Wall Is Coming Down

Taking down the wall stone by stone

The supports are in place and now part of the wall will be knocked down.  Because of the large crack and bulge on the south wall much of the wall had to be removed.

The walls at the top part of the barn are about one foot thick. The middle portion of the walls are a foot and a half and at the bottom two feet thick.

WOW!

Stabilization Of The Barn

Entire barn is wrapped in cables

The cables were used to straighten and pull together the barn.

Cable around the entire structure helped to stabilize it especially while the south wall was taken down and rebuilt.

Wooden bracing on the outside helped to stabilize the barn and the scaffolding went up.

The foot of one of the outside braces.

The old and the new window frames.

The bright colored mortar is the results of tuck pointing. The old loose mortar was removed and replaced with new mortar, on the inside and outside of the building.

 Setting up equipment

The process of unloading and setting up equipment begins

Oh! No they are setting up camp, tent and all. Actually the tent is for the big and I do mean big bags of mortar mix.











A semi-truck parked on the edge of the road and down the driveway came this little machine carrying bags of mortar mix. This may not look like much of a machine but it is carrying 3000 lbs of mortar mix per bag!!

This is only a few of the bags of mortar mix. The total amount delivered was about 50,000 lbs of dry mortar mix and almost all of it was used. I wonder if they are going to use any stones in this project? Guess we'll wait and see.

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!