We have been so busy working on the barn and attempting to get things in order. The pace has really picked up over here and that’s a good thing. After Paul arrived on the farm he dug right into work on the barn and fences. Taking advantage of the good weather during the month of November he was able to complete the fencing on the 3 sides of the girls pasture. I added the electric fence supports to the posts and we are ready to go with that. We left one side of the fence off for now so that we could drive into the pasture with the truck. Last weekend we removed the 3 piles of wood debris that was there and so now the pasture is all cleaned up.

Meanwhile the barn is coming along nicely. When last I wrote about the barn, it was September and we had put on the 2 X 4’s for the hay loft flooring. So let’s just catch up a bit on that news. We started putting up the beams for the roof the middle of November. If you think putting up the 14ft posts was scary… You should have been here for this!!! No machinery used at all. Paul built these two massive beams on top of the loft, 2 X 6’s and 2 X4’s, screwed and glued together. Then we let them set up for a couple of days before moving them into place. We used a series of ropes, pullys and a comalong… and a LOT OF PRAYER!!! These are 45 ft long !!!

And finally here are the two of them in place side by side… whew !!! That was a lot of work !!!

He also built some 28ft doubled up 2 X 6’s for the cross beams in the center of the roof as there is a large span of empty space where there are no posts to hold it up. We put those up the next day.

NEXT we started on the other cross beams. First we attached some good ole Simpson Strong Ties ( AKA Hurricane Brackets ) About $6.00 each at Lowes…. Paul found them online at a dropshipment place for about $1.25 each.

Then we started attaching 2 X 6’s. There are 5 roof sections. Sections 1,3 & 5 have 12 foot lengths with the Simpson Strong Ties. Sections 2 & 4 do not have the brackets but are 10 ft 2 X 6’s that overlap the 12 ft ones by a foot or so and at that overlap they are screwed and glued with construction Hard As Nails.

At the end of the weekend it looked like this !!!

We are now having some intermittent good weather with bad weather. It’s been pretty cold, so work has slowed down a bit. The barn is located on the east side of the house and in a shaded area. Since the sun does not hit that spot till well after noon, any ice that has accumulated during the sub freezing nights does not melt till after lunch time. But when there is good weather we are more than ready to continue. The rest of the roof beams are now being put in place, we have moved the temporary work platforms to the outside of the barn at the lower end of the roof and stacked the plywood for the roof there. We also have purchased the metal roofing materials and it awaits nearby.