Old Barn Rehab Update

I wanted to fill you in on the progress that has happened on the old hay barn. We can't take any great amount of credit for this particular project except that we put it in the lap of our good friend Hank and put our two cents in when needed.
Our friend has, over his life of many projects, reclaimed barns for historical sites and has saved more than a few of our structures here at the Homestead.

He is a true master of this sort of "thinking outside the box" carpentry.

In a throwaway world, where anything that is not deemed extraordinary falls into the "Teardown" category, we have found that we save 30 to 40 percent of the cost of a new building by repairing an old building. And we end up with a structure that is full of character, history and usefulness.

This is a framing style referred to as "balloon" framing. It has no posts to get in the way of hay storage.

It is worth saving these buildings. These old buildings are built from a quality of lumber that we will never see the likes of again. It's true that most of them are not perfect, because they were built by the very same man or woman who used them. And despite the fact that their carpentry skills were not the best in the world, they did not let it stop them from building a hay barn from scratch! Now that is the kind of "can do" homesteader spirit we can all strive to attain.
By the way, I found out recently that this hay barn was built at the turn of the century from recycled lumber out of a Grange Hall that had been torn down! If these old boards could tell their story...

A few inches a month, for nine months pulled the "Board and Batten" East wall up out of the dirt.

Then the sill plate and footings were replaced and the rotten wall edge was trimmed off and tin put in to keep the water and mud out and away from it all.

 The above picture is NOT distorted. The hay loft was really that curved because of the sinking East wall.

By jacking the East wall up slowly and soaking the boards with a hose over the span of 9 months, the hay loft was slowly bent back to a more normal shape.

Here is an old photo of the underside of the barn. I took this when I was trying to figure out exactly what was going on under there, without crawling through the old rusty nailed lumber and the vintage Hamm's cans. It was no surprise to me that the entire East wall support system had crumbled to dust.

This is what Hank found when he moved a lot of junk and pulled up some boards to see what was going on. Look at the dirt right up to the floor. The log that was the support for the East wall had completely disintegrated.

Repaired and flattened flooring.

This was the South East corner of the barn. This is the results of decades of dripping rain from the roof line. There were no gutters on this side of the barn until we put some on it. It was also the uphill side, which means it received more than it's share of rainy Oregon runoff from the hill above it.

If you ever build a barn, don't build it at the bottom of a hill.

Now we just need to give it a coat of paint. 

There is talk about inclosing the addition to the barn to put in a proper wood shop. We'll see about that. Until then,

the Barn Swallows have free rent to raise their families.

The Old Barn

This summer has been a lot of work for Buck and I. We have been so busy going back and forth this summer that not a lot has been done on the Homestead besides maintenance and winter readiness.

Because of the work we have done this summer, our other house where my dad, son and new daughter-in-law live, has an improved septic system and we have saved the garage from collapsing on a crumbling foundation. It is now a fully functioning art studio where no mice are allowed! This makes my new daughter in law a very happy painter.

We have also started work on the old barn on the property which has some sagging issues and a hole in the side where a hay door used to be. The door had been missing long before we bought it.

This was not taken with a fish-eye lens, it really does sag that much.

What shall we do with this frail old icon of our communities agricultural past? It would break our hearts to see it fall, but we can't justify too much money being spent on it for it's present use- storing outdoor furniture, 3 barn cats and a small amount of hay for my dads ancient (she turned 36 this year) Arab mare. Since we only have .5 acres of pasture, the barn will never really be used for much livestock or hay in the future.

It could be used for more- a workshop, art studio or maybe a farm store... It just needs to be re-purposed in some way. But for now we have to settle for just keeping it from falling down.

I drive by at least 15 barns on my way to the Homestead (a 15 mile drive) and every one but 2 of them are falling down. They are far too costly to repair when their original use is extinct. Sentimentality is a luxury few farms can afford these days. I know at least one farmer who found it was much cheaper and faster to replace the old wood barn with a steel building. The cost to fix the roof on the old barn would have cost the same as his whole new building. In my opinion, the very best hope for the survival of these old barns is to convert them to modern activities, not restore them as relics.

The underside of the barn is supported by peeled fir logs and 12 by 12's. There is something definitely wrong with the 12 by 12 in this picture. That's next on the list.

