sad nj randomnis

One of the many abandoned horsebarns near bedminster nj,it is deteriorating rapidly,Jay in NY knows the farm,LanaLobell it has been for sale for a long time,I have posted some of it before,this is a different barn I passed today on the way home.

It is sad to see them go downhill like that. It wouldn"t take THAT much investment to make the barn serviceable again--tin on the roof, maybe a little structural work, especially around the left ventilator. If they do nothing, at least part of the roof will probably cave in, if you get very much snow there sometime.

Over 50 years, I watched a large barn in the Spokane Valley get neglected, finally until they had to tear it down. It was on the way to our church, so I saw it almost every week. I always wished there had been some way that we could have moved it to our place, but that was not something that was economically feasible.

When they tore the barn down, there was an article in the local paper about the barn. The original owner had a hauling business that carried wagonloads of clay from the Spokane Valley to somewhere in Spokane. He built the barn to deal with his draft horses and other farm needs. The article mentioned that while the barn was being built, the owner was extremely picky about the lumber used--he would reject any that had ANY knots. 100 or so years ago, there were many old growth trees that could provide such good lumber. Today it would cost a fortune to build that way, if you even could find lumber without knots. I was pleased to see that the barn was carefully dismantled, and the article said there were plans to build decorative items with the salvaged lumber. I was still sorry to see the barn go.

When we moved to our ranch in the late 50"s, the old barn there was in pretty poor repair. My Dad and my brother and I did lots of work on it, installing a concrete foundation, putting in some new floors, straightening the roof and adding sheet metal, and siding the barn with cedar that we painted red.

We sold the farmstead about 20 years ago, but I still drive by often, as I live just down the road on another corner of our old ranch. It is nice to see the barn still in constant use, with the ridge line straight as an arrow and the overall condition looking pretty fine. I wish they would paint it again, as I don"t think that has been done since Dad and I did it in about 1985. Lots of memories connected with that barn!!! I spent a TON of time in and around it.

I hope someone sees fit to fix up the barn in your photos. BTW, thanks for all the neat photos you post! Good luck!

Well, at least you didn't ask for help with it...

...or try to put the wrong kind of diesel engine in it...

...or assign any homework about it...

Sad to see old barns neglected. But they are no longer servicable for todays farming. Let the roof go, and the barn isn't long for this world. Understructure will die a quick death as soon as it gets weather on it. And the cost of roofing and siding a building sure makes it prohibitive to fix up the barn just to have it sit there.
We've lost a lot of them around this neck of the woods.

Hey Buzzman,post some of those nice IH truck pictues ,I really like to see them,its been a long time since you posted anything about IH trucks,when I was 16 here in nj,I had what was called a farmers licence,which allowed me to drive as long as it was farm related,All my friends had to wait to 17 .I could only drive farm related ,and my father said I BETTER follow the law,since I was on his insurance,A great thing for me was 3 old farmer brothers down the road were always looking for someone to drive their at that time new 1972 IH 3/4 ton 4wd pickup.They could not see well,and only one of them could get a licence.Not a bad deal,I got to drive it a lot,they always bought lunch and soda,get back to their farm they would even let you have a beer!

...would that qualify as a homework assignment?...

YES,and get r done with no help

Maw and Unk just tore down the old barn at the farm they jointly own, where Maw lives. Hated to see it go, but it was well over 100 years old and had pretty much outlived its structural integrity. Some of the big stones used for corner supports had shifted, and some of the sill timbers had rotted to the point that the walls were leaning. Hated to see it go, but knowing it was for the best cushioned the blow a little bit.

If the guys who tore the barn down followed instructions, they were supposed to save my sister and me a couple of sections from one of the beams, so we could make a mantle out of it...and a place to hang a brass tag explaining that the wood came from the old barn.

Here's the cable-drive tachometer I've saved back for my '52 pickup.

"Tach it up, tach it up, Buddy, gonna shut you down..."

My first car was a '57 Rambler V8, same color as this one...Bermuda Green over Berkshire Green, 250 V8...a fun old ride!

And my grand-dad owned a '57 Rambler Rebel like the one next to it...327 V8, 4 barrel, Hydramatic with a continental spare tire. They only built 1501 of them.

really nice,!!!! I like it

That barn looks like it was built in the 1960's or is it older than that? It looks like it was a nice barn when it was fixed up.

Its not real old,sort of a pole barn,when we moved here in 1985 the place was pristean,they painted the white fence every summer,I dont know what made it go bad so fast,but there is a hole in the roof now,there is one more barn just like that one .

There is an old barn near us, falling down, as you described. Many people talk about when will it finally fall down. But I think of where, and how I would push, pull,or lift, to bring it back.

Larry@stines,

Yep, sad but neat. If the place just sits, in about 20 years the vines will cover the remnants of the barn and trees will grow so thick in the pasture that you can't even tell there was once a barn there.

Truly, all we are is dust in the wind.

This is probably the wrong attitude but that barn doesn't seem to have the character of a real old classic barn. I just can't get any feeling one way or the other from a stick built or pole style barn keeling over like I do seeing a nice hand hewn post and beam monster thats in distress.