Ode to a Collapsing Barn.
Part One - February 20, 2024
I was told by my grandfather (1890–1976) that his grandmother Lucy Anna Davis (1832–1923) when she and her boys arrived by train here from Missouri (ca. 1870–71), bought what is now left of our present farm from the railroad (ca. $4 an acre contingent on improvements made within a set period of subsequent years [see the background of the Mussel Slough Tragedy]).
They proceeded to build a shack—it stood until 1980—with bark shingles and unplaned siding of about 400 square feet, where she and her children (among them my great-grandfather Cyrus Marcellus Davis [1860–1923]) lived until completion of the barn.
It, in turn, was built with rough eucalyptus poles sometime in the 1870s as temporary quarters—made possible during the late 19th-century Central Valley craze to plant groves of Australian “blue gums” to ensure wood in a woodless valley (unfortunately eucalyptus was not Douglas Fir and so split and cracked when turned into planed lumber, albeit it was immortal, given its gums and oils prevented termites and rot in general).
Then they completed the present house (1880 and enlarged in 1902) in which I live. And the barn then properly served as the fuel storage for the horses that pulled the vineyard and orchard primitive disks, harrows, and furrowers. As I boy I have memories of my grandfather and the hired man Manuel with jacks and levers always replacing a pole or reinforcing a buttress—enough for another five years of barn life. And once a self-referential barn restorer came by in the 1960s, and said he wanted to look at such a peculiar barn, only to scoff, “This was terribly built, flawed, it’s a mess.” And my father, who was there too, some 60 years ago, dryly remarked, “I guess that’s why it has stood 90 years.”
Barns were designed for animals. Their odd shapes and tall roofs of 25–35-foot ceilings were designed to store winter hay and forage. And indeed, in the 1950s I saw at the top of the barn the pulleys that were used to lift hay from wagons below, up the side of the barn, and then swung into the big wooden door-window above, and on into a loft. Sometime later that decade, the loft was removed (and one of the pulleys [made of wood] is still chained to a rafter above).
The barn, somewhat with difficulty, for most of my youth was used to store raisin “sweat” boxes. Later when my Swedish grandfather, the horse-breaker and disabled (lungs gassed) World War I veteran died (1889–1968), we brought his horses and donkeys over to the barn. During my high school years, it returned to an animal shelter of sorts, as we reworked the original manger in one of the aisles and rebuilt the old corral surrounding one of the doors.
Like many smaller barns, it has a large center gable, with adjoining stalls on either side, giving the slope a sleek tripartite roof look. In the 1960s, my preteen task was to shoot woodpeckers that drilled through the siding and rabbits that burrowed under the foundation. A year ago, I counted at least 15 huge holes in the barn that I had variously screened over in past years. I gassed a huge squirrel burrow underneath the 1950s-cement foundation. The holes, the gaps around the barn doors, and the flopping metal roof panels allowed an entire cosmos of animals to take over. Woodpeckers, doves, blackbirds, barn owls, sparrow hawks, lizards, rats, mice, and squirrels seem to have expropriated it and turned it into a menagerie along with old furniture, horse collars, and various detritus from the last century. So, what to do with it, as it began to wobble and warp with the last storm’s winds?
Part Two - February 21, 2024
When the almond shakers and sweepers of the surrounding orchards kicked up clouds of dust the floors by this November were 3–4 inches deep in dirt. It was in theory a barn, but so perforated and porous that the inside was not much different from the world outside.
About 10 years ago it began slowly to “creak” and nearly sway off the cement foundation, itself cracked due to a century of rodent burrows beneath. Some of the ugly galvanized World War II metal roof panels had begun to pop up in strong winds, as the gusts through the perforated barn swept under the roof and swirled around inside.
I was shocked at its wobble, since to the naked eye the barn looked like it always had, firm and square. But the more I looked at the rafters and climbed on the “spongy” roof, the more I realized the delusion: it looked “normal” but in fact would not support one or more people walking over it. Once on the roof, it seemed more like a trampoline, and I quickly got off. And increasingly the big and smaller doors jammed open or shut as the structure wiggled and squeezed and then relented.
