[Previous entry: "News Too Good To Wait"] [Next entry: "There’s Always Indy"]
09/29/2003: "The Barn According To Indy"
As promised, Indy’s contribution to the ongoing barn remodeling. But first, a little background.
Mike and I bought this place in 1992 specifically so I could bring DJ home. This property has 24 acres in total, and an almost new barn. The “almost newness” of the barn was a BIG selling point because a lot of places around here have barns - the only problem is that many of them are so old and in such bad shape that you wouldn’t store your trash in there - let alone anything you VALUED. THIS barn however, was structurally sound and had real possibilities - even if they were pretty hard to see…
I truly wish I’d had the foresight to take before and after pictures of this place. It was built as a cow barn - 30’ X 50’. The main entrance faced east with large double doors. The opening to the pasture - a bare hole in the wall with NO protection from the elements - faced north. It had a cement floor, but that didn’t matter at the time because it was piled about three feet deep in moldy straw and cow poop. There was one little 9’ X 9’ “room” on the other side of the barn from the pasture access that had been used as a STALL. It was four feet deep in moldy straw and HORSE poop. Ewwww!!!!
In order to make the barn habitable for DJ and the companion we intended getting for him, we first had to just get all the crap out - no mean feat, believe me. The plan was to make the entire side of the barn with the pasture access the horse side. So, Mike broke the cement out of that side - with a sledgehammer; built stalls - one at each end with the doorway in the middle; and then built a sort of run-in out from the door to shelter it from the elements. Nothing to it, right?
The middle section - opposite the pasture door - is OUR entrance to the Horse Side of the barn. We started with just a couple of 12 foot 2X6 boards, the lower of which slid to the side, and we got in by sliding that one back and ducking under the top one. It wasn’t elegant, and ducking under got you a headache if you didn’t duck low enough, but it DID have the advantage that, if you forgot to “close” the lower one, the upper was still there, keeping the horses on their side. That safety feature made up for a little inconvenience. The top board COULD be removed if necessary, but it had to be positioned and tilted JUST SO.
The first modification we had to make to our human entrance came when DJ broke the top board completely in two whilst scratching his butt. I know what happened because I was there when he did it. Mike then nailed a 2X4 edge on onto the outside of the (new) 2X6 to add extra strength. It never broke again, but now it was even more difficult to take down due to the WEIGHT. Fortunately, we didn’t have to remove that one often.
This worked fine for ten years. Then Indy came…Hee! Hee! It’s not that Indy MEANS to make any trouble; he’s just adventuresome and has an insatiable curiosity, not to mention a Puckish sense of humor. If you don’t count the front fence line - which wasn’t REALLY his fault because Ami had broken the main gate post a couple of years earlier while scratching HER butt - the first major change was the bottom board.
A few weeks ago, the bottom 2X6 was laying on the floor when we came out one morning. We thought Indy must have worked it out of its brackets while scratching - you got it - his butt. We replaced it. Next morning, it was again on the floor. We replaced it, commenting that one good thing about winter was the lack if itchy, biting BUGS.
The next morning however, we got there in time to SEE what was happening. Indy wasn’t scratching. He was deliberately taking that board in his teeth - working carefully to get as big a bite and he could manage - lifting if up and dropping it onto the barn floor. I replaced it and he did it again. And again. Evidentially, he found this greatly amusing, - actually, I found it hilarious myself - and I have no idea how many more times he would have picked it up if I had continued to rehang it for him.
Mike ended this particular game by putting another set of brackets upside down over the original set, so that it was impossible to take the board out by lifting it up. We also installed a chain that we could wrap around the brackets and fasten outside the stall to prevent the bar from sliding. Of course, this made it more difficult for US to get the board out should we need to do so, but I digress…
A few days later, we came out in the morning to find the TOP bar had been disengaged from its brackets on one side. The weight of the thing had bent the bracket on the other side, so there it hung, diagonally across the entranceway. This time, we didn’t even speculate about this being an “accident.”
Mike installed a double bracket system similar to the one on the lower board, plus nailing on another 2X4 over the first one, increasing the weight and taking away the edge of the 2X6 that Indy was grabbing onto. So far, neither bar has been, er, toyed with again.
I keep telling Mike we need to get this boy a Stall Ball, but he’s concerned that Indy would chase Ami with it like he does with the muck buckets. Sometimes I don’t think Ami shares Indy’s sense of humor, because he would LOVE it if SHE chased HIM with a muck bucket.
Oh yeah - did I mention this place had a HOUSE on it too?
