Our New Barn , In Picture Series. Enjoy!

[North West Farmer]

USNative,

Thanks for the update. We farm too so we know very well what it is like doing all of the last minute items prior to winter weather setting in.

Where you are, you are attempting to beat the cold, on my end we are trying to get most of our off road projects completed, attempting to beat the winter rains. After the heavy rain starts and it can start any day now, you can't do much off of roads unless you have flotation and traction. When it gets really wet, anything off road sinks up to the axles.

I have a 1972 Land Cruiser that we get around in on the place from late November through the end of February. Presently I have been concentrating on cutting up wind fall trees from the woodland areas for firewood and packing the green firewood out with a trailer behind the Land Cruiser.

My oldest son, the mechanical engineer, was big time into off road rallies for a few years. He build up this Land Cruiser specifically for hard core off road stuff. The thing is raised up so high I can hardly climb into it. I would have to go out and check on the tire size, but it has large balloon traction type tires and on the front he mounted a large military surplus PTO winch He also installed a Freightliner air compressor on it to operate rear end lockers so you can lock up the rear wheels. With all that stuff it does have the ability to get around fairly well.

When he decided to quit throwing money at his four wheeling thing, I bought the Land Cruiser from him for the farm and it definitely has been very useful in the wet winter conditions.

The beaver trapping season goes from mid October through mid March. The beavers would take down every tree on the place if I don't keep the numbers down. I trap the beavers very aggressively throughout the season to save the trees. Out here ash is their favorite food, followed by maple, cherry, popular, oak and surprisingly red cedar. They will take down trees up to around 12 to 18 inches, eat all of the smaller limbs and use the larger lumber for their dams. The thing that really bugs me is the way they strip all of the bark off of the really nice big trees so the next year the tree dies and I need to get it through the saw mill or cut it of for firewood.

Not many people trap beaver anymore, they don't like to be out in the cold wet weather with wet or dry suits on to work the trap lines. The biggest problem we face in trapping is when big storms come through causing the water level to change and the heavy runoff tends to float debris that sets the traps off. When the water level is going up and down you need to keep adjusting your sets, since a good set can only tolerate an increase in water depth of four to six inches and the set is not affective until you adjust for dept.

At any rate, we have yarded the logs out that were subject to being trapped by wet conditions and we are working on cutting up the wind fall material that is not saw log quality. This is the time of year when the Land Cruiser pays for itself. If it wasn't for that old girl the beaver trapping would be a real tough deal, lugging around a couple dozen traps and the equipment needed to make the sets.

I'll take the wet stuff, you can have the snow and ice. We have some of that, but it is usually only a few days each year, being so close to the good old Pacific Ocean.

If I could figure our how to post pictures to this thread I would send you some pictures of our equipment and projects, but still need to figure that out. I am sure it is probably a very simple process, but I haven't got it under control as of this time. Will work on that as we are inside more in the coming winter days.

As usual, will be looking for your pictures. Hope the cold weather doesn't shut things down too bad for you. Keep plugging away and somehow the important things seem to get done, I often wonder how as I get older each year I seem to get slower as well. By adjusting priorities and getting at the program every day things go along just fine, that's what counts.

Nick, North West Farmer

 

[teg]

...If I could figure our how to post pictures to this thread I would send you some pictures...

Look for the "paper clip" or scroll down below the "Submit Reply" / "Preview Post" buttons to find "Manage Attachments" button. Clicking on either of those two buttons (shown in the photo below) will open another menu where you can attach photos. Don't forget to click on "upload" after you find the photos on your computer.

 

[cjfling]

I'd sure be grateful for some more detailed pictures of the bottom rail system on your exterior, sliding doors. I've built a similar barn and don't have a bottom rail on my doors. I would sure like to add it as those doors can get away from you in a good wind.

Thanks!

 

[cjfling]

I have never seen the metal sheeting to be wider on one end. I really don't know where you heard that. We make the stuff at one of our plants that I work for and that is not the case here or any of the other metal I have worked with.

I haven't either. I think what he is talking about is when the manufacturer's cutting and rolling equipment is wore out and producing sheets that are not square. The cheaper retailer's tin generally isn't square where as if your willing to pay 10 to 15 cents a linear foot more at the more expensive retailers, you get square sheets. Makes installation a lot faster.

 

[USNative]

I'd sure be grateful for some more detailed pictures of the bottom rail system on your exterior, sliding doors. I've built a similar barn and don't have a bottom rail on my doors. I would sure like to add it as those doors can get away from you in a good wind.

Thanks!

No problem cjfling , I can add couple of pics for you soon, probably tomorrow so check back in a while.

Just to let you know though, I don't have an actual rail system on the bottom of the exterior doors at all. What I have are mounted rubber rollers and the doors are between those rollers and the wall. They work well for keeping the doors from blowing outward in wind and keep the doors with the wall where they are supposed to be.

I will post some pics for you tomorrow so you can see what they are and how they function. They are ok and work well for the intended use but when you close them you need to make sure the edge of the door is behind the roller so the wind don't blow it around. I will include pics of the latch systems that hold the doors closed so you can see those as well. :thumbsup:

 

[North West Farmer]

teg,

Thank you very much for the tutorial on attaching pictures. Just as I thought, the methodology was right there in front of me all the time. Needed to do a little more digging on the workings of the forum.

