barn raising

Our next farm project is the construction of a machine shed/barn so we don’t have to store the tractor in the garage and have the smoke alarm go off every time Tim starts up the motor. There is room for a cow and a loft upstairs for hay storage. Yesterday the concrete crew came with 3 cement mixers to pour the foundation. Maggie and Mary finished their schoolwork in plenty of time, but when Will still had his English assignment left when someone hollered, “They’re here!” I let the work slide.

We all spent the next few hours observing the guys in rubber boots raking wet goo into all the corners up to the blue chalk line,

smoothing it out with huge skimmers, and perfecting the coat with huge machines that looked like fans turned on their sides. To document this moment in our family’s history I pushed each of the kid’s Crocs in the wet concrete in a corner and scratched their initials underneath. David, the builder, won’t start framing for a few weeks, so next summer when we pull back into the driveway we will see it completed and ready for our farming adventure.