It might have been 40 degrees today, but I went to the farm for a little bit.  Actually, I loaded up my truck with leaves and took them to the drop-off site and it was closed!  I took them to our compost pile on the farm instead.  While I was there, I made use of my time by cleaning up the shed.  I found some tarp and shade cloth that might help be a wind break so we can work on the interior wall of the greenhouse.  The outside wall is still comprised of slats and will be replaced by twin wall polycarbonate sometime.  I also brought home the little propane heater to make sure it was still working.

The wind is usually nasty, and it really must have been nasty during the last week.  Remember the portion of the barn that was collapsed?  The remains were resting on a little interior room.  I noticed today that one of the walls had violently snapped in half, and several of the boards on the back wall were now crushed.  I think it fell about a foot.  I few of the 1×6s  (the thin way) are still holding the end, and I can still see a 2×4 holding up the middle of the floor underneath.  I was able to pull apart the framing that was the front wall.  I can shake all the remains by hand, so it’s quite dangerous at this point.  Maybe another storm or two will do it.  I found a crowbar buried in the front of the barn, no rust.  I had been looking for that one.  Also, I noticed that the field behind the barn was plowed over recently.  I found several pieces of boards pulled up out of the dirt.  Did I mention that we found the front hay loft door WAY out in the cornfield?  It must have flown!
It’s odd.  With the corn gone, you can see the barn remains now.  Instead of seeing the giant roof from the corner of O and 320th, now you round the bend and see the only standing wall.  From a distance, it looks like a construction site trailer.

The final fate of the barn?  I don’t know.  There is some good wood and beams there, and there is one section standing. I’d love to get all the fallen down and junk wood removed.  Then I can trim the back 1/3 from the standing barn, and cleanup over what was the main walkway.  If the rest seems OK, we could stick a little roof on it, and get a shed/chicken coop/something.  We have been trying to save all the good curved rafters.  Most of them were shattered.  We have enough for a small coop, or a good doghouse.  I still think I can dig out the pen area of the barn to use the footings as the sides of a small pool or pond. 

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Another one of those incredible, Indian Summer, 70 Degree weekends was just here.  This allowed us to almost finish the West side of the Crib, clean up a lot more brush, and get all the barn out of the field.

Bill Sutton, who farms around us did bring one of his tractors down.  In exchange for some of our pile of field rock, he donated some time to helping move material and brush around.  He also used the bucket’s reach to cut down the branches  that were hanging over our driveway.

I think I figured out how to cover the greenhouse space, I just need an excuse to get to a home improvement store to look around.

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So what are we up to.  Bits of everything.  There is some more siding on the corn crib.  The section from between the corners and the doors on the West end has been filled in.  I’d like to fill in the last bit above the doors and get a few more courses up on the East end as well.  We also burned quite a bit of barn roof in our trusty fire pit.  It is littered with nails.  I’d like to get one of those magnetic sweepers and see just how much is in there.  We still have a little bit of roof, and the back wall of the barn to clean up.  Whatever wood I saved is started to get tucked under what remains of the barn.

We have been going pretty gung-ho on the house in town.  Just after we finished the kitchen, the dishwasher sprung a leak.  And you guessed it, removing a floor and a layer of plywood before replacing it with hardwood flooring did bring the floor height up about 1/4″.  Exactly how much room it takes to remove the dishwasher.  We ended up removing a untrimmed piece of laminate from the front edge of the couters and cut out the offending overhang of the counter to get the old one out.  Reagan happened to be in Des Moines and found a Kitchenaid dishwasher at the Habitat for Humanity store for $200.  Our dishes have never been this clean.  I love the thing.  It does hold a little less, but it’s solid stainless inside.

The bathroom and kitchen got all the walls textured and painted.  I even hung up curtains while Reagan was out for the weekend.  The back entry still needs to be done, and a little bit around the front door.  Then moulding, everywhere.  We are running out of to-do items here.

I have used the super nice weekend weather to get out for some bike rides.  You might say late season rides, I’m calling it early season rides.  In November and December, we start packing in miles on the trainer so we hit the Spring-fresh roads with speed.  I’m just getting a head start on my base mileage right now. There is always an upper body workout to be done, with all these leaves on the ground.  Oh, I rode to the farm the other night, and found carrots.  I had forgot about them.  I pulled one up about 6″ long, with a little left in the ground, and it must have been 2″ wide.  Free snack!  Super sweet and wonderful.

We finally figured out what Two Barn Farm is for.  Iowa has a new LLC registered, and we have been getting ready.  In fact our first prototype was created last night, and made this morning.  There is a fine line between a hobby and obsession.  Some hobbies turn obsessive, some obsessions turn into hobbies.  Which ever way it is, that’s usually a good sign of drive and passion.  More to come!

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And the meter starts at zero, I want to go plug something in.

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Somehow, I nearly forgot that we had a garden at Two Barn Farm.  It was a nice, warm, fall-feeling night, and I was itching to work.  We had 90 minutes of light left after work, and I intended to do something.

I took Grampy down there, and we got some trim and insulation hung up.  Grampy also pre-cut a few pieces of siding.  It was getting dim, but I got the first 3 pieces of siding on the East end of the crib.  After we picked up the tools, I thought about checking the gardens.  There might be some lunker of a zucchini hiding over there.

Tomatoes.  I nearly filled a 5 gallon bucket with bright red tomatoes.  Reagan has already canned sauce, diced tomatoes, garden relish, salsa, and a few other things out of the garden.  We have storerooms and freezers full of peas and onions too.  Now there is another batch of tomatoes to deal with.  Maybe we should check into Carla’s soup recipie…..

The whole canning process has gotten me into a fury as well.  I had to put up some barley and hops of course.  My hop vines only grew about 8 inches this year.  I used my business trip to St Paul as an excuse to visit the homebrew store that I usually order from.  Somehow, I came home with enough grain for 2 more batches of brew, even though I had that much at home already.

I started with the oldest first, which was something called “Big Honking Stout”  I realized that my power drill can replace the handle on this thing labeled the “Barley Crusher”.  It took care of 12lbs of grain in a minute!  Much better than cranking by hand.  I have quite the setup, and have started doing all-grain batches last year.  So there was a huge production of interconnected coolers and tubing and hot water sprinklers, and pots all over the kitchen.  Crazy to the untrained eye, but it was much more manageable than normal.
That batch is sitting in one of my large conical fermenters.  Next on deck for tomorrow is a Belgium Dubbel.  Next week might entail an Irish Red Ale followed by a Strong Dark Belgium Trappist Ale.  Notice that nothing seems to be labeled as American style?  Yes, there is a reason for that.
Hopefully this warm streak will continue for a few more nights and into the weekend.  I might get some more corn crib work done.

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