It’s Only Hay; Hey, Hey….

“It’s only hay; hey, hey”.  The words to The Fall Guy theme kept running through my head with each pitchfork full.  Now that we had the barn it was time to start cleaning it out.  We had all the papers signed that we would take it down and clean up all the wood.  We waited while the house and barn were scoured for an estate auction; now it was time.  The task seemed daunting.  The hay hadn’t been touched in years.  It lay thick on the floor, it was at least three feet deep in most spots.  The smell of barn animals lingered with each scoop and I’m not only talking about your typical barnyard animals but also stray cats and years of raccoons using the hay for a bathroom.  We invested a few bucks in a mask to filter out the stink and got back to work.  When we started on Saturday it seemed like it was going so slow Andy and I thought it was going to take weeks to get all the hay out.  It didn’t help that the wind was whipping around the barn and throwing a good portion of our full scoops back in our faces when we tried to throw it on the wagon.  Regardless we pressed on.  After a full days work we looked around and half the hay was gone.  We couldn’t believe it.  On Sunday we went back; “No rest for the wicked” my mother always said.  By the end of the day the majority of the hay was cleaned out!  Under that giant pile of hay was a single antique marble.  Some child must have lost it years ago while they were playing in the barn.  How neat to find it after all this time.  Having the hay out of there was such a relief, a job that seemed like it was going to take an eternity didn’t take long at all.  If there’s one thing I have learned during this experience it’s that Andy and I make a great team.

The next step if I am remembering correctly was to knock down all the poles spanning the beams above our heads.  My mother always called these tear poles in our barn, not sure why; maybe it’s because they hit their heads on the low hanging ones a lot when we were hanging tobacco.  I remember one instance when my dad walked right into one and I made the mistake to giggle because when he hit it his hat fell off.  For some reason it struck me as funny the way the hat tumbled to the ground.  I got an earful for that one.  Andy’s brother Greg came to help knock the poles down, him, Andy and Ken took care of it in a matter of hours.  I must admit I think they had a great time knocking the poles down.  After years of being used to hang tobacco they were now out of their precarious perches.  I did help with one because it was literally a telephone pole that some long ago farmer had chained to a beam.  Way too much for one or even two people to manage.

Next came the loft.  It was covered with hay and garbage just like the lower barn floor was when we started.  Once that was all cleaned up and swept off we started pulling up boards.  You can never have too many crowbars.

We were quite happy to discover a multitude of vintage and antique doors and windows stacked up in the loft.  Now they are happily residing in the loft at our barn waiting to be re-used.  I love old stuff, things that have a history.  One of the other things that was left in the barn definitely has a history.

Dated 1948 on the metal lining my Father in Law said that these were used to ship casualties home in the military.  It had been used for years to store grain for the animals.  We didn’t feel like it should be thrown out so we have stored it until we can figure out what to do with it.  On that note it’s time to call it a night.  I will add more about our barn project soon!  Thanks for reading.

A Barn to Salvage

The barn as it was when we first laid eyes on it.

My husband and I have always wanted to live in a big open loft type space.

When we found ourselves with forty acres in the country on my family farm it felt like that dream might not be possible,

after all where do you find a big open loft in the country?  We thought about it and decided we wanted a barn.

Wanting a barn and acquiring a barn are two very different things.  I toyed with the idea in my head and would look on websites where people

could list their barns for sale; yes those do exist.  The two I frequented most were Old Barn Wood and The Barn Pages.  Many were too far away to be feasible.

I pushed my barn thoughts to the back of my head as my son started preschool and everyday life took over.  One day I decided to look

for a log cabin on Craigslist that we could take down and rebuild.  My father in law has a local museum with several log cabins he moved himself

so I knew we could do it with a little help.  What luck we found one!  We called and made an appointment to look at it.

The Craigslist Cabin

I got my hopes up!  I was so excited.  My husband Andy and I and my Father in Law waded through tall

weeds and overgrown brambles to reach the cabin.  It was beautiful.  It was big.  It was unfortunately mostly rotten.  The logs at the bottom were

definitely rotten.  The ones in the back where a previous kitchen attachment had been years ago had been leaked on for so long they were

beyond help.  We still ventured inside to look around.  Even at this point my dreamer brain was still hopeful that we could fix it.

The inside was strewn with 1940′s furniture that must have been beautiful at one time.  It was as if the previous occupant just

decided to leave one day and left all their belongings behind.  My father in law started up the shaky stairs to the second floor.

Up there on the landing tucked in the corner was a baby buzzard; even a baby buzzard is by no means small.  We figured that

we had better head on out of there because where there’s a baby there’s probably a mother too.  My father in law told us

that one of the cabins he had taken down for his museum also had buzzard occupants.  I guess buzzards like cabins too.

I was sad but we talked it over in the car on the way home and it slowly sunk in that there was no saving that cabin without

replacing almost all of the logs.  I’m not sure what happened to it, I will have to drive by and peek sometime to see if it’s still there holding

it’s historic place in the woods or if it’s been lost to the bulldozer or burnt down.

The cabin of long ago forgotten in the woods.

 After I got home I was so disappointed.  On a whim I decided to look on the old barn websites and see what was new.

There it was.  A barn that was literally right down the road.  It was meant to be I thought.  What are the chances that I would find that barn.  I was told

by the owner that we were the first ones who called about it.  Apparently just in time, people from as far away as Arkansas wanted to come and take it down for

the wood; did I mention he didn’t want any money for it!  We went to look at it a couple of days later and were blinded with the beauty of the

hand hewn beams cut with a broad axe from old growth forest long ago.  The longest beam in the building was 40′ cut from one tree.  It was

all pegged together as a proper timber frame should be with wooden pegs.  It was gorgeous!

Hand hewn beams held together with wooden pegs.

 Now you might ask, why would anyone think a barn is gorgeous?  Why would anyone want to turn a barn into a house?

Timber frame barns are gorgeous because they seep with history.  They were made long ago by craftsmen using nothing but hand tools and

sweat labor.  They are a true architectural art form.  A barn would lend itself to the wide open spaces that my husband and I have always

desired in a home and we’re suckers for antiques and history.  What could be more of an antique that a hand hewn beam cut from a possibly 200 or more

year old tree long ago?  We were in love with the idea.  Standing inside this massive 40′x60′ space humbled us some.  The thought struck

us that we knew nothing about taking down a barn.  I had spent my whole childhood on a farm and was in our tobacco barn all the time doing

various chores but we never had to do anything beyond repairing a piece of siding or fixing a leak in the roof.  We were feeling a little

nervous, I could tell by the look on Andy’s face that maybe he was thinking we were in over our heads.  About that time

the man who owned it asked if we thought we wanted it.  Before we could reply my father in law said “Yes, we’ll take it.”

I thought, “Well, now we’re committed.”  It’s been a lot of work and had some twists and turns

along the way but it’s been a lot of fun and a vast learning experience.  I will add more to our story every few days.  Stay tuned!

We thought we might be crazy for taking on this project but we had to try.