I had asked a roofer in 2014 to fix and patch the roof. Could he screw the metal sheets down into the ancient 1×4 planks? He shrugged “Not on your life. That central section’s span is too wide, and you only have four trusses when you should have 12 or so.” He went on to detail what had to be done to save the structure, before concluding, “It would be cheaper to tear down and have a metal building built in the same place. I would. It may last 50 years, or it could collapse tomorrow. Looks deceive.”
True enough about the costs of romanticism versus practicality. I checked the prices of metal buildings to confirm that. But I had then been falling further into the irrational and did not want to destroy the ancient icon on my watch. So instead, a decade ago I settled on a quick fix, given I thought it was not necessarily a majestic classic barn of an artist’s watercolor, but a so-so practical building put up by the impoverished and patched over the two centuries into nothing spectacular. Or so I rationalized a decade ago.
I had a couple of guys frame out the interior walls with 2x6s to bulk up the ancient (but absolutely solid and seemingly unaged) eucalyptus poles. Then they sealed the entire interior with 5/8ths ugly plywood, rebuilt the doors, and put a normal door in for easy access.
So, there were at least now interior walls that stopped most of the wind blowing through the old one-wall exterior holed planks. The framing seemed to have stopped the swaying—for a while. But I had neither the money nor the desire to address the central liability: the roof was sagging. The ancient four scissor trusses were too few and now creaked. The 1×4 planks resting on top of the 2”x8” rafters were a mishmash of scrap lumber, old parts of stairs, and assorted scavenged wood from the 1870s. Anyway, the barn seemed stronger…
What then had kept the barn alive? Everything was built of rough heart redwood and full-sized lumber (“2×8” really were two inches by eight inches). So, for all the weathering and aging, there was no termite damage, no dry rot, and no knots in the first-growth redwood.
Still over the last decade, although I did not have the money or the time, I wanted to save the barn for various romantic reasons, among them that there are few barns left anymore in the valley and each according to his station should try to save something from our past.
In the age of the more practical metal shed and pole barns, with secure shops and designs intended for machinery and tractors, the barn’s antiquated profile is impractical—with too much unnecessary height and unused upper space.
I see them collapsing everywhere and almost nowhere being restored. I drive to work across the Valley and over the last two decades have watched a few slowly deteriorate, each year a section collapsing, or a roof section torn off.
A second, more pragmatic reason is that I had about a decade ago remodeled into an office an old musty and ancient crude interior nook (a euphemism for a concrete sink, rusted-out metal shower, one knob-and-tube light, and a corner place for cots) in one of the stalls. But I sort of overdid it with modern wiring, plumbing, tiled shower, bath, kitchen, and bedroom, and all the modern amenities, in hopes my daughter might live there after finishing graduate school.
Stupidly, I did so before addressing the structural problems of the barn itself that as I learned far transcended framing the interior walls. In other words, inside the barn was a modern apartment compromised by a shell above about to collapse upon it.
I had nightmares of waking up after a storm and seeing only the two sides standing and the center between them a pile of ancient fallen rubble. I remembered the advice a decade ago “Looks can deceive.” And I recalled all the ancient majestic liquid amber and black walnut trees on the place that had looked indomitable, and suddenly after a meek storm had split apart, lost a huge limb or fallen over, exposing rot inside. Or I remember thinking the knob-and-tube wiring worked well enough and seemed safe—until one morning it wasn’t and seared a rafter in the house.
Part Three - February 23, 2024
So, 150 years after the barn’s birth, the last month’s California storms started to flop up the roof sheets again. In one gusty hour, I saw the roofline sway and the barn itself shake.
Another far more skilled and imaginative roofer came out who two years ago had saved some of the older outbuildings on the farm. He took one look at the sagging trusses, puzzled that the barn had not yet collapsed. Then in Thucydidean-style, he detailed the diagnosis, the needed therapy, and a likely prognosis if not repaired. He walked over the roof and seemed pale when he climbed down.
So, the entire inner roof would have to be rebuilt—or rather built properly for the first time. The four existing trusses would have to be beefed up. Then four new trusses were needed on each side of them, making 12 in all. In turn, all needed to be stronger than the originals, with additional vertical and horizontal supports.
