Taking Care of An Old Barn

 

Taking care of an old barn should be a regular habit on a homestead. If old barns are not cared for regularly they soon fall into disrepair. We have all driven down those back country roads to look off into a field and see what must have been a nice barn at one time. However, because of neglect it is now a pile of ruin. A haven for rats, snakes, and spiders. What a shame we all think. This can be prevented from happening, but it does take some effort. Our own barn is now about 100 years old. The man who lived here before us took excellent care of this barn and then he passed away. His widow was not able to do much and the barn was neglected for a new years. It didn't suffer much during this time because he cared for it so well during his lifetime. When we moved here to Willow Pond we took on the job of caring and keeping this old barn. The first thing we did was clean it out really well. This allowed us to see what issues there might be. We noticed that the added on shed roof was sagging because the foundation had moved around. Parts of it were not really even on a proper foundation. We live in the south so it is always best for any building to not have wood touching the ground. So we tore the walls down to studs, jack it up, laid a proper foundation, set the walls down on the foundation, rebuilt the walls, repaired/replaced any roof supports, replaced a couple pieces of roofing metal and voila'....a beautiful attachment to the barn that will stand for years to come. The next chore was to paint the barn. This took awhile as it is a very big barn. Then we replaced part of the floor on the livestock side and some roofing supports on that side as well. You get the point. Each season or year there is maintenance to be done on the barn. Some barn maintenance projects are large. Some are small. Much of it depends on how well, or how often, you stay on top of the maintenance check list. Do you fix small things right away or do you let them grow into bigger repairs. We like to plan barn maintenance chores in the spring and the fall. We got behind on this schedule when I was working at the restaurant. With both my husband and I working so much it was difficult to keep up with regular daily chores, much less extra projects. Better planning would have helped. Better scheduling would have helped also. So here I am, home again and able to do that planning and preparation. Spring is right around the corner and I am making my list of barn repairs and maintenance that we will need to take care of this spring and then another list for this fall. I am sure there will be things in the summer that come up. They will either be take care of immediately or they will wind up on the fall list.  Take a look at your old barn and get to working on that list. Old barns are beautiful treasures that don't need to be lost. There are too many pinterest pictures still to be taken! Blessings, Kat

One Big Stall

I LOVE IT!  We took out the stall dividers between the horse stalls and made one very large stall. The reason we did this was for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that we leave the barn doors open most of the time and use the barn more as a run in shed. Our horses live most of their lives outside unless they choose to head to the barn. Then when they would head into the barn before the divider removal they would all 3 squeeze into 1 stall. Sometimes horse number 3 only had her head in the stall, but by golly she wasn't leaving her buddies. The second reason is that it really is easier to clean and it works much better as a run in shed. The middle stall door can now stay closed while the two end doors stay open. This actually provides more shelter than when all three doors were open all the time. I love it. The horses love it. They have loads of room and it is so much nicer in my opinion. Now all we need is to refurbish the floors! Soon my friends....very soon!

 

Boy I am bad at posting on this new blog!

Man, I am really bad at updating this new blog. Our life has been really busy trying to get all projects done that are necessary for using the barn this winter. We had major flooding issues and so we put a French drain around the barn that now directs the water around the barn and into the pond so now the inside stays very dry even with copious amounts of water raining down. Fortunately we have very different soil than we did at Whisper Wind. There we had heavy clay soil and here it is much more sandy mixed with loam. It is beautiful soil and it perks really well. So, the French drain took some time and was a bit slow going. However, it is done and the inside of the stalls in the barn stay nice and dry. We then had to move a wall to make the stalls a little more horse friendly even though a couple of them will be used for goats. We had one large stall and then one that was really too small, but by moving the dividing wall a couple of feet both stalls are now comfortable for a horse. They aren't as large as I would really like them. Due to the age of the barn and stalls were not designed for maximum comfort of livestock back then we are doing pretty good to have them as comfortable as they are. The feed room is almost finished only needing the back wall and the back doorway. We still have some flooring to do but that small portion can wait until spring. We also had to refloor one stall on the back of the barn completely because it had bee dug out so much over the years that it was a good 2 feet lower than the outside, so that you had to jump down into it. We decided to use crossties and gravel to floor this stall. It isn't something that is common anymore to see stalls floored with wood because it can be slick when wet. However, wood is very insulating and has "give". We spaced the crossties a few inches apart and filled the spaces with gravel dust. This will allow for drainage and help with traction. The crossties are old railroad ties and so are well treated and will hold up for many years. Covered with shaving this will make a very comfortable and sturdy floor for any animal that the stall will hold over the years. This winter it will be goats. They will stay nice an snug in there with the new floor. The horse will be at the other end of the barn together and the chickens will be in the middle until we move them and then their stall will be used in February for kidding stalls for the goats. As I say it has been a ton of work and we still have the back fence to move and finish, along with the back of the feed room. We are almost done and the animals will be nice and snug this winter. It will also be sooooo much easier to get them all fed and cared for when it is cold and wet outside. Much nicer for me this winter. I really do think we are going to like this new place so much. Blessings to all, Kat