A New Barn

Our current barn where the cows are kept and milked is really little more than a tumble-down shack, it features holes in the roof and a rotted out floor. It is the epitome of the "rustic and informal look" as Micah likes to say. :-) There is no way it will make it through another winter and so Mr. G has endeavored to build a new shelter before the snow flies. The new barn will be large enough to store some hay in, as well as put the fanning mill and plow etc. in.


Someday I would like to live in a house with post and beam construction, whether we'll buy an old house or build one that way is still uncertain, but there's no teacher like experience! Mr. G is framing the barn using mortise and tenon construction, so although it's not "post and beam", it's a close cousin. Things are still occasionally built this way, but not very often. Because it's time intensive it has fallen out of common usage in favor of faster methods.
In the pictures he is using a mallet and chisel to square up the hole that he previously drilled out using a bit and brace. We will all be glad to see the cows in a snug barn, no one more so than the men who do the early morning chores, at times it's so gusty out there that the lantern doesn't want to stay lit. Milking in the pitch dark quickly loses its charm I'm told.