The main reason we are plugging the hay door hole is because it is like an amazing wind tunnel in the winter. It is also letting rain in and the interior is showing signs of rot. We decided we would put windows in the hay door hole since it would be very dark in the barn if we just covered over the hole with boards.

It won't really look original, but the fact is that barns like this, built to house plow horses and the hay they ate in the winter, have no relevance in our modern lives. Keeping a barn interior dark was an important feature- the sun destroys the quality of hay, but more natural light would be a better feature for it's future.

We have had these turn of the century french doors out of an old factory for several years. We had planned on using them to enclose a porch, but changed our minds.

I did a lot of image searches for old barn windows and found that most old barn windows were just salvaged windows put in in no particular way. Perfect, we can do that!

We have trimmed the doors to look more like windows, given them a fresh coat of paint (it's much easier to do on the ground!) and when the rain lets up a little we will mount them in the frame we have built out of local, full dimensional lumber to match the rest of the barn.
Next summer the barn will get a full coat of paint, red and white stripes and all.

 

In the next couple weeks we will be digging a french drain along the uphill side of the barn to divert the rain water that constantly threatens the old foundation.

Then we will have our carpenter help us jack up the sagging East wall and let it sit over the winter to flex back into position before we put in new posts and piers to hopefully hold this sweet barn up for another 100 years.

Taste Test

When I arrived at the homestead yesterday, there was an ominous warning:

 Rubber Chickens Beware!
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Now that September is here, it is time to address two of the big fall chores, hay and wood. We got the Hay House finished two years ago, and are just finishing up the hay we bought last year. So it is time to fill it up again.

First, we have to decide what to buy. In the Willamette Valley here in NW Oregon, we have a couple different ways to go. There is local hay that was cut this summer, and Eastern Oregon hay. According to Phoebe, my hay expert, the Eastern Oregon feed is the best. They have long, warm, dry, consistent summers and are able to cut and bale it at the peak of its nutritious, delicious cycle.

The local stuff is subject to the same conditions that are causing our tomatoes to still be green. We had a long cool spring, which delayed the start of summer.

Eastern goes for about $300 a ton, local for $130. So, if we can find 5 or 6 tons of good local hay, the savings really adds up.

We are shopping a little late in the season this year, so there were not a lot of options on Craigslist. But there were two that sounded promising, a Timothy and what the seller called Pasture Mix. Since I can't really tell good hay from bad, I bought a bale of each and took them up to the experts.

We fed them a leaf of each and watched to see which they preferred. The verdict was mixed. They ate both, and went back and forth between them rather than eating one before the other. That was a good sign. We are going to feed them both for a few days to see if they develop a stronger opinion with a little more exposure.

This may mean that we can make them happy with the local hay again this winter. That makes me happy because, in addition to costing less, it supports my local farmers and requires much less energy to get it from the field to the barn. (With the Eastern hay, I can get it from a feed store a few miles from here, so it is just as close as the local, but it was trucked 100+ miles to get here.)

Once the horses give us a verdict, we will start filling the barn. It looks like it will be dry here for another week or two, so I have a nice window in which to move it. Lets see if I actually get it done before the rain.

Loafing Shed Pt 2

Time for the second post in my building-a-horse-shed series.

After our Thanksgiving break, the concrete was set and ready for posts. We went 8' high on the short end, 10' on the high.

Hank identified the shortest post, and used a straight 2X4 to mark the other posts to the right height. He cut them to level with his skill saw.

 

If you are going to have to work in an active pasture, freezing weather can be a nice thing; keeps all the muck nice and firm.

With the posts all the same height, we screwed plywood gussets on top of the outside posts to hold the beams in place. The structure is 20' wide so we were able to use a single piece of wood for each beam.

Once the beams were all up we squared the building the best we could and attached braces to keep it all in place.

 

One of the big things I have learned from Hank is to do things on the ground that you would rather not do in the air. For instance, while the beams were on the ground he marked where each rafter would go.

In the shot above, he snugged all the rafters together on a work table, squared the ends, and cut the rafter-tails on all of them at once. He then marked each rafter on the bottom where it would sit on the beam, and the layout on the top where the skip sheeting would go. This made it so we knew just where each board went when we were standing on top of the ladders.

We toe-screwed the beams and posts together, then added strapping to keep them in place.

After the rafters went up, we used hurricane straps to keep them in place, and blocking to keep them upright.

We used a come-along to pull the structure into square. It was not off by much, only about 3/8 of an inch, but we got it just right.

