The future home for the cats starts with looking at what is there

 and then trying to tell yourself it will work out. I never took a photo of what the inside roof  looked like, but if I did you would see every beam having nests of mud wasps. I was told they did not sting, well I hope it was true as I was up on a ladder knocking down the old nests. Really amazing to think how many times a wasp had to go and gather the tiny bit of mud and place it on the wood beam.

 The pole barn is 20' x 30' and on the entire earth floor there apparently had been rugs covering it and over the years it became covered with dirt and weeds. So that when you pulled up a section of rug another section came up from under the earth. What a job that was pulling  and digging those sections of rugs up. Always wondering when the next piece of rug was pulled up would I see a snake.

In the back section that was walled off, I was told chickens and dogs had been caged there. With that knowledge, it was very important that the old rugs be taken up.
Nails, wire and old wood all had to be removed. Day by day the inside of the pole barn was starting to look like a future cat sanctuary. When things are not cared for, nature has a way of taking over. One of the things that was the hardest was removing the 1/2" thick sticker bush branches that grew into the pole barn floor. I never saw such thick vines that have roots deep into the ground.

Success! The walls are down and the rugs are gone. Old wood removed and nails pulled out.
The next step was to try to level the soil but first some places had to be dug up to loosen the soil up. Sounds easy, I thought. The truth was I felt like an archeologist for beneath the soil was either lost items or intentionally items buried in the soil. I found wrenches, screw drivers, pvc pipes, spoons, knives and other objects. The iron tools were rusted badly and the stainless steel spoons were a tad rusted, other wise in decent shape. The plastic candy wraps and plastic items do not change from original shape, maybe dirty but that is all.  

So digging was very hard and tedious but it was okay with me. I was creating a safe place for the cats that waited for me every day to feed them at the old house. When you do things from a place of love, it makes what you do that much easier.