My Barn

Posted by john d on February 17, 2007 at 11:39:08 from (69.130.183.218):

In Reply to: O.T...Old Barns posted by mike a. tenn. on February 17, 2007 at 07:39:31:

I've got one, and I'm determined to keep it.

My grandfather bought this place in 1914, and the barn had been there quite awhile at that point. My Dad started farming here in '39, and I grew up being around that barn. I remember when I was a kid that there was a corncrib in the north most area, and the northwest corner was a granary bin for oats. A driveway ran between the crib/granary and the rest of the barn. The east side was a milk parlor; we had 12 cows. The rest of the barn space was shelter for the milk cows. The hayloft was a great place to explore, play in, and dream.

By the time I was in HS, the milk cows had been gone for a few years, and the space was full of tractors, wagons, etc. Within a few more years livestock was gone from the farm, the hayloft was empty, and equipment was becoming too large to fit in the old barn.

In about '65, Dad decided to park the big grain dryer that he'd had for about three years in one place. We talked about it for a while, looked at possibilities, then he decided to put a set of truck scales on the east side of the barn, an "office" in the old milk parlor, and set the dryer at the southwest corner. He cut a hole in the roof, put a 35' bucket elevator up through the top, and set it to feed either the dryer or a round steel grain bin that was west of the barn. He built three bins inside out of plywood and heavy lumber. One was above the hayloft floor, 12'x16', and 12' high. He supported it with heavy cables suspended from the massive wood post-and-beam frame of the barn, and it had a slide door in the bottom to fill wagons or trucks that backed into the barn past the dryer on the south side. The other two bins were 8'x8' square and reached from the floor up almost to the roof. They had tapered lower sections and connected to the elevator with 6" augers. Grain came into the system from the north side of the barn via a 50' JD grain elevator that discharged through a hole in the top of the barn.

He operated a custom grain-drying service for about 4 years. In 1970, I moved back to the area and the old barn got a few more changes. We added a 32'x60' pole barn on the other side of the truck scales for grain storage, connected it to the old barn with a roof over the scale deck, and put another steel bin west of the barn. The old corn crib and granary were torn out and a section of the roofline raised so trucks could drive all the way through the barn, south to north. We then broke out some of the concrete floor and added a pit to dump trucks inside, along with another plywood bin for temporary grain storage. The addition of a 60' grain leg outside between a new dryer and the barn completed the system. We could dump wagons and trucks inside and outside, could send grain from any of the bins to any other bin, and could send dry grain to the pole barn. Dad obtained a grain dealer's license, and business took off. At harvest time in those days, corn was often 20% or higher moisture, we would buy wet corn, dry it, and send it to the terminal markets. We could dump in two locations, load trucks and semis in as many as 4 spots, and most importantly, during harvest time, we didn't close until after midnight. Several times we ran 24 hours for two or three days at a time.

As corn varieties improved, and drying grain became less important, Dad sold the steel bins, dryer, and other equipment. The old barn became quiet again, and looked very tired.

After Mom and Dad were both gone, I bought the rest of the farm, including the barns. The pole barn became implement storage and my shop. The old red barn sat empty, except for the Farmall M. The roof started looking pretty bad; after all, it was last shingled in '64. Several people asked me if I was going to tear it down.

In 2004, I gritted my teeth and had a new steel roof put on it. The guys that did the work commented that they'd never done that to a barn that old that was still that straight. Within another year or so, I hope to put metal siding on the outside. The pit inside is almost full of rocks and concrete chunks from other projects, and I expect to cement it shut later this spring. The barn will end up as home for the M, the Super M, the lawnmowers, etc.

A month or so ago, I finished working in my shop late one night, turned out the lights and headed for the house. I looked back at the old barn in the moonlight, then walked back to it and stood inside for a few minutes. In my mind I could still see the corncrib, hear the cows, and feel again the awe that I experienced as a kid when I'd walk in out of the winter cold to do my chores and feel as much at home in the barn as I did in the house.

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