The two lateral lower aisles needed to be completely rebuilt with 2x8s in the rafters. The section partitions needed huge 6”x12” beams to anchor the weight of the middle section trusses.
I started computing the cost. But I was interrupted by his, “That’s the start. Then we have to rip off all the metal roof, but first put down 5/8” plywood over the old 1”x12” planks, replacing bad ones as we go, with plastic waterproof sheeting covering the plywood. All that will tighten up the building, stop the swaying, and easily carry the roof and shingles.”
I started to add those possible costs to the early outline of the trusses and interior structural reinforcement. But he was still not done. “You might as well put over it Prudential Presidential Shake shingles (of composite material thick enough to resemble wood) that have a lifetime guarantee.”
I started to say, “OK, how much?” But he still wasn’t done.
“Of course, you would not want to spend all that money to have a great roof with all that old siding, right? Why keep the weather out from the top and just let it in from the sides?” Good point, but I said the interior plywood of a decade ago helped a lot. He barked, “No substitute for exterior new planks.” (The more he talked, the more I realized he wasn’t concerned with adding on costs but was instead interested in the challenge of rebuilding an antique to standards that exceeded metal sheds—for the idea of it.)
So, what followed was another detailed explanation of what was needed. “We need first to fix the old siding. Why throw away a century-and-a-half-old redwood siding? So we can keep the ancient stuff. But we have to re-nail it down, smooth it out, and replace any decrepit planks. That will give us two inches of outer wall, and two-and-a-half with your plywood interior wall. Then we put the plastic sheeting over it and begin overlaying the old with new 1”x12” planking. That won’t be all that easy, since we have to remove and cut out around all the fixtures, lights, pipes, and conduits on the wall. Oh, that huge sliding door has to be rebuilt. And then, of course, you’ll need to paint it. And I’d put on fascia as well, which will mean some new rafters. And then a gutter too.”
I was at last relieved (I liked the roofer a lot who was gratis also volunteering to act as the general contractor).
Yet I made the mistake of going over the cost and then comparing it with a new metal 30’x60’ building with easy-up sliding doors and cement slab, airtight and steel-strong. The result was the reconstruction of the ancient and impractical barn would be twice as much as an airtight new metal building.
My friend the roofer interjected, “But of course if you don’t want to redo the barn, you’ll likely have to tear it down before it collapses and that won’t be cheap. And what are you going to do with that really nice apartment inside? So that will have to go as well.”
Part Four - February 27, 2024
In the end, I said “Ok, let’s do it”—just as the latest torrential storm hit (so much for the tired warning that the “drought is not over” as we receive two back-to-back near-record years of rain and snow).
Over the last two weeks, all sorts of lumber and materials arrived. Manlifts were rented. Carpenters appeared. Roofers came and went. Whatever the cost, the framers earned it working 30 feet above a concrete slab, building in situ trusses, without any guarantee the ancient ones that they hung onto for support were still viable.
Then something strange happened without warning. The roofers, the siders, and the truss people began to become more enthused, almost enamored, in a way that transcended their quite “generous” hourly wages and jobs at hand. They would stop and gaze more than I did. I started to notice small things, such as when they were framing corners and doing the fascia, with meticulous measurement and cuts, and lasering the edges of the rafters down the slope—and for a barn?
Out of curiosity, I began to read about trusses and the sorts that builders in the past used to span barns. And I noticed that the present crew was overbuilding or perhaps over-reinforcing, as if the underbuilt original had only lasted 150 years, but theirs would stay put for 400? I quietly mentioned that observation to the crew boss, “No, no, not 400 years, but for a 1,000, right?” He sounded like Justinian building Hagia Sophia to last for the next millennium.
They now and then would stop and shout down, “This will be better than the original. Just watch.” And “We’re going to make it beautiful; you’ll see.” “What color are you painting it?” After work, they did not rush home but lingered about admiring their work and asking me what I liked best about it (all of it, actually; they were more scientists and craftsmen than just carpenters).
Sometimes when I checked things, one worker would stop and remark, “I wish we built these things all the time.”
