Our barn raising

We had our first barn raising on the 22nd of November. It started the day before with the arrival of the Criss’ and Van Cleves’. They were the first to spend a night at our new house.

Matthew Hamiltion was a tremondous help in providing tons of tools for building the barn.

The next morning I got up at 5 a.m. and started making cinnamon rolls as requested the night before.

Coffee, hot chocolate, cinnamon rolls, coffee cake, water, and of course more coffee were served that morning.

Work began early that morning...

By eight o'clock that morning the ground was leveled and the foundation was on it's way!

We found a partially finished shed a week back for free on Craig’s List. Dad and Matt took it apart to use for the horse barn. But not all of it was dismantled. This gave the guys just a bit of grunt work…

...

...keep going you're almost done..

The burn pile seemed to grow every time I went out there.

Then came the floor for the tack room...

Great job guys!

While the Criss's, Van Cleve's, Matt, and Jairus were working on the barn we had other people working on various other fix-up jobs...

Like the old pump house. It still had the water tank in it as well as boxes and trash. Thanks to Mr. Hamilton we now have a nice clean pump house.

The hole will have to be covered and the sides of the roof covered, but other than that it is ready for use.

In the basement Mr. Bradrick, Stephen, and Mr. Young were at work...

Mr. Bradrick and Stephen put up a air tight door that would lead from the laundry room to the rest of the basement!

What a blessing it is to have so many handy friends!

Mr. Young worked on cutting out an opening for the dryer to fit against the wall. I don't know how he did it, but he had to cut through a 4x6, 2x6, and another large piece on top of that!

I guess Mr. Young and Stephen didn't want me to take any pictures of them... Oh well. They also put up insulation and finished the laundry room closet!

We had Mr. Booy, Joshua, the Reilly boys, and Mr. Rogers work on the dog run.

They took down the barbed wire and put up chicken wire in it's place. Despite their good job at rewiring, Samuel (our escape artist) got out the first day we put him in it. Ughhh!

They also built a gate and a little ramp for the dogs to get into their house!

Sam and Josh Young with the aid of Joshua Booy and some of the Reilly’s worked on fixing an old two door gate that would help keep the dogs off the road.

Mr. Holston and Isaiah were put to work on the fencing of the pasture.

Back at the barn Jairus was cutting away...

While the others... thought of what to do next.

Mean time frantically running around the kitchen, Mom and I were trying to find things that didn’t seem to be there. No one could ever remember if we had brought over a certain serving bowl that morning or not and where we had put the bigger pot! We ran out of serving dishes rather fast that day. Half of our stuff was still at the old house and that half seemed to be everything we needed right then!

For lunch we had chili, corn chips, corn bread, soda, water, coffee, and for dessert there was chocolate cake. There was actually two kinds of chocolate cake, one for those who where gluten free and another for those who weren’t. Now I’m not the type to hold a grudge for long… well not always, but Mom didn’t want me to add any coffee to my chocolate cake (the non-gluten free one) so I didn’t. But there she was saying that we shouldn’t add to the recipe and the next thing I know my mother has gone behind my back and added coffee in hers! She can be very sneaky sometimes!

I was the coffee girl for the day. Those guys went through 4 pots of coffee that day! (each pot was 12 cups)

As you can see the caffeine had already gone to my brothers head...

Don't hit me it's your camera!!!!

The fencing was coming along nicely.

Jairus was still cutting away...

The walls were going up...

...

Hey, I see a wall! We never could have gotten this far in one day with out all this help!

Look at them go....

There's a guy for you!

The dismantling was an all day thing.

Be careful Jon.

That burn pile never did stop growing...

Meet our guards, Christian and Josh.

Another wall is put up...

First there was nothing and then...

there was Joshua! or was that another story?

I see a structure! Could it be a barn?

After lunch came dinner. Mom and I ran to Costco and got pizza and salad for everyone. By the time we got back it was dark and I didn't have much time for picture taking.

It was a great blessing to have so many people come and help out. We got so much done that one day - what a blessing!

The framing was done for the walls as well as the floor on the tack room. The next week Matt and Dad worked on building the roof and putting up the rest of the walls.

Here is what it looks like now. We hope to spruce it up a bit later.

We still have some more work to do on the roof and the inner walls need to be put up.

This is what it use to look like....

And this is what it looks like now...

I hope to show you more pictures as we get things finnished. Thanks again to all of you who helped us move and build. We were so blessed by your help!