Prepping for a Pole Barn

Slowly but surely we're making progress on clearing an area to build a pole barn.  It's been a long slog, complicated by things like tearing down an old house, clearing enough space to create a burn pile, burn piles that won't light, burst hydraulic lines... the list goes on.

Despite all that, I think we finally cleared enough space after a big burst of work by the boy scouts, who did a service project for us this weekend.  The basic idea was to throw anything that would burn on the bonfire.  That's kind of a scary directive to give scouts, but it worked out well.  No major injuries.

From 2012-05-13

The panorama shot below gives an idea of how big a space we're clearing.  The old house sat right about where the fire is on the right side.  I hated to have to tear it down, but it was falling apart and unsalvageable.  It's a pity, because it was really interesting to see how the old timers built a house out of rough cut cedar.

In fact, the only parts that were bought from a store were the tin roof and the nails.  The rest was either rough cut or milled cedar.  Even the fireplace was built out of handcut limestone.

In the middle of the picture, you can see the old well that they used.  We've set up a crossbar an Amish well bucket to pull water out of it.  Unfortunately, it goes dry pretty quickly and doesn't fill up until we get a lot of rain, so it's not really functional.

I'm currently toying with the idea of calling in a well digger to open it up a bit more and using it for a cistern, and piping all the water off the roof of the barn into it.  It could be an interesting project.

From 2012-05-13

Below is flare up we had from throwing a couple of dried up cedar boughs on the fire.  It's amazing how flammable the cedar is when it's dried out.   It's almost as explosive as gasoline.

From 2012-05-13

The scouts worked hard dragging cut trees to the fire.  It would have taken me several long Saturdays to do it myself, so I'm very appreciative of their efforts.

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Brian and Bill were a lot of help.  Here they are showing the scouts the proper way to screw around.

From 2012-05-13

Brian got into the swing of things by bulldozing the forest.  I was a little nervous at first, but he picked it up quickly and was moving stuff all over the place.

From 2012-05-13

By the end of the day, it was starting to look like this crazy idea just might work.  Now comes the really hard part.  How to layout the barn.  East-West, North-South?  What orientation will make it easiest to pull equipment in and out?   I have a lot of thinking to do.

From 2012-05-13

One of our activities was  to explore the sink hole cave.  I'd known the goats liked hanging around it, but I had no idea how much they've taken over until I climbed down in.

From 2012-05-13

It was really cool to come out of the cave and see Gracie sitting on shelf.  They have taken over and made themselves totally at home.

Interestingly enough, I think it's high enough and sheltered enough that they might not need a guardian to protect them.  It would take a determined dog or coyote to get up there.  I'll have to keep an eye on it through different weather cycles and see how it goes.

From 2012-05-13