HOW EAGLE AND BEAR BUILT THAT BARN
(Page 3 of 3)
May/June 1972
By Krishna Eagle
We had planned to use cedar shakes for roofing, so I nailed a crosspiece—east to wes—every six to eight inches along the roof supports for the slabs of split wood to nail to. Bear then began to add the shakes while I built the inside fences and gates, put up the chicken wire divider, built the hay feeder and put together a milking stand with the lumber left over from the flooring.
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I should add that it snowed a whole bunch during this time and working in the falling snow was an experience. Often my fingers got so cold—even with gloves on—that I couldn't bend them enough to hold a nail. I don't recommend building a barn in the winter . . . the loft filled half-full of snow before we got the roof done, which made it pretty doggone wet inside for a couple of weeks afterwards as the snow melted down on the chickens and Rebecca the goat.
Even after the shingling was finished our weather problems weren't over. We'd figured that if the crosspoles for the roof were alternated butt end next to small end the whole business would come out roughly level. Poles are bumpy, crooked little boogers, though, and it didn't work . . . our uneven roof leaked. We fixed that by topping everything with plastic sheeting, but at the expense of covering up our beautiful shakes. If the two of us had it to do over, we'd use milled lumber instead of cut poles on the roof.
The final step was to cover the outside of the walls with sheet plastic, held in place with nailed slats. This covered the window holes and gave the makeshift chinking job a little help in stopping drafts.
That should've been the end of our labors, but once in the barn, the animals decided to eat the chinking, so we had to put six feet of plastic along the inside walls. The only change we've made since then has been to nail some close-weave rabbit wire across the windows to give better protection against cougars, raccoons, ferrets and whatever else might like a chicken, egg or goat dinner.
If this all sounds complicated, it really isn't . . . neither Bear nor I knew anything about putting a building together when we started, but we managed. The barn might not win any beauty prizes, but it does the trick. The feed's dry, the goat's happy (even with her supply of creosote and chinking cut off and the chickens are laying lots of eggs!
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