----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Lindorff
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 2:21 PM
Subject: Thoughts on Saving an Old Barn
Thoughts on Saving an Old Barn:
Corporations Have No More Place in a Democracy Than do Carpenter Ants or
Mold in the Beams of an Old Barn
By Dave Lindorff
For the last two weeks, I¹ve been contemplating the mysteries of
a post-and-beam barn, trying to work out how to rescue the long-ignored
structure from the fate of many barns of its vintage (probably about 150
years old), which is total collapse.
This particular barn was left unattended for years by its last
owner, and I am guilty of continuing that neglect for the 12 years that I
have owned it. I knew that the shingles on its roof had long passed their
sell-by date. When we first bought the property, the shingles had that
telltale roughness that announced that they were eroded and brittle. The
chronically wet ground floor was also a pretty convincing sign that the roof
wasn¹t doing its job of keeping the rain out. But the real evidence of
looming disaster were the plants that began to sprout right out of the roof
this wet summer. Big plants. Even a few young trees. And the mushrooms
growing out of the ends of exposed beams. Not a good sign.
I made my way gingerly up the rickety stairs to the second floor
in August, and looked around at the underside of the roof. Someone had
obviously once re-roofed the structure perhaps two decades ago or more,
using plywood sheathing over the old slats, but the plywood from the front
wall on up halfway to the ridge was all rotten. One corner of the roof had
actually fallen in, so there was an eight-foot-by-four-foot unimpeded view
of the sky. Several rafters were so rotten they had cracked and were
sagging downward, held up only by the rusty nails coming down into them from
the gimpy plywood and slats above them.
I¹ve never attempted anything this big, but I decided I simply had to rescue
this sad old building. Someone had once put an enormous effort into its
hand-hewn ten-inch-by-ten-inch beams (probably chestnut), notched and pinned
together by wooden pegs. There had probably been a community barn-raising to
erect the thing, once upon a time.
There¹s no community today to do this kind of work, unless you¹re part of
one of the Amish communities in central Pennsylvania or Ohio. I have a few
friends I could probably get to hold a ladder, or maybe help me hoist some
shingles to the roof, once I get to that point, but nobody would likely want
to devote a week or two to the hard labor of rebuilding a dangerous old
barn, just for the sake of community spirit or camaraderie. Those days are
gone. People are just too busy trying to get by.
So I¹m doing this project myself.
For the rest of this story, please go to:
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/?q=node/386
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
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