Barns and Outbuildings.

Friday 11th, a beautiful day for a change, sees us out doors sorting out barns and outbuildings. The out building we call milking shed and calf house has, from the start had old, perished, broken transparent corrugated panels as its 'roof lights'. These let in the rain and short-term, Dad had just patched them up with metal sheets and planks, but now was the time to do a proper job, getting up on the roof and pulling out the twist-nails and washers holding the remains of the old panels in place. The roof is not particularly strong, with some dodgy rafters and some rotted out horizontals (battens or 'nailers') but the ridge is OK and the walls are the usual poured concrete with rocks, so Sparks and Dad figured that if the hung a ladder over the ridge and didn't put any weight on the corrugated sheeting, they'd be safe. They wore Hi-Viz coats, too as they are known to keep you safe! What could possibly go wrong? They had bought the transparent panels and a roll of bitumen tape. The existing corrugated iron panels, although reasonable, did have a few rust holes which would need patching. Working like this, they were quickly able to replace the transparent panels, with the chickens looking up at Sparks curiously from below, and Sparks slowly falling in love with the chickens, which are indeed, very watchable and intriguing beasties. Mum and Dad could sit and watch them for hours as they bimble about making little 'bwook-bwook' noises. They moved on to the tape patching. The tape, which came from LIDL as a special, turns out to be good stuff, which adheres well to even rusty sheeting. They patched all the holes they could see, then sent Dad inside the barns to look up at the roof to look for tell tale spots of sunlight shining in, mainly at nail-holes. Then it was time to move on to the hay barn. The big tall "3-Bay Hay Barn" as advertised in the Estate Agent's particulars rapidly turned into 'useless, tumble-down piece of scrap metal' at the first viewing, way back in Autumn 2011. The side walls are reasonably strong (and Thank God for that because...) the curved roof has collapsed and the curved panels hang on at the gutter facings only, flapping around in every breeze. The western end wall is gone completely, lying in a heap inside the barn. The end nearest the house we had thought was OK and indeed we have been parking cars near it and walking to and from under it confidently. Dad even leant the lengths of skirting board against it to dry once they'd been painted with sanding-sealer. Over the winter one of two sheets of currugated had come adrift and Dad had gone up a ladder to free up the remaining nail so that they fell safely to the ground and could no longer fall on someone, causing bad injury. Today, though, Sparks decided to bite the bullet and go up there with his angle-grinder, with Dad holding the bottom of the ladder. Sparks quickly realised, once he was aloft, that the top rail (the gutter facing) was not attached at either end and was held up only because it was nailed to the wall panels. He quickly came down a few feet and rested the ladder on a safer beam. Now he could cut away 2 panels and a block of three which brought him to the end of the barn nearest the house. Climbing the ladder again he saw to his horror that the barn end, a structure 25 feet long by about 10 feet tall, all 8 feet above the ground, was held to the side walls only by a piece of what looked like thick trellis wire and a nail or two. As he freed the last panel the vertical on which he was leaning moved 3 inches and the barn end with it. He shouted "You better MOVE THE CARS! This is coming down! RUN!" Dad rapidly moved the Fiat and then managed to flood the carburettor of the 2CV, so they shoved this bodily backwards free-wheeling!. Sparks moved his ladder to a safer place and the last wire on that end un-pinged, allowing the barn end to slowly swing out like an enormous gate, hinged on the other corner. It must weigh half a tonne. This was decidedly dangerous. Sparks moved the ladder round to the 'hinge' end of this new 'gate' and started to explore how to get the thing down, very aware that when the weight was released his end might buck and throw him off the ladder, but also that any wires or fixings might whip back and catch him that way. Mum was called to stand by with camera to catch the drama. With great care Sparks started to hacksaw the few remaining nails and wire, not quite able to believe how this barn stayed up through the winter winds. Then almost silently and calmly the great mass of timber and sheet steel came away and sagged to the ground, falling flat on its face. Mum retreated indoors to cook supper and open the wine. The boys decided to leave the south wall sheeting for another time. 19:20pm, after a full and tiring day, is no time to start a 2-hour, dangerous, barn-wrangling job. It is rather a time to square away tools and to chase Mum indoors before she necks too much of the wine. Deefs