Barn Shenanigans

I have this dream.

(Yes…another one…)

You see, there is this large hip roof barn on my farm that, well, has seen much better days.  Don’t get me wrong, it is beautiful, just getting to be on it’s last legs.  Truth be told, it had both feet in the grave 10 years ago…just waiting for someone to whack it on the backside of the head and start shovelling in the dirt.

So, I was planning to be that someone who did the whacking.  I was looking forward to it, actually.  The plan was…in a few years, after I get some other things done around here, I was going to clean it out.  (Lot of leftover “stuff” from the previous owner.)  Carefully, take it apart/carefully, knock it down and “harvest” all the lovely barn board to sell.  

THEN, I would…

…build a lovely greenhouse using the concrete half wall the barn was built on as a foundation. 

…a bit of straw bale insulation mixed with winter chicken housing

…a mass rocket heater…

I would have myself a lovely place to 

…start seeds in the spring

…grow salads and what-nots throughout winter

…overwinter tender transplants

…keep my composting worms

…hang out in the middle of winter when I just need to get my hands in the dirt

BUT…

…all of this was to be in the future.  A few years from now.  After I KNOW what I am doing out here and not just flying by the seat of my pants, making it up as I go.  I would at least wait until I have internet!

Instead, the wind blew and blew and blew and blew my barn “more” crooked.  Not down…just to crazy scary twisted and a “No one go near the barn!” order shouted every time anyone goes out side. 

And so, because we are grown-ups,

…and smart 

…and like to set a good example for our children, We decided to,

…rip some boards off, 

…hit it with a sledge hammer (repetitively) 

…and loop a chain around different parts of the barn to try to pull it over.

It definitely got our adrenaline going a few times!  When a whole BIG barn moves and  twists towards you…

And oh, the amount of video we have of the barn ALMOST falling and creaking and shuttering…and of us running away after hitting it relentlessly with the sledge.  

Run run run we did.  I think we need a montage. 

Okay, it's not a montage but whatever.

But still she stands.  (We have figured out that in the country, all inanimate objects are she’s.  We don’t know why, they just are.)  Well, she kneels.  A lop sided kneeling, at that.  Lop sided, precarious, drunken, leaning of the sort that makes you think she will never fall down but could fall at any second.  

She’s waiting until I put my hand inside to loop the chain around that one support…then she’ll fall…on me.  Murphy is like that.

I’m still pulling boards off of her to help rebuild the granary that is becoming the new chicken coop because, “I could use that wood!”  And, I am smart.