The Loafing Shed Is Deteriorating...

For many years this shed has been falling apart. It is one of only two sheds on the property and is the only horse shelter. There are multiple problems here. Aside from the obvious dilapidation, it was wide open to the wind. It took us a while but we finally rounded up enough resources, including help, to make a good go at repair.

The major structural problem here was that the front post(ridge-pole), holding up the ridge beam (roof top), had failed. It had rotted out and sunk about a foot. This in turn, because it was an Integral part of the division between the two halves of the shed, had completely compromised the fence partitioning the shed. Which, of course, was made up primarily of scrap. AKA: Whatever was laying around at the time. And, as always, my favorite, an ample share of Binder-Twine. Sigh...

In order to remove the rotted core of the old post we had to first, temporarily, lock out the horses. Fortunately we have a set of... I guess you can call it temporary fencing. We call it corral panel. Kind of like the 'LEGO' of fencing it has allowed us to remove the horses from the work zone 'temporarily'. So now we have the horses out of the way and we have removed the old posts and rails and we are ready to begin repair.

Wow... I thought that was going to be a much bigger production. Let's recap...

The loafing shed was dying. Thus taking down the center barrier. Eventually the shed would collapse or the center barrier would fail in either case reeking havoc on the property. Just a matter of time before we have our own mini version of 'Armageddon'. However. We removed the old railing. We replaced the front ridge post and all other the rotting posts in this fence line. We put up new railing and siding from our sawmill scraps. And so we saved the old shed and we are making better use of it and since, implementing our maintenance policies the 'you cant keep it clean' shed is is a place to actually be proud of.

I think we've done a fine job. We repaired our only shelter. And improved it. Plus we've strengthened our horse boundaries. Not counting the the material roundup this only took us about four days to complete. That's time well spent.

This (we mistakenly thought) was limiting our exposure in the Equine community, among other things as well. Failure on our part.

On the brighter side... We are no longer embarrassed to invite someone we don't already know to our property. Now that it's cleaned up we are for the first time actually proud of it.

The Hay Barn Is Also Victim Of Rot And The Binder-Twine scurge...

The hay barn also is held together with this stuff (BT) and the house would be too if it (BT) were watertight. It seems that anything that is not rotting is tied together.

This is a little embarrassing. Don't you think? Even though we have nice looking horses how is anyone going to take us seriously, as a facility, when it is so obvious that nobody cares for or is maintaining the place.

We're not earning any community respect points here. Are we?