It's Halloween, the lamp is lit..........

Flash on!

Happy Halloween to all of you out in blog land. 

Flash off!

Bye, Bye Machine Shed - This is what the site looked like after CAT and I tore down the machine shed structure on Saturday, in the rain.



We had a slight snowfall Sunday morning and I couldnt resist taking a picture of our little barn with the snow on the roof.  I can only imagine how it will look once that sagging end piece is gone and it has a nice new metal roof and is sitting snugly on our property.  I knowyou are probably sick of seeing the barn in photos but I cant help myself lol.



This is what was left by Sunday at 3:00.  We couldnt stay too late because we had to get home for the Trick or Treaters.  It may not seem as though much changed but the large metal roof sections take time to tear apart.  We were able to disassemble more than half of the roof plus we had a nice visit from the neighbour as well who gave us a bit of history about some of the old antique farm pieces hanging around and other local history - very interesting.

The familiar shot from the road but now there is no machine shed blocking the view of our barn (well almost no machine shed lol)

These are Sandhill Cranes which CAT and I have been hearing but never seeing.  As we were pulling out I noticed them out in the field.  Very exotic.

Well thats all folks for another week.  We are almost done all that we can do by hand and are very close to actually working on our barn so stay tuned.  As usual your comments are welcome and appreciated.

Barn Demo Update

I didn't have the gumption to post a blog of our last weekends work so I figured I'd better post something this weekend.  We've completed the clean up of the large collapsed barn and we've been working on the machine shed structure.

This pic is taken from the opposite side of the barn yard.  There is nothing left now of the large collapsed barn.

This pic is taken from the roadway.  You can see the big barn on the left and then our little barn and the machine shed seem to be one structure but ours is in the background and the machine shed is in front.  I have another shot from this angle later in the post and you can see our barn through the machine shed.



Here you can see the machine shed or carriage house or grainery or whatever it was.  (It does still have grain on the floor in the right side bay).  At this point we've stripped most of the cedar siding but if you look closely you will see CAT working on the boards in the peak at the far end.  Where's Waldo? lol



Here is a closer look.  He's crazy.  I was having a hard time getting him to come down he liked it up there so much.  Again, I think it reminds him of being a kid.

Here is our little barn from the side you haven't seen yet.  This side has double doors and you can really see the rafters well in this pic.  Check out the wreath that is hanging on the barn just left of the doorway.  Somebody once loved this little barn.  You can really tell from this angle how square the barn is still.  The round log ends you see are the floor joists for the hay loft above.  Most of them are still in perfect shape.

This is what the machine shed looked like by the end of the day.  The timber frame is still in great shape and so we are going to try to get it down without damaging the mortise and tenon joinery and we are going to label and number this frame as well, perhaps to put up ourselves for a large workshop down the road or for storage for CAT's beloved trailer or maybe a camping trailer someday.  I was trying to talk CAT into building a house with this but he wasn't biting lol.

Lastly, here is a pic from the road again.  You can see right through the machine shed now to our barn.  The people that were supposed to be taking the big barn on the left, have failed to show up yet.

Today we had a different project, since it was raining too hard to work on the barn.  CAT had found some cedar posts from a friend, for our "agricultural" fence which we are putting down the one side of our property (we are having a split rail fence down the side closest to the house as mentioned in previous blogs)  Our intent at this point is just to enclose our property perimeter but eventually we hope to have either a few sheep to graze this pasture or perhaps goats although we are thinking we would like the goats to help clean up the poplar seedlings and poison ivy in the back part of our property more than in the front.  Of course with both sheep or goats we will need additional fencing to close in their pastures but for now it will be nice to be able to see our property lines.

Our cedar posts for our agricultural fencing (page wire).  The ones on the left are 9' long and the ones on the right are the 8'.  We still have another load to get another day.  Originally we were going to use these along with metal posts but the cost of the metal posts would be way more than what we could get these ones for so we will use these as much as we can.  We do have several existing metal posts on old fencing already on our property so we will use these as well.

Well, that's it for another week. Thoughts?

Thanksgiving Weekend fun!

