August 2010

Sam and Reuben began adding the new wood to the front of the barn last week.  We think it's rather glorious to see, and we have been discussing removing trees so the view to the front of the BARn is not obstructed. Back when we were first discussing the roof on the barn, we found a neat company, Sand Creek Post and Beam, that designs and sells the lumber and other parts to build post and beam barns.  On their website, we found a couple of big windows that were not used in a project and were heavily discounted.  We…

Did I mention that our construction crew is pretty cool? Sam Wolthuis, owner of H-Minus Construction, is a young guy that grew up in the area.  He understand barns.  He appreciates what we are trying to do.  He's proud of the work he's doing.  Sam and the BARn,,,it's a good fit. Sam's helper is his brother-in-law, Reuben.  Reuben also grew up in the area, and he, too, understands and appreciates old barns.  As an added plus, Reuben also does a little homebrewing of his own.  He mentioned a homemade wine made with black walnut and orange peel.  I think Reuben…

Work began on some of the structure of the barn today.  Old oak boards are being removed, and new treated pine from Houston Wood Treating will be put on the outside of the barn. The gambrel style of the barn will be kept, and some new fascia boards have been added on the East end of the barn to replace old boards.  The roof will be brought over to the edge when the new fascia is complete.  We are also adding soffit from treated pine. There are large holes in the East and West ends of the barn where hay…

About 5 p.m. today, Brian and I had a toast with a couple of our personal favorite Missouri microbrews.  With a Boulevard Wheat in my left hand and a Schlafly Pale Ale in his right hand, we toasted red. First, the St. Louis Cardinals finished off the Cincinnati Reds with a three game sweep of the Reds.  The games weren't even close.  Go Redbirds. Second, we toasted 15194.  Yes, today Brian called 9-1-1, and they gave the Piney River Brewing Company an official address--15194 Walnut Grove Drive.  According to 9-1-1, they left room for us to "put in a trailer"…

When we bought our farm, a slightly erect machine shed was leaning into the earth next to the barn.  It was an eyesore, and if you've been in the Ozarks for any amount of time, it was easy to look at the machine shed and see what the barn could become too with more time, wind, weather and neglect. We tore down that machine shed--burned the old boards, gave the tin to Jimmy to sell for scrap, and pushed the rest into a dry crib that we filled in.  Gone. The barn wasn't so easy to get rid of.  Fully…

And LOTS of it.  A backhoe dug lines from the new well to the barn and to our house (we're going to use our old well to water parts of the garden and my flower beds).  However, the new well will have excellent pressure, so we've routed it to the house and, of course to the barn. We've got some navigation issues from one side of the yard to the other and to things like the compost bin.  The ditches are about four feet deep.  What may be problematic for me is paradise to a five-year old. Brian's doing a…

Brian and I agreed tonight that on the hottest of brewing days in our future, it will probably never be as hot and as dirty as the past four days. Early Thursday morning we had a new well dug on our property.  The well that we currently have is very old and not very deep.  The water is fine--quite tasty, actually--but we needed more water pressure for our current adventures.  In between the greenhouse/bottle tree stump and the the storage shed, our new well is 190 feet deep with water at 80 feet and pumping 30 gallons a minute.  Gotta…