Barn Building Progress (long post)

I have been horrible about updating on the barn progress!  Oops!  Of course my reason for not posting is because we've been busy building it.  We were in a rush to get the hay stored before the rains showed up (several months of no rain is handy when it comes to building lol.)

So let's catch up.  Back on September 12/13 we rented the auger as mentioned in my previous barn building post here.  It took us two days, but we got all of the posts up.  The above picture shows why we were calling it Woodhenge instead of Stonehenge haha.

 The next step was bracing the posts so they would stop warping.

Then we had to find the angle of the roof.

Next it was time to set up and build our twenty foot roof beams.

Our beams.

 Our cat thinks they are her beams.  :D

At this point hubby took his vacation and worked on the barn for ten days straight. I was working until 6pm most of those days so I missed a lot of picture taking of the progress, so you'll see big jumps lol.  He got the twenty foot beams up, then the 2x4 hangers and then the joists.

 We got a great deal on some mismatched tin.

He built a fence around it to keep the horses from cutting themselves on it.

 Shows how tall it is and this is the short side.

 The tractor made great scaffolding.  :D

 Got all the joists up for a twenty by thirty six foot area.  

There are still two more twelve foot sections to the right of these, making this side a total of sixty by twenty feet.  We haven't even started on the other side.  The total barn will be sixty foot by forty foot.

  See the bright green patch of grass that Chrome is eating?  That's where the trailer was parked lol.

 Then it was time to start putting the tin on the roof.

I was standing on the tractor and holding the phone 

over my head to get this picture because it's so tall lol.

 The reason the tin was so cheap is because the paint was put on the bottom instead of the top...

 So the ceiling inside my barn is rainbow colored!

 It's really cool.  :D

 Last weekend we started putting up walls.

The walls are of extra tin we had laying around and are temporary just for the winter.  They will eventually be replaced with wood walls and stalls.  Right now it's just important to keep the weather off the hay for the winter.  :)

Here are a bunch of pictures from last weekend showing how curious and bothersome the horses were LOL!!

 Rocky walking through the walls before we got the tin up.

They were in the middle of everything the whole time.

 Checking out the progress on the walls.

 Suddenly he can't go through them anymore haha.

 That's okay.  He liked it inside the barn and just chilled out for a long time.

 Chrome thinks tool belts hold treats.  Hubby is on the ladder, not on Rocky's back.

 Squeezing between Rocky and the ladder.

 Chrome still wants the tool belt.  Rocky just wants Chrome to go away haha.

 Ladders are great for scratching itchy noses.  

Chrome's shoe fetish...

 Inspecting the walls.

 Now Rocky is going for the tool pouch while hubby is carrying the ladder lol.

 What Chrome thinks of the new barn lol.

 I completely forgot to get pictures once we got the hay in the barn so I ran out today in the rain to get some.  :)

 They were all eating hay when I walked up.

The three completed sections are in full use already.

It doesn't look like much yet, but it will one day.  Because the other side of the roof isn't done we obviously can't put a ridge cap on yet, so we had to lean tin up against the hay bales to keep them dry.  That's obviously temporary.  The rain got here too quick lol.  So the left section with the tin has nineteen round bales of hay in it.  The middle section that we fenced off with round pen panels is where we're parking the tractor for now.  The right section has the bale of hay they are currently eating.  Their section is 12'x20'.  So their butts hang out in the rain, but at least the hay is dry.  We are going to roof those other two section this winter (so much better than in the summertime heat), but it will just have to be done between all of the rain.

 I don't know if I've ever shared it before, but here is our hay ring.

They normally don't waste nearly that much hay!!  This was a partial bale that was out in the open and we moved it under the shed when we got it done.  When he picked it up with the tractor it obviously fell apart since they'd been eating on it a couple of week already.  We moved the main section over, put the hay ring around it and then used the tractor to scoop up and pile on all the loose pieces.  Since it was no longer compressed into a bale, it piled way higher than the ring and some fell out on the ground.  That's not the horses' fault.  My hay ring is in three pieces which makes it so much easier to move.  We put wire around it to keep the goats from climbing up on the bale.  So the horses eat over the top and the goats eat through the wire.  When it gets low we just push it up against the sides so they can eat.  It works great and there is normally very little waste!!  Now that it can't get rained on there will be even less waste. I love it!

 There are 19 round bales of hay under there.  :D

 We tied the round pen panels to the wood fence he made around the tin.

So not the horses can't reach the tractor.

 That look on Rocky's face lol!

 This is why the sides are temporary! 

They don't match and the white stuff is pretty old and beat up.  Eventually my walls will be made of rough pine, but that will be next year.  I have to save up some money again!  I'm just glad we had this old tin to use for temporary walls to keep the hay dry.  We ran out of time and didn't finish the top of the wall on the side, but the hay is staying dry so it's okay.

I leaned the extra pallets up against the hay to keep the goats from rubbing on it.

So it may not be pretty, but it's serving it's purpose!  I can't wait until it's done, but that will have to wait until next year.  We will finish the roof on both sides this winter since we have the tin and lumber, but walls and stalls will have to wait until I save up more money.  This project blew through all of my savings.  :(  It took me a year to save up for this part so far.  It will be worth it in the end though!  I'm so excited to finally have a barn (even if it's still only a run in shed right now haha)!