The Barn | Peggy's Little Corner

October 8, 2014

In spring 2012 we had started to talk about building a barn. We were considering a useful building that would house lawn equipment. My husband had his idea of how the barn should look, and I had mine, neither of which coincided with the other.

So in late June of that year a storm ripped through our area that the meteorologists referred to as a Derecho. When the storm was over it had blown an enormous sugar maple over onto the old smoke house on my families farm. The old 1803 building was still intact just the roof had collapsed and it had been pushed from it’s foundation. My mother not knowing how to get the wreckage cleaned up opted for chaining it to the tractor and pulling it out from under the tree and burning it.

The thought of that process made me sick! The very thought of those hand hewn red hickory beams with the hand forged meat hooks still attached, or the 16 inch red hickory wall boards going up in flames, I just couldn’t let that happen. So i volunteered myself and family to clean up the mess if I could have the old smoke house, my mother agreed.

The next morning armed with a chainsaw, crow bars, shovels, and hammers, My husband, daughter, son, faithful pooch, and me began demolition. The first thing that had to be done was a large limb had to be removed from the roof before we could begin dismantling the building.

As my husband cut away one branch at a time whilst slipping and sliding on the old tin roof I held my breath because each limb snapped back like a catapult. Next we took the old tin roof off, then removed the wall boards.

The last to be removed was the old hickory beams. Oh my, we left the heaviest for the last. Each beam weighed 300 pounds and with the hooks still in place it was a dangerous and arduous task, at one point one of the hooks caught my son’s shirt and almost gutted him like a fish.

Night had set in and lightning cracking all around us we had everything of value loaded onto the trucks and headed home with our soon to be barn.

It was late and storming when we arrived home but we all needed a shower. The many people who frequented the pond, and pool at my mothers farm left their many bags of trash and the beautiful heart shaped cut out on the door had long since been missing the screen and the raccoons and bats had pooped everywhere on the second floor, needless to say the building had fallen into disrepair. So with thunder and lightning cracking all around my daughter and I took the upstairs bathroom, my son and husband took the downstairs bathroom and then Dobby my faithful pooch got his bath and we all crawled into bed exhausted.

The next day my husband took the old tin to the recycling center and got enough money to buy a couple dozen sweetcorn at a roadside market. Then we laid out each piece of wood so they could be washed of all the poop. When the wood was dry we stacked it according to size, covered it with a tarp and gave ourselves some time to think about where and how we wanted it to look.

A month later with the location chosen I came up with a plan to recreate the existing smoke house as it was and add two wings on each side. But just as we got started my husbands employer increased production so that meant overtime hours for him and meant me and my kids had to start production on the barn without him.

So my son single handedley moved all the bank run gravel to the top of the hill by himself. Then he and my husband set the posts and beams and I became very skilled with a table saw and crosscut saw. Later my daughter and I painted and stained in some of the hottest and driest weather we had that summer. Sometimes It would be so lonely working by myself but my little chickens, Biddy, Kitty, and Lily that I had raised that spring kept me company, my little barn buddies as I affectionately referred to them. There silly antics of clucking loudly everytime they found a worm, as if to say mommy look what we found, or when they needed a rest they would roost on the bottom rung of my latter, and Dobby always by my side watching over me and protecting me, I didn’t have to be worried about lonely for long. The added bonus of many tomatoes for a snack made this long project more enjoyable.

As the weather started to get cold we were putting the finishing touches on our new barn. I decided to go with old tin lighting so it would have a primitive feel and the heart shaped opening on the door I made a tin punch panel of tulips to lend an acknowledgement to the German family who were the first family to own our farm and who crafted the smoke house. The last thing to be completed was the floor. I wanted to do a red brick floor but it was already the first week in November and we were running out of time before really cold weather hit, so we went with a cement floor and so I could still have the red brick look I chose three different earth toned paints and a large sponge and stamped out a brick pattern. It turned out pretty good, visitors to the barn at first glance think it is a real brick floor, I’ll take that as a compliment. Now the barn houses the sheeps hay and a few wee mice. Many years later we all look back on that difficult day with fondness because we really enjoy our little barn, it’s a great place to sit and ponder, and the dogs love to lay their bellies on the cool cement floor between the air flow of the front and back door.