeposited on the glass as the putty disintegrates. It can be removed, but it takes work. And sometimes it CANNOT be removed. Most of this cleaned up pretty well.

The work begins

 

Soaking the glass in water mixed with bleach. The bleach doesn't help clean the glass, it just keeps mosquitoes from breeding. It had to have bleach added once a week. Brown water is from tannic acid from leaves.

 

There was a LOT of glass, and a lot was larger than 6x8. This could be cut down if it was scratched, but most of the scratched stuff was 6x8.

 Never ending pile of at least twenty windows.

 Work in the late morning and early afternoon to follow the shade.

 

Getting to the end. Much more broken stuff here, but still amazingly intact panes for the most part.

 Most of the haul. Doesn't look like much, does it?

 

Broken leavings. The circular saw was to cut the  frames apart. The plywood kept my tiny chair from sinking into the damp soil.

 The weedeater was to expose the frames in the first place. I HATE summer.

 

Convoluted glass, likely early nineteenth and late eighteenth century. It was very, very distorted. The more distorted it is, the older it is. That dark line in the center is a reflection of my perfectly straight roof edge.

 Some of it cleaned up, some of it didn't. I'm still finding pieces around the property, and much is sitting in these tubs, frozen solid in March. I pulled out a bit of it during the last thaw; it was perfectly intact, without a pane broken. I will set up a cleaning table in summer and do the scrub-a-dub when its hot. Right now I'm waiting for the snow to melt. I don't hate winter the way I do summer, but I'm ready for some sun and temps above thirty.