The picture you’re looking at is the collapsed south facing wall of our big barn’s basement. Part of that pile of rubble has been there since we bought our farm two years ago. Most of that rubble is new, as in less than a week new. The wall collapsed due to the many rain storms we’ve had this spring. Well, that and the fact that it is very, very old. It’s about two and a half feet thick, made of large (probably original) field stone and cement. The part that looks like it’s still intact is directly under one of the two ramps into the main level. This section is collapsing, too, as is the cement and stone wall under the second ramp.  

When John and I stood in the basement the other day, just staring at the sunlight pouring through the holes in the wall and playing off the pile of rocks below the holes, we both felt our stomachs sink into our shoes. All our hopes for the barn seemed to sink with our stomachs. You see, when we envisioned “Rescue and Recovery,” we saw far more than animals, although animals are a huge part of our vision. We set out to recover the Earth herself, to balance all life ~ plants and animals ~ and to rescue those pieces that would help us in restoring that balance. We quickly narrowed our dream to this one little piece of the Earth, our farm. And rescuing this large barn, which is so deeply entwined with the history of our farm, was part of our vision. 

Two Years Ago:  As soon as I first pulled into the driveway, this huge barn drew me in before anything else.  The doors are easily 25 feet tall, and as I walked into the main room, the sheer space seemed to sing through me. The soaring roof seemed at least three stories tall, and the hand-hewed beams of native oak and pine felt more solid than any other structure I’d ever been in. There were ladders on the walls with the lowest rung so far above my head that the ladder I’d been using for years to reach gutters and ceilings just wouldn’t get me that high. The ladders led up to windows through which pigeons flew. I wanted this barn ~ and I wanted to save it so others would know the energy that flowed through it.

18 Months Ago:  John and I met with a structural engineer, one who knows a lot about old barns like ours. He spent hours walking through the big barn, measuring here and there, taking notes, and giving us wonderful pieces of information. He thought that the structural part of the barn dates to just after the American Civil War. The beams that hold up the roof are 64 feet long, all the same circumference (around 4 feet), and each beam is from only one tree! The last time trees that thick and tall were logged in this area was the 1870s and 1880s.  On the very top of the ceiling is a long metal rail along which runs this huge metal claw designed for moving loose hay from a wagon onto the floor and back again as needed throughout the winter.  He thought the barn was salvageable, although it needs a new roof, a reinforced foundation, a new floor, and new walls. His estimate? Around $250,000.  Our hearts sank a bit that day, although he did tell us that he’d been in worse barns and that we could probably get many years’ use out of ours. That gave us hope.

One Year Ago:  Our hopes still ran high for our barn! If we had measured correctly, we could someday get six horse stalls along the north facing wall in the basement, which meant rescuing horses might be a possibility! There’s already a walkway to a pasture out of the basement, and there’s a faucet with running water right near the east entrance. We just needed to shovel out multiple years of dried cow manure and straw that covered the floor to about eight inches thick. Enter the wonderful students from Lakeview High School’s National Honor Society. They gave us one Saturday of hard work, and cleared the entire area. We were moving forward ~ and then the west wall of the main area began buckling. 

Six Months Ago:  We met an Amish barn rehab expert who came to give us another estimate on saving the barn ~ or at least saving the west wall before it falls down. He walked through the barn, talking out plans for how to save the roof, the foundation, the wall.  His estimate? $30,000 for the roof and $40,000 for the foundation.  How much to repair the west wall only, we ask.  $3,000.  We hired him to repair the wall, explaining that we’ll talk to our bank to see if we’ve options for the other pieces of reclamation. We looked into grants, into becoming designated an historic farm…we found no options. John and I began to face the reality of losing this incredible place. We pulled all of the hay and pine shavings out of the main area, using them up during the final months of winter and planning for where else we can store these next fall. 

Four Days Ago:  “Come with me,” John says, taking my hand to lead me to the entrance to our big barn’s basement.  We walk in together, and we stop together. “Oh no,” I whisper, staring at the new pile of rocks and cement, at the bowed posts still holding back collapsing portions of the wall.  We both know what this means: $40,000 to repair the foundation has just risen even higher, and we just can’t spend the money ~ money we don’t even have and can not figure out how to get. We both wish that those before us had kept up with the repairs when they were needed, but we know that wishing this isn’t fair. One doesn’t think about preserving something for history when one is living life in the moment. 

We know that our barn won’t fall down tomorrow, but someday, it will ~ and we can’t stop it. Every day since we saw the newly collapsed section of the wall, we’ve talked about where we can store what we need, how to move forward with what’s falling down, and what does this all mean.  Every day, we adjust our vision of a rescued place here ~ still the orchard with our fruit trees, still the garden, still the plans for more oak trees to draw the caterpillars that baby birds need to grow strong, still our sheep and cats and dogs and hens. Still as many levels of the web of life that our little piece of the Earth needs to be healthy. But no big barn, though for the next little bit of time, I’ll still walk through the main floor when the sun is shining, breathing in the space and smells of decades of hay and wood. We’ll put caution tape over the doors whenever anyone visits, and we’ll work to figure out how to get water into the little barn without the faucet in the big barn. And I’ll cry just a little whenever I see something else fall off a wall.