Story of the Barn

Spring and summer of 1999, we refurbished our family's barn up in north central Wisconsin. This is where my Grandparents ran a small dairy farm and where I spent most all my growing-up summers. We mostly fixed the barn up for sentimental reasons I guess, but also to avoid having to knock it down or get rid of it once it fell. We figured it would be nicer having the barn there, than having a big empty void where there used to be a barn. I had this feeling that if my Grandma could see the start of this undertaking, that she would have said, "Oh the dummies..." but I knew when we were all done, that she would have been happy and proud. We've had a big barn party up there every autumn since 1999. The barn project had its share of setbacks, like a storm coming along on July 29 after we had been working on it for 4 months and putting a 10 degree lean into it. Thanks to the Lasee boys for showing us how to push it back into place. Then we pressure washed the floor upstairs. After a week of drying, the boards were cupped / warped. So we ended up tearing that floor up. Actually, the insurance money we got for the storm paid for a big chunk of the whole project, and the floor boards we ripped up, we planed and put on the walls downstairs. So things have a way of working out....