Building up the barn base

We wanted to build the barn up some from the surrounding land so that water wouldn't flow into the barn when it rains.  So we had six huge dump truck loads of dirt delivered.  And then we had to get the dirt into the barn.  There was no way I was hauling all of that stuff into there with a wheel barrel. I would be moving dirt for the rest of my life.  

 So we rented a bobcat to move the dirt.  Spencer did the driving - I was afraid I would knock down the barn.  I did take one spin in the bobcat towards the end of the day, and it was pretty cool.  The bobcat made short work of moving the dirt into the barn.  




















Spencer put several loads of dirt into each stall, and then I started raking dirt around.  That's hard work!  At the end of the day, we had a lot of dirt in the barn but still a lot of work to do.

 

Now we need some walls...

Now that we have a roof, we need some walls.  But before we can put in all the walls, we had to build up the base of the barn some so water wouldn't run in.

Before building up the floor, though, we put  metal sheathing around most of the upright posts.  This will prevent my beavers, also know as horses, from chewing the supports into two.  They love to chew wood.  They love to drive me insane.

After putting the sheathing up, we put the first board up of each stall on the outside of the barn and down the barn aisle.  When we bring the dirt in, we'll put dirt part-way up that board and then build the stall walls on top of it.  We also took our left over boards and put a partial stall wall up on the far side.  We wanted to see how it would look.

We have a roof!

It took some work, but the barn now has a roof. After we got all of the rafters and trusses up, we had to put down 1 x 4 tack strips.  Those took a while with Spencer scrambling over the roof structure and me staying safely on the ground, cutting boards and handing them up to him.  

We had part of the roof done when we had a tornado come through here.  After the initial shock of hearing the roar of the wind, feeling our house thud, and seeing the hole our travel trailer made in the house when it was thrown into it, we both panicked. Was the barn ok?  It was still under construction and not insured.  After the worst of the storms passed, Spencer ran out to check on it.  It was standing, the metal was still attached.  It got pushed around some and isn't perfectly square anymore,  but we cannot do anything about that.  It is still solid and sound. 

Everything on the property that we DID NOT build was damaged:  chimney torn off the house, holes in the house roof, hole in the side of the house, travel trailer destroyed, horse trailers pushed across the yard, one loafing shed destroyed, storage shed destroyed, 3 sided shed/small barn damaged.  But the barn we built?  It was still standing and sound.

After the storm, my dad and step-mom came down and helped us finish roofing the barn.  It is now insured as a pole barn.  We're not done with it.  If the weather holds for us this weekend, we'll be moving a lot of dirt into the barn to build it up.  And after that, we'll start putting the stalls in.

We're getting there..