Baymule
Herd Master
We have so much going on around here! We finally have our barn going up and at the same time we have a contractor putting a screened porch the whole length of the house, 54' long by 12' wide. And our DD called this evening and they found church pews for $75 and wanted to know if we wanted one. Yup. And can we use our truck and trailer to go get ours (and theirs?) 
So they got 2, we got 1, and it is on our new porch.
We have been collecting materials for a barn for quite some time. We thought we would put it up on land we used to have, but decided to move so we could be close to our DD and family.
So we finally got all our stuff moved up here from our old place.
http://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/barn-poles.17498/
And we started cleaning up a place big enough for a barn on our new place. Pictures of that are on page one of my hugelculture thread.
http://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/hugelculture-bed.17846/
The place we are putting the barn dips down to a low spot and needed dirt. So we called our friendly dump truck dirt guy and ordered 4 loads. DH is like a little boy with a dirt pile and Tonka trucks and equipment to play in all that dirt with.
That wasn't enough, so we ordered 3 more loads of lovely dirt. Our horses played in the dirt like little kids. They climbed the dirt piles, pawed at the dirt, chased each other around the dirt piles and bucked and kicked. They had a blast. Who knew? All this time we just needed a dirt pile for the horses! We smoothed down the first 3 loads with our tractor and let the horses play in load #4. Our hay guy, Russell brought his big tractor for the other 3 loads and put them where he wanted them. He worked Saturday on dirt and getting the batten boards set up (boards and string that get the site squared up to set the poles). Today he and his friend Tim started setting poles. My husband worked all day out there with them today and yesterday.
You can see the batten boards in this picture, this is a corner pole. The corner poles took the longest! They had to be spot on, straight up, and perfectly in place.
Here's another corner pole going up! They used that pipe sawhorse to get the pole positioned and chained to the tractor.
Tim has the level on the side of the pole, Russell and DH are supervising. When Tim called it level, DH shoveled dirt in the hole, Russell tamped the dirt around the pole and Tim held the pole steady until there was enough dirt tamped around it to hold it up. Then before they unchained the pole, they drove pointed 2x4's in the ground and nailed long 2x4's from the stake to the pole on 2 sides to hold the pole in place.
Today they got the 4 corner poles set and 2 poles on one side. The barn will be 36'x36' with six 12' stalls. One of them will be closed in and floored for a feed/tack room. Allowing for the size of the poles, the alley will be about 11' wide. We are excited to get our barn started! The poles range from 18' to 22' tall. After all the poles are set, they will be measured and cut to 12' tall.
So they got 2, we got 1, and it is on our new porch.We have been collecting materials for a barn for quite some time. We thought we would put it up on land we used to have, but decided to move so we could be close to our DD and family.
So we finally got all our stuff moved up here from our old place.http://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/barn-poles.17498/
And we started cleaning up a place big enough for a barn on our new place. Pictures of that are on page one of my hugelculture thread.
http://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/hugelculture-bed.17846/
The place we are putting the barn dips down to a low spot and needed dirt. So we called our friendly dump truck dirt guy and ordered 4 loads. DH is like a little boy with a dirt pile and Tonka trucks and equipment to play in all that dirt with.
That wasn't enough, so we ordered 3 more loads of lovely dirt. Our horses played in the dirt like little kids. They climbed the dirt piles, pawed at the dirt, chased each other around the dirt piles and bucked and kicked. They had a blast. Who knew? All this time we just needed a dirt pile for the horses! We smoothed down the first 3 loads with our tractor and let the horses play in load #4. Our hay guy, Russell brought his big tractor for the other 3 loads and put them where he wanted them. He worked Saturday on dirt and getting the batten boards set up (boards and string that get the site squared up to set the poles). Today he and his friend Tim started setting poles. My husband worked all day out there with them today and yesterday.
You can see the batten boards in this picture, this is a corner pole. The corner poles took the longest! They had to be spot on, straight up, and perfectly in place.
Here's another corner pole going up! They used that pipe sawhorse to get the pole positioned and chained to the tractor.
Tim has the level on the side of the pole, Russell and DH are supervising. When Tim called it level, DH shoveled dirt in the hole, Russell tamped the dirt around the pole and Tim held the pole steady until there was enough dirt tamped around it to hold it up. Then before they unchained the pole, they drove pointed 2x4's in the ground and nailed long 2x4's from the stake to the pole on 2 sides to hold the pole in place.
Today they got the 4 corner poles set and 2 poles on one side. The barn will be 36'x36' with six 12' stalls. One of them will be closed in and floored for a feed/tack room. Allowing for the size of the poles, the alley will be about 11' wide. We are excited to get our barn started! The poles range from 18' to 22' tall. After all the poles are set, they will be measured and cut to 12' tall.
