We hesitated a little bit before deciding to plunk down a thousand dollars to have new spouting put on the barn. To let the thing go without spouting for much longer, we were running into the possibility of having foundation damage. We just had a wall replaced a couple months ago because the original had crumbled dangerously away. That was, what, $3000.
The question that's been in our minds is: do we save this thing? Do we tear it down and build another one that serves our purposes better? Is having an old, rustic barn worth the sentimentality?
None of us know exactly how old our barn is, but I am guessing it was built in the 1850s or 1860s. For many years it's lofty heights held either loose hay or bales. Since we moved here in 1991, we've really just done big round bales and they're too heavy to store up there. This means that the top of the barn is essentially wasted space.
The bottom part has stanchions in which about 25 cows can come in at once to be milked by a single person kneeling between pairs of cows with 3 or 4 milkers going at once. We have more than 25 cows to milk, so they need to be switched out during milking time. What we'd talked of doing is putting in a milking parlor where the person milking stands in a pit and milks several cows on each side as they stream through.
Should we spend the money on renovating the old structure, or would we be further ahead to build a new one? People have put new milking parlors in old barns, but do we want to do that? The clock ticks as we are deciding and we have to either keep maintaining this thing or let it fall down!
The thing got an expensive roof job a few years back, but it also needs siding!
~Colleen with photo credits to Trent
