Walnut Grove: Barn Raising

Just this week, Mike finished the reconstruction of our back barn, which he has been working on since January. Now, we have completed restoration of all of the original buildings on the farm (house, smokehouse, tobacco (now horse) barn, and back barn) as well as added a few more in the process (chicken coop, garden shed, goat shed, and pigsty, which is currently being used as Thomas's playhouse). I think the back barn was probably built about the same time the house was built, around 1900, with an addition about 50 years later around the time the tobacco (horse) barn was built. The oldest part of the barn, which was originally covered in wood shingles, is of mortise and tenon construction with heavy beams and wooden pegs, also known as "tree nails." Once upon a time, this barn housed animals, hay, and dried corn. Now it will be used to store fence rails, architectural salvage, our tractor, our Kubota lawn mower, and our trusty 1989 Toyota 4 X 4.

When we bought the farm in 2002, the barn was in rough shape and full of farm and house debris from the last 100 years: bundles of rusty barbed wire, piles of sheet rock, mounds of musty red carpet, cans of old paint, jugs of motor oil, and bottles of pesticides and herbicides that would make Rachel Carson turn in her grave. Tarnished farm implements from yesteryear lurked in every corner like metallic ghosts. And one black cat made his home in the loft...that was Poe, our beloved barn cat that "came with the farm." In fact, the first day we looked at the farm, Poe came slinking down from the rafters to greet us.

The back barn on October 31, 2002,
the day we closed on the farm

Spring, 2003

Summer 2005
(Lance on backhoe digging footer for the chicken coop)

Summer 2005

For years the old barn stood quietly at the end of the driveway, at the edge of the back fields; it was an eyesore that I tried to avoid thinking too much about. In the summer of 2011, we finally did a massive clean out of the contents--kind of like giving the whole thing a swig of "Go-Lightly." Lance's friend Jenny came up from Knoxville for a day to help, and of course Mamaw was in the thick of things too. As payment for hauling loads and loads of junk to the dump, we gave our buddy Jose free pick of anything we were tossing as well as all the metal to turn in for scrap. He thought it was Christmas.

Soon after the big clean-out, a mighty gust of wind took out a huge chunk of the cinder block foundation on one side, leaving the barn standing by what seemed pebbles and toothpicks. I could see Thomas in one of his banging moods tap on one board that would set the whole thing to collapse on his head. So, the back barn was officially "off-limits" to our little drummer boy.

April, 2011
before the clean-out

Finally, this year, we hired Mike to do a complete restoration, which involved shoring up the "skeleton," putting on a new roof, re-building the shed additions, and covering the whole thing in white oak lumber. Tearing the whole thing down and rebuilding from scratch would probably have been easier and cheaper, but I wanted to preserve the original timber frame as well as the original back wall, which still has its red paint and which has been protected by the 1950's addition. (I believe that the whole thing was painted red originally and then gray sometime in the 1970s or 80s--a combination which over time turned into a mauve color not at all becoming of a barn.)

Mike began work in January, creating yet another gigantic mud puddle on the farm. Nearly eight months later, he drove the last nail in the siding. (For three months, from April to mid-July, he worked on a project at Exchange Place while waiting for the white oak siding to dry.) The finishing touch was the cutting of owl or spirit holes in the gable of the barn. These holes, which were common in German culture, were thought to protect the barn from evil spirits (as well as provide decorative entryways for barn owls). They could be as simple as circles or diamonds or as elaborate as hearts, stars, moons, and Maltese crosses. They aren't too common around here, but there are several barns with them along a stretch of highway 75 near our house. I'm guessing there was a German settlement there in the 19th century. I'm thinking more of attracting an owl who appreciates folk art rather than warding off evil spirits, but if the latter happens, I won't complain.