From the Beginning...

The beginning of any journey starts with the first mile or so the poets, novelists, writers have told me. In our case, we just moved over from our old house at the end of a city subdivision and built in a pasture that was bought by my dear father-in-law for us in 2000. We thought wow! five whole acres what will we ever do with it all. It seemed like a huge parcel of land after living on the 1/4 acre for 30 years.

Since I was enamored with the lifestyle of Tasha Tudor when I saw her book back in the 90's, I immediately bought goats and started learning how much fencing cost. Then I had the idea that my dream of living in a barn could be realized, so I asked my builder friend if I could get a place liveable for $20,000. He should have laughed in my face while rolling around on the floor, but no! he says SURE! Ignorant and even though in our late 40's, my husband Reidel and I started planning it out. We found a guy that would cut our lumber from felled pine logs, so we ordered the crude primitive rough hewn beams that will hold this barn up. Good grief! When we see these thing we are excited, but concerned. How do we get them up where they need to be?

First we had to get the foundation down. My friend, Aundrea, told us that her husband was a plumber and would be glad to plumb our whole house for free. What!!!??? I didn't know that type person existed anymore. I was in awe of the fact that God was helping us make this dream come true. Foundation finished, we still didn't know how to get those big huge beams in place. Seems it was in God's plan once again to find us help just at the right time.

The builder/framer, Doc as we call him, knew a man that worked for the telephone company so off they go to borrow the big machinery to lift the beams. Thank goodness that worked out ok. We put 2X6's to frame up the outside walls although with hindsight now, I wish we had put in 2X12's. Framing done, we found a cheaper metal roofing store that we could put agricultural grade metal on the roof. We were fastly running out of money so putting metal on a building 30ft. by 98ft was no small feat. Reidel did the roofing himself. I was the ladder holder. I can't tell you how steep that roof was except to say that we propped the ladder end at the ground up against a flat bed trailer to keep it from sliding. One day it didn't hold even with those precautions and Reidel rode that ladder to the ground while I was hanging on trying to keep it from going too fast and praying with everything I had within me. He hopped off before it hit the ground. Good save God!!!

Roof on, now we needed to get it dried in before the posts and beams mildewed. Humidity here in East Texas is nothing short of horrifying. We ran out of money. Seems $20,000 wasn't enough after all. Reidel's grandmother got wind of the building not progressing so bless her sweet heart, she donated to the "cause". We finally got it dried in, but not before the mildew had pretty well covered the beams. I hadn't planned on staining the wood, but I guess it was necessary now. Another friend had scaffolding that he loaned us and I got a good bit of staining done, but just couldn't finish it before the chemicals caused me to get sick. Reidel during this time was putting up tin in the ceiling that another friend had given us off his old barns. I can't tell you how long this took because Reidel was afraid of heights and I couldn't hold up the pole that he rigged me so I could stay on the floor and not climb on the scaffolding. I wish I could tell you it's finished after all this time, but the friend needed his scaffolding back and we lacked one area about 10ft by 12ft.

Reidel did all the wiring except the plugs and switches. I did those and I was good at it too. I think I could get a job doing that if it's ever needed. lol

I'll be back later to tell you more about the journey....