# Old barn still working



## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

A previous poster was discussing a barn he was considering taking down. I commented about the old barn on my property which has stood for longer than I. A couple of years ago I added the new pole barn to help with hay storage. This old dog is trying to learn new tricks so my "helper" is working with me to get pictures up. I think we did it, but then it isn't posted yet.

If you look close the post on the right side you can see it is hand hewed post. We jacked this post up and made a 2 x 3 foot cement pad with bar stock in the cement to bolt post to pad. I believe there are cement pads under all the posts on the outside walls. But amazingly most of the inside post are still good down into the dirt.


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## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

A little more of the story by best guesses of people long gone is that old barn was built as early as 1880's. The tin roof was put on in the 30's. My father rented the ranch in fall of 37 and bought it late 40's. The barn was built for horses and loose hay. The loose hay was picked off a wagon with what was called a "Jackson fork" locally. The fork and part of the track is still up in the peak of the roof. My dad put loose hay in the barn as late as 47 maybe. About 1950 he put the 12x12 door in to store the separator of a JD 36b hillside combine,along with a bit of baled hay.

A good part of the neighborhood thought the door was the ruination of the barn including his father.But it made it a very usable storage space since a truck could back in and unload against the stack of bales. No dragging bale in a walk door and then up a stack.

In Jan 1994 what is the left side in the picture a 1/4 of the roof rafters and all was flipped by a wind storm upside down on the right side. It looked like this might be the end of a the barn. But my bother in law had been let go by small company that had a generational change of management by a MBA grad that replaced him with young guy at 1/2 the pay. So at 62 he took the job on single handedly.

So at that time a 20 x 20 door was put in the other end. For a number of years I stored a Gleaner MH combine with 18 foot head in back end of barn.

The economics of farming are ever changing and the cheap way to keep a cow had changed and more storage for cow hay was needed so since early 2000's have used it only for hay. All of it put in with a hay squeeze as the picture shows.

The new barn was built in 15 if the money tree would do better I want some lean too,s. But the way it is with the 20+a few inches to eves, double stacked it holds 1000+ of are 100 to 130 pound bales.At this time the billboard traps do a good job if put on the 2 sides are storms hit from.


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