barn update

 The goat barn has a new and improved roof:

For comparison, the roof on April 4:

It took months to decide what to do with the barn. In June I set up my little screentent on the deck, and many hours of the day and night were spent there, remembering and pondering. With a chaise, a little table, and a big waterproof box for my art supplies, it was an excellent place to spend time with the herd while reading or markmaking. Moxie often joined me there; Della occasionally.

Some of the views from inside the screentent were a bit surreal:

And some of my markmaking documented the state of the barn itself:

All Summer, Betula spent a lot of time nearby: in his two favorite sunny spots during the heat of the day, and up on the barn deck with me in the evenings.

Hundreds of snapshots were taken from the screentent, even though the screen created an overall textured blur, as in the above picture of Bet and this one of Mox:

And if the camera insisted on focusing on the closest object, the resulting image of the same subject looked more like this:

My neighbor, AM, has undertaken the rebuild. He really didn't want this particular task - carpentry is not nearly as lucrative as some of his other skills - so I pursued several other possibilities before finally asking him if he would be willing to do it. He agreed, with the caveat that he would have to fit it between other jobs throughout Autumn, a few hours here and there. I'm happy with this, as I know we both want the barn to be button-up-able before Real Winter, should we have one this year.

(Side note: I rather think we will.)

One advantage of this piecemeal approach to the rebuild: it gives me time to make changes to details without slowing up the job. For example, I decided to replace the window on the East side with a double door. This East door has been built first - you can just see the top of it in the first picture - before installing doors across the front of the barn, to test the idea of making the division at a different point. In other words, instead of the original/traditional design of two half-doors each 3 feet high and 4 feet wide, there will be an upper door 2 feet high and 4 feet wide and a lower door 4 feet high and 4 feet wide. Also, the 2x4-foot top section will have a polycarbonate panel insert, to allow light in when the doors are completely closed. This last idea came from AM, who is really good at understanding the sort of thing that matters to me, and incorporating it in ways I had not thought of.

Here is a picture from the first morning after the roof was built. Waking up to the sight of that straight horizontal roofbeam again was quite a relief.

~~~~~

between the rains

For weeks, it seems plants have been waiting for the sun.

The jewelweed, usually knee-high or maybe waist-high, is over my head in places - 

but has barely bloomed at all.

Even the stalwart anise hyssop has not been creating its usual sea

of bee-dizzying purple flowers.

And so many blueberries are still green or a bit red,

hanging on, waiting to ripen.

But now...

we've had a bit of sun, and the purple of anise hyssop

and the orange of jewelweed are beginning to appear.

The first few Chelone buds are opening:

Today is the third day in a row that we've had little or no rain, just a light rainfall during the night, or a passing shower in the afternoon.

It's been glorious, and I have been spending the entire day outside, including hours each day spent lounging around in the little screentent that is temporarily set up on the deck of the barn. Listening to audiobooks, markmaking, spending quality time with Moxie and Della, enjoying visits from the goats and the hens, and watching the clouds pass slowly over the treetops in a rare blue sky.

Of course there have been the usual chores throughout the day, plus the "extras" of shifting goats around in various groups so everyone can have peaceful access to the Pocket Paddock - inaccessible during wet weather - where a bittersweet and forsythia browsing opportunity awaits. But I've certainly not been knocking myself out with labor the past few days.

And - full disclosure - I'm alright with that.

~~~~~

update

Future rafters and roof sheathing on Aug 12th:

Same stack today:

(By the way, this is what $420-worth of roughcut pine looks like.)

I was hoping my next post - that is, this one - would include pictures of a barn with a roof. Unfortunately, we've had many, many rainy days and AM has injured his back - not while working here, I'm relieved to say - so there's been zero progress on the barn repair.

AM is not the kind of person who needs to be called and nudged. He's the kind of person who likes to get stuck right into a job at the earliest opportunity. So if I don't see him on a wonderful day of Not Raining, I know he's either still having a tough time with his back - which I very much hope is not the case - or else he's feeling better but trying to catch up on the backlog of work that piled because of his injury.

Either way, there's nothing I can do but wait. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, we all know better than to waste the precious days when the sun is shining.