Another great weekend working on the barn only this weekend , on Sunday, we took a day to relax and give thanks and to eat lots of turkey and stuffing and pie.  Our daughter came home for the weekend from university which was totally awesome!!!  She has been so busy this year with school and work and volunteering that she has barely had time to chat so we had a great family get together, just the 4 of us.  We didn't travel to attend Thankgiving dinner with the rest of my family this year in order that we could continue with our favorite hobby....yes you got it.....barn demolition.  What else?  This weekend's work started out in a rather disheartening fashion because we had to tear off the three roof sections that were hanging over the straw bales, in order to clean them up.  Let me tell you these roof sections are a lot bigger once you get them on the ground and it was depressing  to feel like we were starting over with a huge mess.  Then to make matters worse we pulled down the remaining posts and beams that were standing over the straw.  Not a pretty site.  By the end of the weekend though we had everything cleaned up save for a few pieces of roof boards on the straw that we didn't have time to finish.

CAT up on the straw...you can see the beams that had to be pulled down as well as the barn wall behind him.  It gives you some scale to see how large the bales are.

CAT on bales again - he said it reminded him of being a kid

Here you can see the large roof sections that had to be pulled down.  They are seemingly ready to fall onto my sons head......but don't worry...it's an optical illusion.

This is the old drive shed which is next on our agenda before we actually start on our little barn.  Some large pieces of barn board were calling our name and we took a break from collapsed barn clean up to salvage a few of those "money" pieces.  You will hear and see more about this structure next weekend.

This photo is taken from the other side of the barn.  This side was all treed but the farmer has been busy removing the trees.  I think maybe seeing what has been done to date has motivated him to get in on the action.  They are planning on tile draining and planting this field down the road once the barns are removed.

All cleaned up again only now the roof sections are gone as are the posts and beams and the lone remaining barn wall.

A closer look at all our hard work.  It's so clean.  Hard to believe that a 40' x 60' (approx.) barn was once collapsed on this site

A look at our growing lumber pile back at our property.  These are the pieces that we have been able to fit in the trailer - the big pile of lumber CAT is standing beside is barn board.  I would say this has been a great haul so far.

And of course these are the large posts and beams that are waiting to be picked up by the logging truck.  We have this pile as well as the original pile that we have added more to as well.  It is hard to judge scale in this photo but the hand hewn square beam in the front is approx. 1' x 1' x 30'.  These pieces can be milled and turned into flooring, furniture or just used as decorative beams.  We will have to see what they become.

More barn demo pics

Another weekend hard at it on our barn demo/cleanup and we accomplished quite a bit.  We purchased a couple of burn barrels to clean up the small rotted and broken pieces of the barn rather than hauling them off to pay an arm and a leg to take them to the landfill.  We are removing (and hoping to use) everything from the property other than these small pieces.  On Sunday we started working on the roof that just has old cedar shingles on it and the shingles burn readily and are cleaned up easily this way.  Also, the burn barrel catches any nails so I don't have to remove them and they can be screened out later. 

One of our burn barrels

A view of the pile on Sunday morning.  CAT and I had removed the last of the metal roof on Saturday.

When I was walking around Sunday morning taking pictures I noticed a fox running over the straw and heading toward our barn.  He was too fast for me to take a pic.  There are a few large holes inside our barn and CAT figured it was a fox hole and as usual it appears he was correct.  I must say I feel a bit sad about removing the roof over his head.  He has quite the home right now but it wont be there long.  Sorry little fox!   

We found this neat little plant stand under one of the roof pieces.  I am going to sand it and paint it and put it in my potting shed or somewhere to remind me of our barn demo fun.  It is amazing it did not rot.  How about yellow!

A little treasure found buried under the collapsed barn!

Now that is clean if I do say so myself.

Here is a pic taken from the usual spot...the sun was causing some problems with the picture but I will not complain.

This is our second post and beam pile.  You can see the big old beauty barn in the background that is being removed by a crew this week.

We found out on Saturday that the big old beauty is being removed this week by a crew. It may be completely gone by the time we go back this weekend. I must say I am sad since I had been hoping that we would have the gumption to do it too, once we gained our confidence on the small one but with just working weekends and by hand it is better we stick to the original plan. We are going to have oodles of material to use to construct a good potting shed, chicken coop and who knows what else so best not to be too greedy lol. Well that is it for another week. Your comments are encouraged and welcome. Cheers!