1X4 skip sheeting came next, tying it all together nicely.

Continuing the theme of doing ground work, I marked the tin roofing where we wanted the screws to go, and punched holes with a nail set. This spared the effort of forcing the nail through the tin while standing on the roof.

We used used un-grooved T1-11 plywood for the sides/sheer panels. Phoebe is a fan of letting the light in, as we did in the Hay House. It gave the barn a really nice, open and airy feeling.

We continued that idea on the loafing shed, so we can see in, the horses can see out, and it is nice and bright inside.

 

The high side faces east, not a big weather consideration here, but she suggested closing it in a little anyway. A couple of 2X6s on the inside will keep the horses from pushing the plywood out. Stall mats and a 4' gate finished it off. 

The weather had been unseasonably dry that December, with the rain holding off until the shed was finished. Rio was a little spooky when he first came in, just before Christmas. In a few days, though, he was right at home. In addition to keeping him warm and dry, his hay stays dry, so we are wasting less of it.

Since he is a mustang from Eastern Oregon, it could be argued that standing outside in the milder Western Oregon winter is not big deal for him. So why go through the effort and expense to build him a grade A horse house? 

First, just because he can stand in the rain doesn't mean he should. As a city boy at heart, I have the idea that everyone should have a dry place when they want it. Second, mud control is one of Phoebe's big things. So for both of us, a wet horse standing in deep mud is not an acceptable approach to animal owning. Since we have committed to having horses, we need to do what we can to treat them right.

Finally, we are trying to build infrastructure that will allow us to follow our interests, and what the land teaches us, to discover what the Homestead is best suited for. 

This may well involve more animals. Could be more horses, a goat or two to help with the blackberries, or a couple calves to try raising beef; we are not sure. But we do know that before we get serious about animals we need good fences and safe, dry shelter. The loafing shed is the next step in the progression. We don't really know where we are going, but this is one more important step on the way.

Hay! And seeds a-poppin'

It has been a while since we had our act together enough to buy hay in the summer.  As a result, we get it a few bales at a time throughout the winter, one trip to the farm store after another. 

We did better this year.  Phoebe was inspired one day, got on Craig's List, and sent me a half dozen links.  It was going for $3-4 a bale, a much better deal than the $12-14 each at the feed store.  We narrowed it down to a couple, and gave one a try.  We hauled a ton of it and fed a bit to the horse.  He gave it a B.  Phoebe thought we could do better, so we tried a different place the next day.

Hay House

New Year's Eve feels like a fitting time to look back on the year's accomplishments.  I think one of our successes this year will pay dividends for years to come.

(Click on the photos to see them larger.)

 The old hay barn on top of the hill was not going to make it through another winter.  We had to either kiss it goodbye, or save it. 

 

 Phoebe's great uncle and his family had lived in the building at one time, so it had value as more than a barn.

 

 It was still standing this summer because of one 2X4 Phoebe had jammed into a corner last winter. There were no posts or beams used in the construction; the roof rested on the walls.  And there was not much wall left.

 We did not have a lot of disposable cash at the time, but we could not let it go.  So we undertook, not a restoration, but maybe a rehabilitation.

 With the help of our friend and carpenter,

Stumped

"No worries," I said, "I'll just take it out." It is always so easy to say that.

In sprucing up our barn, we moved the big door to right behind a stump.  Now it was time to take that stump out. 

It was a cherry tree, dead a few years.  My first thought was to cut it off at ground level, and deal with the remnant later.  A couple of cuts told me that was not going to work.  It was hard as can be, and my saw was not so sharp.

So I did it the old fashioned way.

I dug my way around the stump, exposing each root then tunneling under it.  Once I had clear airspace beneath it, I cut the root out with my chainsaw.  There were 8 or 9 big roots, and it took a while to make it all the way around.

 

Finally it started to wiggle.  A little more digging revealed two more roots, going almost straight down.  It was not long before it was laying on its side.

 

I filled the hole in with dirt and rocks, and mounded it a bit, hoping it will compact to level over winter.  I was much happier with this result than if I had just cut it off.  I know we would have been fighting that remnant, and eventually hired someone to come and grind it out.  This way, all it cost was two hours of my time, and a new edge for my chain.

(The only mishap was the groggy yellowjacket who somehow got into my pants.  A sting or two on the back of the knee was all the damage. Not bad, considering.)