Here’s the barn with the new milkhouse extension, doing fine. We were slightly concerned that the slope of the new roof might be too shallow for snow to slide off, particularly with roll-off from the roof of the barn. The starting point was determined by an existing heavy cross beam in the barn, while the next beam is halfway up the wall – sloping the roof from there would’ve required tons of extra work and materials. As it is, it seems to be working out. Not having much snow or much of a winter at all helps. I doubt the sky will be falling in!
Series: Expanding the Milkhouse
Expanding the old milk collection room from the farm’s dairy days, into a fully-insulated seed-starting room, summer workroom, and cozy winter seed-catalog-browsing and next-season-planning hideaway.
Early harvest day…
Harvest Fridays begin with empty bins. We have around 50 harvest containers right now, the white and the blue and the green trugs (heavy duty plastic baskets with handles). On any one Friday, some are washed and ready, others have to be rounded up and rinsed. Today’s stragglers drain and dry on the harvest tables. To the left, all new this year, a screen table for spraying and draining bunched veggies. Mostly hidden behind it, the ever reliable washer-and-laundry-basins rinsing and spin-drying section. To the right, a trusty 4’x8′ sheet of 5/8″ plywood that has served as a general sorting and packing table for at least three years now. Leaning against the Milkhouse wall beside the door, the old, tiny screen table (sometimes popped onto sawhorses and used for sorting), and further over, the harvest whiteboard. The extra-wide door leads into a clear space with a table for packing safely out of the weather (increasingly welcome as the days shorten and the temperature drops, a big step up from the all-outdoor fall packing of years past). Up on the walls, two bare bulb light fixtures that soon have to be switched to floodlights, for packing after dark. Add water, bags, rubber bands, scales, digging forks, knives, shears and PEOPLE and the harvest is ready to roll!
Barn, Milkhouse, snow load
Not a big concern, but part of my rounds is keeping an eye on the snow load on the Milkhouse roof. It’s that shallow angle. This pic makes the potential problem clear: big, steep upper roof, unloading onto not-so-sloped lower roof. Luckily, with the wind and angle, there is seldom upper roof build-up. Although the weather’s been relatively warm recently (it did drop drastically last night), and there’s melt-off, it’s also been snowing in regular spurts, dumping an inch or so at a time. So, I keep an eye out… (If not for apparent global warming—shorter, less snowy winters in general, for whatever reason—we might have gone steeper when building last year. It seems we’re already casually adapting to visions of a freakish weather future, which IS human nature but still…weird!)