Barn Raising, 2000

It's changed over the years, this barn-raising business.

In the movies about pioneers that I saw as a kid, neighbors came in wagons, on horseback or foot, toting tools and picnics to the building site.  Dozens of men quickly set to work in teams hammering together parts of the future building.  Kids scrambled around on the meadow, playing tag and apparently no help at all.  Women in aprons cooked meals over open fires.  

Soon pieces of the structure were tilted up and, on the count, everyone pushed by hand or with poles till the walls stood up and were fixed in place.  In only minutes folks were dangling from the rafters, hauling up lumber and finally shingling the roof.  All this was finished by sundown.  In Hollywood.

Nowadays, if you still believe in barn-raising, you phone a number of contractors or lumber yards, get a good price, find a spot on someone's schedule, and wait.  And wait.

The first sign of progress?  When you're not at home someone drops off a couple of pallets of concrete blocks.  And you wait some more.  Eventually one day around sun-up a couple of sturdy fellows and a cement truck show up to pour and finish the slab.

And you wait some more.

Weeks later several trucks arrive, one with a crane.  There's a bustle of activity on the part of the carpenters as they lay out a few incidental bundles of materials. 

Then the crane operator lifts first one and another and yet another panel, and drops each in place to the direction of the carpenters.  

Things are nailed down along string guides to assure things are square and plumb so the next prefab component will tie properly into what's gone before

How long does this take? After only one day the walls are up and the trusses and gambrel rafters are in place.  Before day's end the crane truck and the flatbed truck go home for good.  The two carpenters return and end the second day by shingling half the roof.  On the third day the roof is finished, the stairs are built, and the 10 foot tall garage doors are hung.    There's some picking up and sweeping, and the last truck is loaded with tools.  

Before three o'clock that third afternoon the men are gone and a solid barn sits on its slab. Essentially, two men have put up a barn in two and a half days, with the help of a crane truck and operator and a few other recruits.  The outside surface of the sheathing as well as the doors and windows were primed beforehand.  Winter is drawing near, and there won't be time enough to finish painting.  We'll get to it in the spring.

What's missing from the last picture is a shiny steel chimney cap, installed a few days later.  It's tied to a stove in the loft.  Up there Dick will do wood cuts and prints.  Below in the bays of the garage will sit a tractor on the left and a pickup on the right.  No more scraping snow and ice from these fellows in the early morning darkness.

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