For starters- I blame Joe.
The Designer of All Crazy Plans, Instigator of Non-Stop Work Days and Home Depot MVP, Joe had the idea that we could take the space we already had, a large flat concrete pad nestled in between the old dairy barn, the huge hay barn and the concrete silo pit and put a shed row style barn there. It was the edge of one of the many cattle dry lots that were around the farmyard and we had to have the concrete feed bunks removed (an adventure all in of itself) and then think up a way to secure the uprights for the rafters to the existing concrete without A) Killing ourselves busting up concrete and B) Not spending a fortune (ohh and 3- NOT BUYING ANY MORE DANGED TOOLS! That last one was a lost cause, but I came to appreciate those tools much later). Joe drew it all up, we conned/begged as many friends as possible into helping us and then waited until November of 2019 to get started.
Wow it was cold. We drilled in rebar anchors, poured concrete, set posts, added trinkets to the corner posts for good luck, like you do, waited out snow storms and holidays (we got Christmas Day off), then built the trusses ourselves, made 100 Home Depot runs, learned how to use a nail gun, got muscles I didn't know I had using a nail gun, and just kept on working until it was done.
The first stalls were finished in June of 2020 and the first two occupants were our old semi-retired mares, Zucker and Fancy. The first stall was always going to belong to Zucker (pronounced SU-ka, German for sugar apparently), she came with me from Kentucky and is the crankiest mare you will ever meet. I love her dearly.
I could write all day on about the whole building process, the random moments of inspiration mixed with the "thank goodness OSHA isn't here to see this," but honestly the pictures speak for themselves. We're crazy proud of this barn and are constantly working on improving little parts of it to make the horses and their various humans more comfy. We hope you'll come on by and let us show it off to you sometime, just let us know when you're headed this way.
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