(l-r) Sambucus, Campion, and Violet, in front of one of three 2nd-hand calf hutches purchased as emergency shelters on 6 April)

The forecast here is for a rainless weekend, so I expect to spend most of it outside. I hope your weekend is just as sunny or rainy as you need it to be.

~~~~~

here we go

'Deduccion loable,' from Les douze dames de rhétorique, 1463. 

Cambridge University Library MS. Nn.3.2, fo.36 verso.

decisions

Did a little walk-around this afternoon with AM, the fellow who has helped me with a lot of work since 4 April; initially removing the tree from the barn, later organizing rental of a dumpster and directing the barn demolition, and amidst other tasks, tackling the priority issue of creating or improving temporary livestock shelters. Funny story: I had contacted him and introduced myself way back in March - remember March? when the barn was in one piece? - asking if he'd be interested in sawing up some fallen branches and boles in my Upper West Side paddock. We got on very well at our first meeting, and ended up walking the property while the conversation ranged into lots of possible projects. When he was leaving, he said, "Just call me when you decide what you want to do first," and I'll bet he was surprised when I called him a couple of weeks later and said, "I'd like to start with removing the tree that has fallen across my barn."

For weeks now I've been going round and round in my mind, wrestling with decisions about next steps. I'm determined to move forward soon, and it was good to walk around the shelters and the barn and the paddocks and have a natter about every option either of us could think of.

~~~~~

no one was hurt

Well, this has happened: 

the neighbor's tree came down across my barn.

There must have been an almighty crash, but the wind was roaring every time I woke up in the night, so I doubt I'd have heard it even if I'd been looking right at the barn when the tree came down. Based on the last time I checked the barncams, I think it was between 3 and 6 AM.

At least seven goats were in the barn at the time, either in the original stalls opening on the north side or in the Peace Pavilion on the south side. There may have as many as 10 goats sharing, because in unsettled weather the goats who claim the little duplex shelter on the Upper West Side will sometimes come up and bunk with the barn group.

The west half of the barn is a shambles. Everything that had been stored in the loft area is in a tangle on the floor. The roof is in pieces, part of it is completely gone. Doors are hanging, or snapped off. I won't even try to get into this part of the barn until a second person is here, just in case something else should snap or crumble or collapse.

At first glance I'd hoped the east end of the barn (on the left in the picture below) might be safe enough to continue using temporarily, but it is not. Rafters are snapped, jagged ends hanging. The sooner everything is out of there, the better. Right now the hens are still in the last stall on the east, with access to their pen, because there is simply nowhere else to contain them today.

The Peace Pavilion (on the left in the picture above) initially looked like it fared better. Upon closer inspection, I think the structural integrity is compromised. It looks better because it was better built. Some of the materials may be salvageable.

The insurance adjustor is coming tomorrow morning. My agent informed me that MY insurance will have to cover this, even though the tree demonstrably fell from my neighbor's property. I asked the agent to repeat this, because I thought I must have misunderstood. I'll have to hear it from the adjustor as well.

Do you remember when I had this barn built? It was the 6th of May, 2014. I told LeShodu it was a present for her 10th birthday, which was May 7th, 2014. I wrote about the construction day here. As time went on and I added dividers and benches, making the barn as functional as possible, I wrote about each improvement and experiment. As goats were born and raised and combed in this barn, I wrote about them. You have probably vicariously spent more time in this barn than in any other, unless you actually have one of your own. I can't imagine how many hours I've spent, day in and day out. And of course, when I finally added the long-awaited Peace Pavilion only a couple of years ago, it became one of my most satisfying projects ever.

Oh dear.

I'm not going to get sentimental about this. In fact, just wondering how on earth to deal with dismantling what's left of the barn is giving me such a sharp pain between my eyebrows, that sentimentality won't have a chance to get a foot in the door.

And I just keep repeating to myself...

"no one was hurt."

~~~~~

iris

Iris, Vinca, Rocket

My Very Occasional Helper was here for 3 hours yesterday,

so together we made a little progress on the barn.

Iris was also a Big Help.

Although I couldn't help feeling that she had questions about the whole idea of turning the airy, spacious barn into four narrow cubicles.

Not exactly cubicles; more like slip stalls.

Rectanguloids?

"Why? WHYYYY?"

Lately I've been noticing that tiny Iris has grown.

There have even been a couple of times when she was standing apart from the other goats - so, no frame of reference - I wasn't sure if I was looking at Iris or her brother, the chunky Rocket.

"Now I am a BIG goat!"

But then I see her next to an average-size human,

and she immediately becomes tiny again.

Big on personality, though!

That's one thing that hasn't changed since the day she was born.

~~~~~

wednesday with words

Quite often when I'm on the porch looking out at the goats,

there's a goat standing in the barn or paddock looking back at me.

We've had some genuinely brutal weather since the snowstorm on Saturday and Sunday; bitter cold and high winds. This has meant extra rations for all, and an extra check every day to make sure everyone is comfortable. I shifted Violet and Sambucus up to the barn paddock which has extra options for shelter; that just leaves LeShodu and the four biggest boys in the stilt barn and south paddock.

