A Barn-Raising (and my restlessness)

Not to insinuate that my little farm operation is in any way a big deal, but this year we hatched several dozen of our own chicks and ducklings and even a few turkeys.  All of this to say that we have quite outgrown my little tiny chicken house I built several years ago.  It was getting cramped enough in there that they pretty much were "beak to tail" in there, and there was an over-abundance of squawking, etc going on in there.  So, even though I was planning on building an attached garage on the north side of the house this spring, I've been held up greatly by the State but mostly by a very incompetent surveying company, so I got really bored while I waited.

Boredom around my  house is never a good thing; it usually results in me spending more money, and further complicating my life.  Sure enough, this time it resulted in me whipping together forms for a 432 square foot slab in order to build a building to house our poultry, sheep, and hogs. In other words, a barn.  I decided it should look like a real barn, except with a little extra special Foster Flair to it, so I tweaked the roof and made it into an "Ell" shape, just to make it a little more of a challenge.  There was a small problem getting fill sand to prep the forms prior to getting concrete before the weekend that resulted in me getting bored again.  So I tore down most of my forms and re-formed it up as 864 square foot.  Yup, that's right, it just doubled its footprint in one little weekend.  If I would have had sand, it would have been done and over with.

Anyway, here are some photos of the process so far.  Included in these are some pictures of trenching that will be of no interest to anybody, just for my own reference for future digging.

Old size

New size

Boys trenching!

Brand New slab

Trusses up

First Roofing panels.

James Rush, Eloy and I pouring Concrete

Below: trenching Photos for posterity