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'round the pot-bellied stove / Western Ohio Update
« on: October 14, 2015, 09:50:45 PM »
Ralph, I'm sorry to hear of that awful harvesting weather. Wish I could ship you some of what we've been having around here--aside from a couple of unseasonably cold and rainy days in a row in early October, it's been warm and dry, and seems like every bit of soybeans and darn near all the corn is in, everywhere I go.
Not being a farmer I don't have any harvesting stories of my own, but I've been busy. Still working on figuring out what to do with some increasingly bad erosion in the little creek that flows through my north pasture. It's doing the typical meandering thing that streams do, leaving bigger and bigger under-cut "cliffs" three or four feet high that I don't dare get near with the tractor (but which are hard to tell exactly where they are, from the tractor seat). It's also undercutting my fence that parallels the road, where the creek goes under the fence and into a culvert. The county soil/water conservation guy came and gave me some advice and I've talked with one contractor about some work, but haven't really hit on the right plan yet.
The other big project has been tearing down what's left of the little shed that once connected the old silo with the bank barn. The walls are long gone but the roof remains, attached pretty securely on one end to the barn, attached by a few sheet metal screws to the silo unloader chute on one corner, and completely unsupported and hanging down on the fourth corner. Been that way for years, near as I can tell. A few months ago I started removing it but decided to leave a little bit of it as an overhang for the barn door below it. Easy to imagine, hard to figure out exactly how to do. And of course the project expanded to include rebuilding the door and door frame below the little roof, since the old stuff wasn't solid enough to use as part of the new roof supports. Here's a "before" photo and some progress photos.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]918[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]919[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]922[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]920[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]921[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]923[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]927[/ATTACH]
Still lots to do but I'm hoping the rest goes more quickly, now that all the behind-the-scenes infrastructure is in place. I'm doing my best to make this repair worthy of the barn and those who came before me.
Dean
October 15th update:
Not being a farmer I don't have any harvesting stories of my own, but I've been busy. Still working on figuring out what to do with some increasingly bad erosion in the little creek that flows through my north pasture. It's doing the typical meandering thing that streams do, leaving bigger and bigger under-cut "cliffs" three or four feet high that I don't dare get near with the tractor (but which are hard to tell exactly where they are, from the tractor seat). It's also undercutting my fence that parallels the road, where the creek goes under the fence and into a culvert. The county soil/water conservation guy came and gave me some advice and I've talked with one contractor about some work, but haven't really hit on the right plan yet.
The other big project has been tearing down what's left of the little shed that once connected the old silo with the bank barn. The walls are long gone but the roof remains, attached pretty securely on one end to the barn, attached by a few sheet metal screws to the silo unloader chute on one corner, and completely unsupported and hanging down on the fourth corner. Been that way for years, near as I can tell. A few months ago I started removing it but decided to leave a little bit of it as an overhang for the barn door below it. Easy to imagine, hard to figure out exactly how to do. And of course the project expanded to include rebuilding the door and door frame below the little roof, since the old stuff wasn't solid enough to use as part of the new roof supports. Here's a "before" photo and some progress photos.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]918[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]919[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]922[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]920[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]921[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]923[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]927[/ATTACH]
Still lots to do but I'm hoping the rest goes more quickly, now that all the behind-the-scenes infrastructure is in place. I'm doing my best to make this repair worthy of the barn and those who came before me.
Dean
October 15th update: