Dart Creek Farm

by Michael Lobby

This year will be the first that we are cutting hay from our largest pasture. There is a very small window of opportunity where we live in which to get the hay cut, then have enough time to dry, have it baled, and then get it picked up and stacked under cover before any rain comes. It seems the last three years the window has come later and later in the month of June.

The forecast for this week brings us warm to hot temperatures by Friday. We’re hoping to have hay cut and ready to be picked up by Saturday.

I’ll post pictures after it all happens…

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by Michael Lobby

September 12, 2007

So, my master plan included pretty much gutting the existing barn and splitting it in half lengthwise. I would then de-construct one side and move it over twelve feet, splitting each roof truss in half and then building a completely new one for the additional 12 feet on the end. Kimberly and the kids and I had a fun time hammering and smashing and pulling lumber out of the old barn. I must admit, being used to working alone on projects of this sort, I had to “step back” a little and let everyone do their thing trying not to worry about managing every little aspect of the endeavor. It’s the ‘only child’ part of me that I haven’t quite gotten rid of yet.

We gutted the barn (saving as much lumber as possible for later recycling) and removed the metal siding on the East wall. The large sliding door on the North side was also removed. I removed all of the random nails (Kim’s term) and electrical wiring for the few lights that were there. I also had to remove PVC pipe that had seemingly been plumbed around in various places for watering.

After all that was done, I began grading the ground around the barn to a level even with the bottom of the East wall. The barn was built on a slight slope and the ground was much higher on the East side. I will still have to put in some drain pipe around the East and North sides.

September 12, 2007

Once the leveling was completed, I could mark out the post holes and start digging. I put a total of 11 new 6×6 posts in the ground. I added two 24′ posts to the end and two on the inside of the barn. Then for the new 12′x48′ side I added 5 12′ posts. To the inside existing posts, I added 10′ posts to the tops and secured them with pegged mortise and tenon joints. As with many situations during construction, it was a feat of physical science to get the posts seated by myself using the tractor and some interesting bracing.

September 13, 2007 September 16, 2007 September 16, 2007

More to come…

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by Michael Lobby

I had been meaning to do this (blog) for awhile now. In fact, I started this entry a few weeks ago and then got a kick in the butt when our good friend Kelli Wright started a blog for her family. For our family I thought of it as a good way to show off all of our hard work and also document our journey to the place of which we have dreamed.

We have been living in this house since January of 2007 and closed on the purchase at the end of that March. We now own a little piece of Heaven and I cannot imagine ever moving.

Since last September, much of our free time has been spent gutting and then reconstructing and enlarging our 24’ by 36’ pole barn that, by judging what was left on the stall walls, was once home to an undetermined number of cows. Our house, shop, and barn sit atop a hill on 14 and a quarter magnificent acres in Yankton, Oregon. The barn as it originally existed had two shed row type stalls on the side that open to a 6 acre pasture. The side that would become the end of the isle opens to a 84’ by 168’ outdoor arena that, hopefully someday, will be covered.

I came up with what I thought was a simple design for a nice six stall horse barn with a tack room and hay loft. After spending two years refining my forte as a furniture maker and woodworker at the Northwest Woodworking Studio, my designs skills have evolved to a point where I could not design something that was not, at least, unique in some special way. In upcoming posts you will see what I am talking about become more clear. We are now nearing the end of May and I can say that if it were not for this fabulous design of which I speak, the barn would probably have been completed last year (before the Winter snow).
I will start from the beginning and take you chronologically, and using photographs, through the construction of this monster, uh, addition to our estate as well as what is going on in our crazy, horsey life. Keep reading…

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