Monday, June 27, 2016

Barn in Absentia



In 1995 my husband built us a beautiful, monstrous, red and white barn 85 ft by 65 ft. He did this without contractors, skid steers or cranes, using an old tractor with a rickety bucket. An amazing feat. Please forgive the fuzzy photo, I can barely chew gum and walk at the same time let alone fly and take photos. 

  Keith used the old wood from the property's first barn built in 1898, hauled it to the new site and used that wood for the bones of the building. We purchased new steel siding and new roofing materials. It had a large hay mow where our grandchildren begged to play with each visit and inside we sheltered horses, cows, calves, hay, straw...etc. The small addition was our milk house added in 1999. We loved that barn. Here it is up close.

An intern, back in the day when we had such, 
helps Keith put up hay.

We loved that big barn so much we left it, to start this new simpler but albeit, barnless life.  Please refer to the word "morons" on this blogs header, above. What we have instead,is this quaint building measuring a whopping 25 ft by 20 ft.





The original shed, to the right, was likely built about the same time as the old decrepit house on our property, in 1867. Somewhere along the line, a  concrete floor was poured. I love the look of this shed and it is hoped we can save it and use it for many years. It contains feed barrels for cats, chickens, and pigs,  horse tack, garden tools, buckets, fencing supplies etc...

The addition to the left is crap on a cracker as my mother would say. She was from southern Indiana and prolific in her quotable quotes. Miss her I do. Primarily it is cheap fiber board and warped plywood with a dirt floor. One day it will be torn down and replaced, but for the moment it serves a purpose. It houses our hay, straw and miscellaneous inventory. With the exception of a disoriented duck or laze-about dog, the building does not routinely house livestock. Instead, we house our animals in numerous creative ways.

A small milking "barn" for Holly and her mentor Mucca, the livestock trailer for Ennis the horse (pulled in and out of her pasture as needed to haul hay or other large items that won't fit in the back of our truck) and the old well house for the steers, who were not at all kind to the old well house. 

Well house circa 1867, turned steer shed 2015 turned chicken coop 2016.
Yes, repairs are scheduled.

With winter just 5 short months away we are considering our options for 2017. Stay tuned. 




11 comments:

  1. Donna, having discovered your blog and loving your writing style, iwill now enjoy reading your archives. We live in ne ohio in a house that has grown to be too much for me 71 and my husband 76. We are looking to downsize but the thought is daunting. The American disease, too much stuff.

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    1. Oh Carol, I feel your "crap trap" so well. I just came in from cleaning out the shed in pic number three above. Amazing what one can hide behind bales of straw. How did we get so many shovels?!?! Anyway thanks for dropping by and good luck on the downsizing. Take it one silly knick knack at a time.

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  3. Options??? What options??? Other than the old(1867)shed minus the lean-to, there are no options!! I think you'd almost do better with Dollar Store tarps & tent stakes!!! Can you kidnap the old barn in the middle of the night???? Maybe have a 'Barn Raising' where the guests bring the lumber??

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    1. Wow. I thought I could be pessimistic, you Sharon are downright...realistic. Want to come work with me? Yes, there are times I think it would better to start from scratch, if we had extra scratch to start with.

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  4. Well now, ah, ummm.... I'm -- speechless here. Daunting doesn't do it justice. Lemme look around. Used to have something here I used a lot as a child and might help you out. *rummage rummage* Now where the heck IS that wand....

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    1. Wand smand, we need an architect, a designer, and a wealthy dude who needs a new charity.

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  5. Crowd Funding!! Is that the term you're searching for???? Seriously, is there a barn in the neighborhood that needs tearing down?? or a pile of metal/fibre glass sheets?? Maybe an old Quonset? I'd start with the dump. Amaaaazing what you can find in a dump!!

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    1. Ah Sharon, we indeed are looking into the cost of moving a barn onto our site. Often they can be purchased for a song but moving them costs the price of a full operatic production.

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  6. As we are desperately trying to save one of our own old outbuildings at the moment, I'm very interested in this!

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    1. I'll do my best to keep you well informed of our progress, lack of progress etc...At least we NEVER (just like you two) run out of things to do!

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