The $500 barn

[yogifink]

So I haven't posted in forever, something like 4 years maybe. Life has been a bit crazy.

My partner left her job as a school teacher because of some pretty shady stuff going on at the public schools. Her ambition was to start a garden consulting business where she would help folks get backyard gardens set up and by providing assistance, installation and ongoing maintenance. I started a new job working some pretty demanding hours to make up the pay gap.

About a month later, she got pregnant. damn



9 months later she popped out the most beautiful little girl this world has ever seen, just one daddy's humble opinion

My partner and I were doing all sorts of soul searching during her pregnancy. You see, we live in North Carolina, but are originally from upstate New York. We have been here for about 5 years (at this point) and have made some pretty good friends. However, everyone around us is transient, considering we live on top of Fort Bragg. We long to be back in hills and green grass, so we decide to head to the western part of NC. It took about a year to finish renovating our house and get it on the market.

The way we figured, by the time I would be able to nail down another promotion and get relocated for work the house would have been on the market for a few months and might have a sale pending. Well, the house sold in 6 days. damn



So on short notice, instead of moving, we decided to wwoof (wwoof.net) on a friends farm. This was supposed to be a short term deal. Live in a small cabin with a 1 year old and work their farm for a month or three. Well, that lasted a year.

In the mean time we decided to stay in the area and purchased 16 acres. I guess that lady who made a u-tube video about chickens being the gateway livestock had a point!!! 3 years ago we bought 3 birds and built a small coop next to our tiny garden, and here we are picking up 16 acres to farm...

Anyway, we move from our friends farm into a cute (read POS) tiny camper on our land and started building our house. Then, she gets pregnant again. damn



So; sorry for my absence. I have missed you all.



The house is not done yet, but I need a home for my flock. So you know what that means, right?

!!!

 

[yogifink]

Our plan was to build a medium size pole barn to house chickens, rabbits and goats. I had it all drafted out and was pretty excited to get started.

After some time working on the house, we decided to scale the project down a bit. The prospect of building our home, cultivating 2 acres, setting up animal housing and fencing, coordinating 2 children (at this point) and homeschooling all seems a bit daunting right now.

So, we decided to build a coop first and a barn later after we can get the time and funds together to put in about 10 acres of fencing.

With that, the plan is to build a large coop able to accommodate around 60 with space for 2 or 3 brooders and some storage. My goal is to use as much of the timber from clearing the property as I can and get this done for under $500.

Ill post some pictures tomorrow.

 

[h2oratt]

Sounds amazing. Ain't life grand!

 

[RUNuts]

Life is an adventure. It sounds like you are doing something right. <wink>

I'm new here, but I'm still learning. Your story reminds me of my brother. He was retired from the military, got a job, found 40 acres of paradise and is settling down with his wife and 7 kids. When I say he stepped off in it, he used both feet and went head first! I advised him to go slow. He responded by running. Cheers!

We are both having fun (he's 5 hours away) when I visit. My baby is 19 years and dating (argh!) and his is 5 months and nursing. We went on different paths!

So, like Candide said, we live in the best of all possible worlds. Enjoy! Remember this with those 2AM feedings.

 

[CapricornFarm]

We want pictures! Lots of them! My coop is nearly done, and i hope to fence for goats and build them a shelter in the next few months.
My coop:

 

[yogifink]

I've never done this on my phone, but we'll give It a shot, no internet in the camper and all!

this is my original idea for the barn in totality. a 40x28 pole barn to include; coop, brooders, hutches, kidding pens and a milking room.

the front of the barn is tapered so that the nesting boxes, protruding from the building, will be covered by the roof. we want to be able to collect eggs without going inside.

like i said, we decided to scale down a bit. so the coop we're building will be the front part of the barn.

now we're at 16x24, with the same tapered front. my appologize for the picture quality. indie say in one of my articles I admire folk who use cad, but it's just not my style I guess.

door is at the top between the nesting boxes. each pop door opens into a 40x80 run. our plan is to rotate runs, let them on one side for 3 month rotations while we grow fodder on the other side.

it will be a shed style roof with a low pitch, about a 2/12. we are going to plant a green roof, hence the low pitch. if we went with metal, the material for the roof alone would put us over my $500 budget.

 

[yogifink]

here's my starting point.

I've got it staked out and am starting to dig holes for the posts. sand on top, as you can see, then hard packed clay about 3 inches down. I'm setting each post 3 feet in the ground, so it took me about an hour with the post hole diggers and a wrecking bar to dig each hole... there goes the weekend

 

[yogifink]

I tried to upload this one last night, but couldn't get it to take. Left to right are the runs, coop will be set in the middle.

 

[yogifink]

I'm not real good at taking pictures every few minutes through day to show progress. In fact, I usually don't carry my phone when I'm working. So some of these shots are from work I've done over the last several weekends. I'll catch the thread up to speed and then try to do a better job of snapping a photo here and there of progress.

For the posts I am using cedar logs sunk down about 3 feet. We have to use cedar, as apposed to treated posts in the event we ever decide to go after an organic certification. This process is quite long and tedious (organic certification). If you have any treated wood in the ground around your plants you will fail inspection and you will not get the certification. Although this is not our plan as of right now, we planning ahead just in case.

Once I got the posts in and plum I tacked up some purlins and skirt boards. The skirt boards are pine coated with mineral oil and a insecticide and so far are my only purchase. The 2x4's are left over from building our house.

I am working with about a 2% grade, so there was some digging and back filling involved. The back fill is a few inches of dirt, the about 4 inches of mulch. The mulch is from when we cleared the area for our garden.

 

[paintedChix]

Yep, life is grand! Where in NC are you now? Keeping up with some of the permaculture stuff? Following the All American Farm Tour with the Justin Rhodes family? I can't imagine all this, though do like parts...

I've signed up to watch your thread as it's going to be a good one -

I see nothing wrong w/ using the lumber from your property! Really looking forward to your shares on how you are doing each part. Are you going to be doing DLM on the floors of the coop/brooder spots or out in the runs (if they become "nude")?

I,too, am trying to use the lumber from our property. Most hardwood is scrub oak and not really suitable for actual building with (?? I could be wrong) but we've used cattle panels for hooped roofing on sheds with pallet walls and semi-portable coops, tarps, trees and leftover lumber to do garden beds, 2 ltr bottles to do "walls" for raised garden beds (working on those now) and have looked at doing bottles for roofing the sheds - but haven't logistically worked that out yet (we still drink a LOT of soda...plus have extra for family/friends who come by - so lots of 2 ltr bottles)... Tires for fencing, walls of shelters(not done yet), garden spots & raised beds.

Have you looked at pulling down some old buildings in your area (you can put an ad in Craigs List for that or find one) - to utilize materials for building your barn? Some folks around here will go for that, some won't - it's a thought. Not sure what you do...

Yep, we got the news that our middle daughter is 12w pregnant with her first (she married into a "ready made" family w/ a 5 yr old boy & 4 yr old girl)... Our oldest daughter/her hubby & 2 grand daughters only live 4 miles down the road, it's wonderful sometimes to have them underfoot, sometimes not - while building!

Thanx for coming back and sharing with us!