Barn Project Part 2

As I wrote in a post titled Barn Project Part One last month, the front part of our barn was divided into three horse stalls and then an open bay in the center, with two freestanding rooms off to one side. That bay was crowded with implements for my Kubota tractor to the point where, once I pulled the tractor itself inside, there was no room to maneuver it or even walk around much.

Eventually I planned on gutting the complete interior of the barn, removing the horse stalls and those two rooms and making it one big open bay with plenty of room to do whatever I need to do. Yesterday our son Travis came over to help me take apart the stalls. I was hoping we could get the job done in one day, but as it turned out it was a piece of cake and went much more quickly than either of us expected.

Once we removed all the wood from the stalls, Travis used a Dewalt reciprocating saw to cut the bolts off from where they came out of the concrete floor to hold the bottom pieces of the stalls.

I was surprised at how much extra room just clearing out the stalls gave me.

We moved most of the implements into the newly cleared area, all stacked on pallets.

The only thing not on a pallet is the bush hog mower that connects to the rear of the tractor, since it’s too big to fit on pallets. Even so, I have a lot of room to move around on the tractor in the bay now. So much so that I’m really not sure I need to take apart those two freestanding rooms, although there’s no reason to keep them, either. I’ll see how things work out the way it’s arranged now before I make that final decision.

Because we finished the job so much quicker than expected and had some time to spare, we decided to start moving all of the railroad ties I had delivered a few months ago that were just dumped at the back end of the barn road. I’m going to use these to build the backstop for my shooting range, but before I can do that, I needed to get them up in the general area where it will be located.

In the months since they had been delivered a lot of weeds and vines had grown up over them, but with Travis driving the tractor and using the forklift blades, and me on the ground guiding him in, it was another easy peasy job. He doesn’t have much experience with the forklift, but it sure seems to come naturally to him, and again, in no time at all we had 30 railroad ties moved.

I honestly expected it would take more than a day just to take the stalls apart and get the implements moved where I wanted them, and another day to move the railroad ties. But in less than five hours we had everything done. Talk about teamwork! Thanks, Travis, I really appreciate all of your help.

We are supposed to have a couple more days in the low 90s, and then hopefully the temperatures will start dropping down a bit as we go into fall. I know everybody around here is eagerly waiting for that to happen.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – I never thought I would be the kind of person to wake up early in the morning and exercise, and I was right.