Extreme weather also meant two nights of going out around 8PM with a flashlight, and tying the three meanest does in one side of the barn so everyone else could get into a shelter for the night. The wind was blowing from the northwest - not typical - which made one of the shelters into a wind-tunnel; more goats than usual needed to be in the barn. I don't like tying goats (except when they are having their buckets of grain) but there was simply no alternative.

As a result, I've decided to replace the old bashed-up stockpanel dividers in the barn, using solid boards. It will make the barn much less convenient to work in every day, but for the rare situation like this recent weather, it will be helpful to have the option of four separate stalls with doors. Small group suites. No tying.

Today it was warm enough to work outside for an extended time - halelujah! - so I began making one such divider. I had a lot of help.

That's Rocket, above.

And here's little Iris:

Unfortunately I had to stop when I needed an extra pair of hands to help shift long, heavy boards from a stack under a snow-covered tarp.

Despite years of practice at looking on the bright side, hitting that kind of previously-surmountable hurdle in the middle of a task can still sometimes mean discouragement or frustration. Today it was discouragement, because I was too exhausted to feel frustration! I'll shift those boards soon, when I've got someone here to lend a hand.

Meanwhile, we are now expecting 24 hours of rain, on top of the frozen snow. Should be interesting out there. I'll be dusting off my cleats.

Winter is here!

~~~~~

in like a lion

March did indeed come in like a lion this year.

It began with a roaring, middle-of-the-night windstorm that brought down a great many branches - but would likely have taken down entire trees had they already leafed out, so we were lucky. No injuries, no damage to buildings, no power lines down.

There was this small, localized bit of misfortune:

It's the top of a maple, that snapped and fell across the roundtop. I was able to pull it off with that line, but...

Possibly later I can buy replacement sections for the very bent frame pieces, but there's no point in moving all the hay now; it will be fed and gone soon enough. Meanwhile, I've got a tarp tied down over the many holes poked in the cover. It'll do.

~~~

We had snow for three days in the first week of March, but the sort of dusting that one can thoroughly enjoy; an end-of-season novelty, soon to be just a sparkly memory.

Of course the reality is, we've had massive snowstorms in April, and I recall once being stuck in my own driveway in May. But despite this...when the season is shifting and days are growing longer and are sometimes pleasantly warm, it is easier to perceive snow as a transient and beautifying gift. Which is why I don't think this titmouse was worried at the moment when freezing rain turned to snow yesterday:

"Snow? Let's see...a variety of seeds,
a perch all to myself,
under an overhang...
and it was 60F yesterday.
I'm good."

~~~

Scattered between all this rain and snow and wind, there have been some blue-sky-and-shirtsleeves days. Some outdoor carpentry project days.

 Some let's-muck-out-the-barn days.

And even a couple of "drag the chaise out to the Upper West Side paddock and knit for an hour after chores" days.

Yes, actual knitting.

With agreeable company.

And valuable opinions when requested.

~~~

So, here we are quite suddenly halfway into March, and it's been characteristically changeable so far.

I wonder what will happen next?

~~~~~

washing the rice

Edward Espe Brown, perhaps best known as the author of the Tassajara Bread Book, once asked his Zen teacher for advice on how to approach his new role as head cook. Roshi said something like:

"When you're washing the rice, wash the rice; when you're cutting the carrots, cut the carrots; when you're stirring the soup, stir the soup."

I heard Brown relate this story in a film some years ago, and I've drawn upon it countless times since. In recent weeks, I've brought it to mind daily. Many times daily. Usually aloud.

"When I'm carrying the water bucket...when I'm shifting this hay bale...when I'm folding this laundry...when I'm filling the woodbox..."

There hasn't been much actual washing of rice. There has been stirring of soup. And there has been a lot of frozen food and toast and - Decadence Alert! - grapefruit purchased already segmented.

"When I'm walking with Piper..."

"When I'm sawing this board...

"When I'm breathing through this pain and trying to sleep..."

I have accomplished very little that wasn't strictly necessary in January, but the stuff that was truly necessary has been done. And that's got to be enough.

It is enough.

~~~

I want to say a heartfelt "thank you" to everyone who left a comment on my most recent post, or who sent me an email, or a message on ravelry. Every word meant a lot to me. My silence since has not meant a lack of appreciation. I hope you know that. I believe you know that. Thank you.

~~~

Today's post feels somewhat scattered, but I'm going to go ahead and put it up. My recent communication attempts have been rusty and clunky, and challenged by even the 140-character limit of twitter. This post is probably the closest I've come to coherence in a while.

Wait...can coherence be scattered?

~~~

See what I mean? 

~~~~~