It was kind of sad pulling down the last of the old barns yesterday. I still have lots of cleanup to do, but the skyline of our farm is different this morning.
I am going to save as much of the 9” square and 6” square hand-hewn posts and beams as I can, cutting them into 10 ft lengths and stacking them under the back porch of my new pole barn, until a “need” arises.
I am also going to save what’s recoverable from the sawed oak rafters and 1” thick x 12” wide American chestnut roofing boards, that is now under several layers of shingles. It’s much safer working on that, now that it’s down on the ground.
Two other things I want to recover, are what’s left of the “83” siding board, and the hay forks, and trolley that were up under the peak. They were way too high for me to try and get while it was standing.
I did manage to pull down the “18” board from the top of a 24 ft extension ladder, but the “83” broke across the center of the “3”, when I tried pulling that one down. My new pole barn went up on the site of great grandpa’s first old barn, in 2018. I used that “18” board, and matched the text size and style with a jigsaw on another, to mark the year inside the new barn.
I used hand-hewn posts & beams and sawed rafters, siding and roofing, from the first old barn that I dismantled, to make a loft and workshops inside the new steel barn. I will use some of that stuff from the last one, to enclose the back porch and make a new firewood shed on the back.
I pulled it down using a 1/2” wire rope and a snatch block, attached to my largest tractor. I put it in the lowest gear. I wonder how long it took the pilgrims to raise that old barn frame. It came down in under a minute with my tractor in the lowest creeper gear. The snatch block cut my speed in half but doubled my pull force.
I remember helping grandpa unload loose hay with the big forks in that old barn, when I was a young kid. How nice that was, compared to when he got the damn square baler, when I was about 12. Pitching the loose hay around the lofts seemed like a lot more fun than handling those bales.
The lofts were not really made for the added weight of baled hay and the floor beams got busted up in several locations. The barns got crooked and that contributed to their eventual demise.
Pulling the barns down was not nearly as scary as taking down the old concrete silo with sledge hammer. I had to go “in harms way” for that job. I wore a hard hat, but I am not sure how much protection that would have provided from heavy concrete blocks falling over 25 ft.
My only worry, pulling this last barn down, was that it would hit our house (missed that by 8 feet), or my new pole barn (fell within an inch and a half of that). I hope to have everything cleaned up so I can seed grass around mid August.
I am going to save as much of the 9” square and 6” square hand-hewn posts and beams as I can, cutting them into 10 ft lengths and stacking them under the back porch of my new pole barn, until a “need” arises.
I am also going to save what’s recoverable from the sawed oak rafters and 1” thick x 12” wide American chestnut roofing boards, that is now under several layers of shingles. It’s much safer working on that, now that it’s down on the ground.
Two other things I want to recover, are what’s left of the “83” siding board, and the hay forks, and trolley that were up under the peak. They were way too high for me to try and get while it was standing.
I did manage to pull down the “18” board from the top of a 24 ft extension ladder, but the “83” broke across the center of the “3”, when I tried pulling that one down. My new pole barn went up on the site of great grandpa’s first old barn, in 2018. I used that “18” board, and matched the text size and style with a jigsaw on another, to mark the year inside the new barn.
I used hand-hewn posts & beams and sawed rafters, siding and roofing, from the first old barn that I dismantled, to make a loft and workshops inside the new steel barn. I will use some of that stuff from the last one, to enclose the back porch and make a new firewood shed on the back.
I pulled it down using a 1/2” wire rope and a snatch block, attached to my largest tractor. I put it in the lowest gear. I wonder how long it took the pilgrims to raise that old barn frame. It came down in under a minute with my tractor in the lowest creeper gear. The snatch block cut my speed in half but doubled my pull force.
I remember helping grandpa unload loose hay with the big forks in that old barn, when I was a young kid. How nice that was, compared to when he got the damn square baler, when I was about 12. Pitching the loose hay around the lofts seemed like a lot more fun than handling those bales.
The lofts were not really made for the added weight of baled hay and the floor beams got busted up in several locations. The barns got crooked and that contributed to their eventual demise.
Pulling the barns down was not nearly as scary as taking down the old concrete silo with sledge hammer. I had to go “in harms way” for that job. I wore a hard hat, but I am not sure how much protection that would have provided from heavy concrete blocks falling over 25 ft.
My only worry, pulling this last barn down, was that it would hit our house (missed that by 8 feet), or my new pole barn (fell within an inch and a half of that). I hope to have everything cleaned up so I can seed grass around mid August.
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