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12/06/2009: "Saving The Barn, Part Five"

We've been fortunate to have a pretty dry autumn, actually. So much so that Lou and I have continued to make progress on the barn gutter project. Lou had a sunny day during the week right before Thanksgiving, and he single-handedly tacked the gutters up on the fascia that we had installed in part four. Don't ask me how he did it, but he managed. By the time I arrived on Saturday, much of the hard work had already been done.

There was still more to do, however: we still needed to caulk the seams, rivet the gutter sections together, and install the downspouts. Lou suggested that we use the roofing tar type of caulk that doesn't really harden, so I picked up a tube of that at the Big Box Store on the way into town. The Big Box salesman suggested that the $10 rivet tool worked as good as the $30, so that's what I went with; turns out he was right, though I kind of wished that I had bought two of them at that price. Lou and I were forever trading the rivet tool back and forth through the day.

Here's a shot of Lou applying the caulk to a seam between sections:



Lou is getting fairly nonchalant about working at the top of the ladder.



Meanwhile, I was assembling the downspouts. We put one at each end, with the drains pointing into the trench I had dug a couple of weeks before. Once I got them trimmed to length and assembled I drilled holes and riveted them together for sturdiness.





All in all, it went well, and we finished up just before dark! We now have a full-length gutter on the side of the barn with the most unstable foundation; hopefully this will arrest the decline and keep the barn standing for another year. Now all we need is rain, which we have not had that much of. The forecast for this coming week is for temperatures in the 30's, so we're more likely to get snow if there is any precipitation.

Before going home, I looked in on the pigs that Lou picked up recently. He's trying out raising pigs in the winter, though it's not as ideal as spring pigs. Winter pigs require a lot of feeding and a continuous heat lamp while they're small, which is a bit expensive and inconvenient. But, Lou admits, he's pretty fond of the taste of pork!