Did some experimenting relative to your instructions and I believe I have the processes figured out. Now to select and/or take some pictures to attach.

Your assistance is much appreciated.

Nick, North West Farm

 

[USNative]

Part 15, As promised here are the pictures of the back side of the barn. We have the clear poly window going all the way across the upper section. Where we built the tack room you could see the back of the tack room through the window and it was a real eye sore. To fix the issue we added the red tin to that area to hide that part and it really looks a lot better. If you look back on page 6 of this thread of the back of the barn you can see the way it looked before we made the improvement.

Also here are pictures of the Cottonwood Trees we just had trimmed and the mess I have to clean up. A tree trimmer service did 9 trees for us at a little less than half price which was an awesome deal that we couldn't pass up. I will have to get going on the cleanup on this and put everything else on hold but for the price we got it done for it is well worth doing. These trees as you can see were in very bad shape and a threat to damaging our house from falling limbs. Just had that done yesterday. Very relieved to get that taken care of this year.

Here's the pics and enjoy!

 

[MotorSeven]

Wow...now that's a barn......outstanding!

 

[USNative]

Wow...now that's a barn......outstanding!

Thanks, and your Log House project is lookin' great as well MotorSeven! :thumbsup:

 

[North West Farmer]

USNative,

In looking over your new picture layout I notice you have very wisely had some fairly good sized cotton wood trees cut back. It also appears, by looking at some of the end cuts on the limbs that there may be some tree health/condition issues as well. If the dark centers are in fact indicative of dead wood or rot, you should keep an eye on the trees that show potential weakness and consider removing them all together.

After all of my years as a fireman, responding on trees and limbs down on houses and after seeing how much damage the trees can cause and in some cases serious injuries were sometimes involved, I tend to get quite concerned about people living very close to trees, especially very big trees. I have seen large oak limbs and large Douglas fir trees literally got right through a structure, making it all the way down to the foundation. Trees close to residences can be extremely hazardous.

When we first purchased our present farm, house and buildings built in 1909, the house and buildings were surrounded by six huge Douglas fir that were over 175ft tall and averaged around 7ft in diameter. There was also one extremely large broad leaf maple that had grown four huge trunks, all of which were at least 3ft in diameter and the entire tree leaned toward the house. Every time we had a good winter blow, usually involving heavy rain, we would find the yard littered with monster branches, many of which were up to 18inches in diameter. I would need to get out my old Montgomery chainsaw and cut up the branches so we could push them out of the way so we could get out of the yard.

Surprisingly, we only received minor damage from all of those trees. A good friend or ours and his partner were retired loggers so I approached them about helping us get the trees out of the yard before they pulverized the house and maby us inside it. They agreed to help and they did take the trees down, but that was the most distressed I have ever felt when they began to cut down those trees. They were so experienced they parked their trucks right in the driveway, within range of the big trees and they only put a line on two of the trees to make sure they didn't have any direction of fall issues.

These two senior gentlemen showed up with four Homelite chainsaws, with 48 inch bars. They had one large JD skidder on rubber with a long winch line which was what they used on the two trees to be sure they went the right way. Showing a very unconcerned demeanor, they filled their pockets with falling wedges and approached the trees with a sledge hammer, the makings for role your own cigarettes and went right to work.

Stood back, and using the sledge hammer handle for a plumb bob, they sized up each tree, cranked up the chainsaw and routinely made the face cut, knocked the wedge out with the sledge hammer, checked the face cut for proper orientation. Next they sauntered around to the other side of the tree and started the back cut (the falling cut). The back cut was very plumb to the ground and was approximately 3inches above the seat of the face cut angle. After progressing a foot or so with the back cut they began to set wedges, which they continued to tighten as they continued the back cut. I noticed that the back cut was not exactly parallel to the seat of the face cut angle, so that concerned me more than just a smite.

At that time, our power lines were not buried, but they were in the air and ran through the limbs of the trees being fallen. It turns out that was what the pie shaped wedge they made was for. When the trees fell, the hinge was cut in a pie shape. This caused the tree to rotate about 90 degrees as it began to fall. The revolving action cleared the wires from between the limbs and the trees came down exactly where they wanted them and the overhead electric wires hardly wiggled. These gentlemen were real pros.

Over the next couple of years they did more logging on my property and on the land of several neighbors. I spent all of the time I could working with them to learn as much about the logging process a possible, the falling, the rigging, the yarding, bucking, limbing and loading the trucks. The trees were so large, several one log loads went out of our yard to the mill.

It was quite interesting that they did not send the bottom 20ft of each tree to the mill. They said that typically, trees that came from around buildings usually were filled with nails, wire, insulators and you name it. If they send one log like that into the mill and the junk in the log destroys the big band blade, the mill is done with them as suppliers.

After I got my own sawmill the first thing I acquired was a good metal detector and it has found many items that most likely would have damaged my blades. I learned a great deal from these senior gentlemen, back in the mid 1970's. Much of that wealth of knowledge went with them when they went to meet their maker.

Wow, I have done it again. Way more than anybody wants to know. You were wise to deal with those trees that are plenty close to you house as far as I am concerned. There is enough energy in those trees when falling to pulverize some very big stuff.

Nick, North West Farmer