Bender Builders, Inc.

                                                   The builders arrive                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

On a bright October morning they came down the hill like a train. Four trucks and trailers. They were loaded with every thing from a cement mixer to a microwave oven.....yes.

Bender Builders, Inc., we soon called them Denny and the boys, seven of them when they were all working on this project. Denny is the owner and his son Kyle is the stone mason. This is the second of the big trucks and a trailer load of things.

A trailer load of scaffolding and the mortar mixer (boy did that mixer really get used)! More about that later.

The bobcat that could do anything or I should say many things. You'll see it in action later on.

The work begins

First comes the digging

The first thing that had to be done was remove the dirt ramp to the barn. A great deal of care had to be taken to prevent a rock that was being dug out from falling the wrong way and hitting the barn. If this happened it could cause stones in the barn to be pushed out and the side of the barn might have given way. Eric is a real artist with that machine and no damage was done to the barn.....Whew!
                                                 

                                                                             
                                                                   

The lower level is being exposed and quite a few stones have fallen out underneath the big door.

There are big one and little ones but there are lots of rocks!!

Treasures found in the barn

One man's junk is another man's treasures

This is a winlas it is a rope hoist. It could be used to move many things in the barn by pulling on the rope and gave them lots of leverage.

Here are a few grain bags that were left in the barn for probable 30-40 years. They have some holes in them and many of them have patches on them. Guess you didn't throw them out when they got a hole in them, you just sewed on a patch.

The wash sink from the milk house and an wooden barrel are in the basement.

Thanks to our sons the horse drawn seeder was removed from the main floor.

Inside the barn

This is just some of the what has to be removed  

                                                                                                                                                           

Lots of rocks that were just tossed in the basement of the barn, kinda wish we had found some other place for the rocks!

Hay forks and some track. The forks were used to pick up a bunch of hay. The horses would pull on the rope and the hay in the forks was raised up into the hay mow. There was a track in the peak of the barn that ran the full length of the barn so the forks could be moved to different parts of the hay mow.

A close up of the trolley that was used to move the forks along the track.

These could be lowered and made a great swing, if you didn't mind a rather hard seat. You could swing in the hay mow and jump off into the pile of hay.

Sounds like fun!

A look inside 

A few of the reasons that something has to be done soon!

The hay loft has fallen down and things are looking kinda bad. The hay loft was only on the east half of the barn and fell down about six years ago.

These are some of the original beams, that were hand-hewn, using and axe. This is the way the beams were cut, also note wooden pegs were used to hold the beams together.

This close up view shows the uneven roughness of the beams.