One Piece at a Time

We are buidling a barn one piece at a time. Both in the sense of pieces of lumber, and bays of the barn. Eventually, the barn will be 50×12. maybe even 60×12. We are building it in 10×12 bays because that’s all we can afford at a time! The first bay, currently under construction, is to be the Blacksmith shop. Mica is delighted, as this is be the first time he’s ever had a shop all his own. Other bays will be a storage unit, the Pottery, a rabbitry, and a honey house. The possible sixth unit would be for the cow, which is a subject still in debate around here… But plans aside, the Barn is finally rising, smelling of dust and sweat and fresh cut wood. One piece at a time.

We had our lumber cut to order at a local sawyer's. He gave us an excellent price on it.

 

All the wood had to be hauled home. Dad and Mica are very pleased with themselves.

 

Dad says he's going to lengthen this beam.

 

A loose chicken checks out the construction.

 

Dad and Mica got the first wall up in just a couple hours.

 

Mica hauling beams and beaming!

 

The balcksmith shop will have a dirt floor.

 

Johann is going to have the greatest block collection ever!

Mother of All Blueberry Bushes

Measuring and marking for the barn.

Mica breaks ground for his blacksmith shop, which will occupy the first bay of the barn.

 

We started out early today, as it’s another hot one. It was up to about 100 degrees yesterday, might hit that much again today. It did rain last night, and started off overcast today, which let us all work until close to one before knocking off for the afternoon. Dad and Mica are putting in the footings for the first tmodule of the garage. I headed off to pick black raspberries, and was up to my waist in brambles when Dad bellowed for me to come up. So I fought my way free of the prickles and headed to the garden, where he announced that BoPop would not be able to take Johann to Lowes for the Junior Builder workshop so could I please take him, in fifteen minutes. Oh, and could you pick up 6 bags of ‘crete while you’re there? Ok… So I head out with Johann, and as we got there Bopop showed up, having successfully started his car. I had the pleasure of watching my little man and his Great-grandfather build a pair of binoculars together. That was fun!

From one generation to the next… these two cross the gap of four generations.

 

After I got back to the house, I fed the guys lunch and watched them muck about with concrete for a bit before taking off to pick more berries. They did their best to get the footings level and square.

 

Mixing small batches of 'crete

 

We poured footings for the corner posts in sono-tubes.

 

I went down in the pasture, intending to start at the northern most berry bushes and work my way back to the house, but I found the mother of all blueberry bushes and picked it clean until my bucket was full. A gallon of berries off one highbush berry bush. Whew! It got hot, but I wasn’t going to give up until I had it clean.

Wild blueberries are small but good.

 

Tons of little berries!

 

beautiful as a bunch of flowers!

 

Black Raspberries.