Off Topic » Barn Wood

Last week sometime we had a 15~16" snowfall that was pretty wet here in the northeastern part of the USA. Specifically, in my part of William Penn's Commonwealth, the snow load was too much for the "pole barn" my father constructed in 1956 from remnants of the old family farm barn that was destroyed in a wind storm. Excluding the un-intended support of a nearby telephone, the Pole Barn was flat to the ground............."A goner" as one neighbor said.

Now, this pole barn has been an unwanted feature since at least 1997. At that time, I had two guys, both acting under the direction of spouses, asking me what I wanted for the barn. In both cases, their wives knew they wanted that weathered barn wood. I knew I wanted the barn gone, so I offered a price of free, if they cleaned up the mess. 24 years later, neither of those guys or their spouses, ever came for their barn wood. While I was disappointed that they didn't show, I can say they (the husbands) were apparently smarter than they looked. I know salvaging and woodworking barn wood is very low on my list of favorites, slightly ahead of my appendectomy at age 15. If you're lucky enough to find all the nails and other crap that will destroy a saw blade or planer knife, you're still bringing bug-infested wood into your shop and possibly home.

So, being a weekday, today was the first day of dismantling and burning the pole barn. There was still some snow on the ground, giving me a fire suppression tool if I needed one. The 15-amp Sawzall that I never bought would have been a lot easier than the 3lb sledgehammer and the demo crowbar that I brought to the job. In any case, by mid-afternoon, I had burned the sheeting from both ends of the barn and was pulling sheeting from the side of the barn that was leaning against the telephone pole. A nice fire was going on the other side of the collapsed shed when the passing car stopped, backed up, and rolled down the window. It was a neighbor's wife. As such, I had to stand up and say hello. She exclaimed, "I can't believe you're burning that! Can I send my husband down to get some?" I said, "Of course. Take all you want." And, just to keep the neighborly thing going, I added some dribble about "it's the ideas of a good woman that makes a great husband". She liked that and went on her way.

Tomorrow and Wednesday I have errands to run, so the neighbor will have 48-hrs to fill with other stuff (besides collecting barn wood). Then, it's back to demo and burning of the Pole Barn. I could wait a few more days, but I actually like the neighbor too much for that.

Sometimes the Amish will remove a old building for the lumber.

Zitat von Lee im Beitrag #2

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Sometimes the Amish will remove a old building for the lumber.

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Zitat von Mr. 36654 im Beitrag #3

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Zitat von Lee im Beitrag #2

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Sometimes the Amish will remove a old building for the lumber.

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Those Amish existed in the early 1980's. Today, you pay a premium to get an Amish crew to build a house, but they typically don't touch projects under $500,000 in my area. In many cases, the Amish have moved on from being carpenters to landlords, which I find interesting.

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