I stopped writing for hours and just watched them work—steady, carefully, studiously, as if they wanted to say they had built something for another 150 years and for the beauty of it. (They were roof specialists, in great demand to do large, expensive custom homes with the now accustomed cathedral ceilings.)
The roofer (who two years earlier, as I said, had reroofed and rebuilt the house roof and those of the auxiliary buildings) has begun to lament and get morose as the job nears completion, “This is your last job. You won’t need me anymore. I love doing this out here. But I won’t be out here anymore. The more I think about it, the more I’d like to buy this place.”
After two weeks, the job is now starting to near completion. And at 70 I relearned something, apparently forgotten. In all of us, regardless of the money earned or spent, there resides the aesthetic, not just the pragmatic, and the desire to be a link in some chain, to be something more than just for the here and now.
Or, perhaps, “I am not completely part of this modern world of theirs.”
Part Five - February 28, 2024
The American barn was a symbol, its profile a stark reminder that rural America was healthy and raised families as well as food. The old wisdom of my grandfather echoes as the job nears completion, and I begin to get an inkling of what the finished barn will look like: “You can tell a farmer by his barn and house: the better the barn and smaller the house, the better the farm. The bigger the house and the worse the barn looks, the worse the farm.”
I noted when growing up that all the first-generation immigrants to the Valley—Portuguese, Dutch, Scandinavians, Greeks, Armenians, Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, and Punjabis—had big sheds and solid barns, but fairly modest homes.
The second generation that inherited their places remodeled the homes and enlarged them, but still kept the outbuildings up. If then the house became as impressive as the barn and auxiliary buildings, it was at least not necessarily better, bigger, or more expensive.
But the third—and last—generation? My generation? It was the ancient Athenian century-long story of the Marathon Men to Pericles to Alcibiades, or Salamis to the Parthenon to the Sicilian Expedition.
Often the farmhouse was torn down, and a McMansion supplanted it. The size of these new homes is staggering, some 5,000-7,000 square feet, an acre of impressive landscaping, and majestic driveway entrances.
But the barns as part of the homestead disappeared. Often with them vanished all the surrounding buildings. As family farms were consolidated and corporate farms or international concerns supplanted them, rural homesteads were truncated from the agribusiness complex. To the extent that the new mega-farm owners lived in the country (and few did), they kept their homes distant from their farmyards and offices, often by many miles.
I have mixed emotions about the barn’s rebirth. On the one hand, I feel I met obligations to the prior four generations and perhaps even to my current fifth and the next sixth, in the sense I did my duty and kept the place presentable and updated for those who follow. I have no idea whether my two children will wish to live here and keep it, but at least they will not be stuck with massive repair and maintenance bills upon sale, if it comes to that, because with the completion of the barn, everything after 150 years is now rewired, replumbed, rebuilt, reroofed, repainted, and repaired—and mostly all built from heart redwood.
But on the other hand, it was only by writing books and columns, working at Hoover, podcasting, and speaking–activities that have nothing to do with farming–that I was able to keep the farm. (I remember my mother’s old admonition that the farm siphoned off what one made away from it; or more bluntly: to save the farm, one could not farm.) Is the barn then a museum—a monument to what exactly?—rather than a utilitarian structure of its birth?
Had I tried to continue to farm full-time, as I did from 1980–85 and part-time from 1985–92, the farm buildings and house and barn now would have looked as they did then: ramshackle, worn, and doomed—or nonexistent.
Repairing an inherited barn is sort of like keeping America sane and healthy in the manner that we all inherited it. We cannot predict what our progeny will do with it (and we rightly fear that debacle, given what we have done to what we inherited). So, we just press on, fight the madness, reinvest, and repair, without worry of acknowledgment, but content that on our watch, in the limited means afforded to us, we kept faith with the past. I relearned that ancient lesson while repairing what for a while seemed unrepairable when it was not and awaiting rebirth: while America’s shingles warp and its siding splits, its solid foundation awaits our work at renewal and renaissance.
Welcome to life without Christ, America! "I am the vine. You are the branches ... without me you shall accomplish nothing."
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DeleteI am not even American, but this was beautiful. Thank you for sharing
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