Working on our little barn at last!

Well we are finally working on our little barn.  We pulled down the hanging piece on the one end last weekend and then this weekend started pulling out the stalls from the inside.  We took a break from the barns today (Sunday) to get the rest of the cedar posts from CAT's friend.  These are the ones that are for what I call our "agricultural" fence.  We are thinking one side of the property will be more residential and vegie/flower garden and lawn, while the other side will consist of pasture and barn (hopefully, fingers crossed) although we are now also thinking of fencing off part of the field in front of the house as well.  It could be cut for hay or something could pasture there, maybe a male sheep if we are trying to keep him away from the females.....I am off on one of my dream tangents lol.....this is all a long, long way off.  Anyway, check out the pics.  We have been so lucky with weather.  It has been warm and fairly dry both last weekend and this.

All that is left of the old machine/drive shed is the pile you see on the left, the old antique rake and the old rotted floor boards.  The farmer who owns the land is going to dispose of these remnants with his heavy equipment by moving them to a low ravine on his property where they can naturally decompose and the nails won't be an issue.  You can see our little barn in the background and to the left side is the hanging piece of old barn that we have removed but not yet dismantled.

Our barn again but without the hanging end piece.  You can see how square it is.

A glimpse of the one stall before we dismantled and removed it.  It's hard to see but there is a manger on the left side that still had hay in it.  I wonder what happened to the animals that they didn't even get to finish their hay?

Here is a better pic of the manger...and look at the wicker chair we found in the barn on the left bottom side of the pic. 



This shot shows the manger on the other side (left) as well. They certainly are not the prettiest stalls I've ever seen but you wouldn't believe how well put together these structures were.  I couldn't get anything apart with my crowbar...poor CAT had to do it all and when I tried to remove nails on some of the boards they wouldn't budge.  It was like the wood was made of iron.



We have started numbering our logs on the inside.  I was a bit concerned when CAT first started painting  because it was so bright but he assured me that what doesn't come off on its own when I pressure wash the logs we are going to paint over with grey paint.  

This is what the one side looked like after removing the stalls.  We haven't finished the left side yet so I will add those next week once we've completed that one.



Looking pretty clean.  Soon all that will remain is the big barn and the tree over it and I don't think we are taking any of it - but you never know lol :).



Just a reminder what it looked like before!  You definitely can't see the hills in the background in this pic.

Here are our agriculture cedar posts for our wire fence.  We now have 100 posts so if we put them 12 feet apart we have approx. 1200 feet of fence - well we will once we get the expensive wire part of the fence lol.

Here are the piles from the barn demo that we have moved with our trailer.  The piles in back are 5 feet or higher to give you scale.   Once the logging truck brings all our other posts and beams we will have quite a pile.  I'm glad our property is big.

Here is Jasper enjoying the property.  I can always get a pic of him because he stands still for me...Abbey on the other hand....well......

I finally caught her once she was in the Jeep. ready to go home.   The rest of the time she was on the move because you never know...a wild turkey, deer or even a bear may be out there needing to be discovered.

Here is a pic of one of the trails we've started back through the treed part of our property.

That's it for another while folks.  Sorry this post was so long but I had to gab about two weekends worth of fun.  We will be working on the stall on the other side of our barn next weekend and maybe the roof so stay tuned.  We are so close to being done it's crazy.  We aren't going to know what to do with ourselves once it is done.  I welcome any comments or thoughts so please feel free to respond by clicking on the word "Comments" below.

Labour Day Monday

Another before shot of the fenceline, just to refresh your memory

After brushing out the stone fenceline

Well the front fenceline has been brushed but we still have to move up some of the stones that have fallen down over time and also eventually we will be doing the road side of the fence as well.  I'm including another before pic for reference.  Also, I forgot to mention that we met our neighbour who has purchased the 5 acre parcel to our south side and he seemed like a fine fellow.  We chatted about our plans and it was fun to find out that he has a lot of similar ideas to ours.  He also plans on keeping chickens and having a garden and weirdly, where I have been thinking of planting a few fruit trees on our property, he was thinking of planting a few in the same general vicinity on his side.  This would be great for pollination for types that need such a thing.  He is also thinking of building next year but it is not for certain yet.  I look forward to getting to know him better.

Abbey and Jasper after running several times around the perimeter of the cleared part of our property

Here is a better shot of Abbey and Jasper although their tongues are hanging out from running around the property non stop.  At this rate Abbey will certainly be loosing that  excess weight she's been carrying.  Jasper just tries to keep tabs on her when she does her rounds (she walks the perimeter of the property and has always done this even in our old house) and then comes back to lay down for a minute.  Jasper will sigh deeply as he lays down beside me as though he's saying "finally" and then two minutes later she's up to do another round and he grunts as he gets himself up to monitor what she is doing.  After several go-rounds he just gets up and walks in the general direction she's gone and then stops and watches her instead of following right behind.  If it weren't for Abbey, he would be content to lay beside me and never move, although he has been very intent on the cows across the road and a few times looked as though he was going to saunter over to investigate.  I think we are going to have to really watch him just in case he gets it in his head to go cow hunting.

A few more pics of labour day weekend fun!

I thought I would introduce you to my canine companions, Abbey, our Springer Spaniel who is 10 and Jasper, our Golden Retriever who is 9 although Jasper seems to have his head down in the hay for both the photos ( I will try to get a better one of him).  They are loving the new property and are staying for the most part within our property line.  I haven't allowed them in the treed part of our property yet for fear they will be covered in poison ivy oils and transfer it to us but hopefully one of these days we'll be able to go for a romp back there.  For sure once the ground freezes and we get a bit of snow we should be safe.

Check out the pile of brush we pulled from the stone fenceline and also a pic of CAT's jeep with his prized and much loved trailer on behind.  I can't tell you how many times I've had to hear "that trailer is not as nice or as good as mine" as we travel the roads.  We did get an amazing deal on it though, and have thanked our lucky stars ever since.  The stone fenceline is almost done.  Hopefully there will be some completed photos by the end of tomorrow.