It is with a heavy heart that I sit to write this post. Probably part of the reason I have procrastinated doing it for over a week now.
I took this picture on December 17, 2020. It is the last image of the barn in the state that it had sat in for over 100 years.
Due to many circumstances out of my control, I finally had to make the choice to have the barn taken down. I have toiled on this day and decision for the 5 years I have lived at the house. However, we were quickly approaching a point where mother nature was going to take care of it for me if I didn’t act soon. My logic was that I would much rather have the wood repurposed and found in people’s homes than turning into worm food. Let’s not also forget the fact that if I had left the choice to Mother Nature, I would have also lost the control of how safely it came down. I had lost more sleep than I care to admit over this worry.
So, after the choice was made, it was just a matter of watching the process happen. I have to give a huge shout out to the Amish crew who worked in some of the worst Ohio winter conditions and were marvelous to have around.
They started dismantling the barn on December 29th and were completely done by January 13, 2021. In that 16 day window, they worked in moderate conditions and RAIN! Oy! The mud! You have NO idea! They never complained and they fought through it with their equipment and did the very best they could. As a person who works outside throughout the winter months, being cold and wet in mud is the worst situation ever in my opinion.
I was shocked at how quickly they were able to dismantle the old girl. They started by removing all of the floors.

Next they took the metal roofing off and started to dismantle the roof. The ultimate goal was to cut the rafters on the roof and intentionally have it fall in since it was too unsafe to dismantle by hand. So, they worked and worked with the loader to try and to get it to fall in. But the old girl had one more trick up her sleeve.

Don’t worry, the night of January 1st we had some pretty decent wind coming through. So, I was awoken in the middle of the night to the roof coming down. Let me just clarify that this was the EXACT scenario that I had wanted to avoid over the last 5 years! Maybe it was the barn’s way of letting me know how she felt at my choices. After I heard the first crash, I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I sat in the truck for a couple of hours and patiently waited for it come the rest of the way down. It offered a great opportunity for some photos though!

Here you can really see how the roof had rotated and fell in.

When I left the next morning, this is how she stood. She was still hanging on.

At this point, I was back to school and could not really watch the progress. So, a huge thanks to Momma D. for hanging out at my house and getting some documentation of the process.
Within the next couple of days, they crew was able to finishing taking the usable wood and cleaned up and were gone. After seeing that barn stand there daily, it is still hard to pull in the driveway and see the remaining rubble. All in all though, at the end of the day, I know that it was the best choice.

There will be plenty of fun to clean up as the weather warms up. My goal is to show the progress, but as we all know….my timeline is slower than most!
I am going to leave you with one of my favorite images of the barn that I took shortly after I moved to the farmhouse.

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy in these crazy times!
Peace out peeps.
P.S. I found one more pic I wanted to make sure I included in this post!! Thanks to the best family ever for your support and love!
