Taking Down A Silo

You could say that the first major item in our farm renovation has begun with a bang! We recently took down an old silo because it was severely rotted at the base and just too far gone to fix.

Tin roof! Rusted…

The one on the right (that I point out in [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=”vYEoYIwmXsA&rel=0″ width=”800″ height=”450″ anchor=”this video” description=”Tin roof! Rusted…”]) has long been without a “proper hat” to keep out the rain and snow. It was leaning to one side and was becoming oval-shaped which was not good either.

It was an accident waiting to happen and a liability that my building inspector and insurance agent were in full agreement on. So it had to come down.

Expert Help from the Experts

Luckily for us we had expert help from our neighbors. They work in construction and had all the right equipment for the job.

They were actually done in less than an hour when we started that day. Obviously there was a bunch of prep work done beforehand, but with the backhoe, a lot of that was taken care of.

They had loosened the steel cables that were used to keep the silo strapped in place and tied those onto long chains that were hooked up to one of the backhoes.

They actually had two backhoes on the scene. You can see the other one at the end of the video below. One was behind the silo to keep it from falling towards the barn or even worse, towards the road. That’s where I was placed. Just in case it fell that way I could at least halt any oncoming traffic.

Kimmy faithfully performed her video duties admirably even though the silo landed a “little too close for comfort” where her tripod was set-up. She did a great job filming this event.

Their plan worked superbly. The silo came down just like a tree would fall for a lumberjack. We’re so happy to have such helpful and friendly neighbors nearby. Taking down a silo was something we could not have done all by ourselves.

 

Clean-up anyone?

Now we just have a rather large clean-up job to do which hopefully I can enlist some young minions (namely my younger brother and some his friends from college in Plattsburgh) to help us out one weekend.

What’s up next?

Hopefully before Winter we will close up the west wall on the barn that today is still letting weather in. You can see more on the barn project here.

Our building permit also has approval for rebuilding a deck on the glamping garage and the construction of two small seasonal cabins. The cabins we most likely will not get to until next Spring.

“Progress not perfection”

This is our motto on the farm and despite it’s over use by recovering alcoholics I like to think that it fits our situation rather well. It does feel like we’re making progress and using our building permit as the main “to-do” list is quite motivational.

The thorn in the rose now is that we are both working full-time. This is great for the income which gives us more funding for the farm but we’re sacrificing our time for money instead of being able to do more farm work.

It’s kind of a “Catch 22,” if you know what I mean. We have to plan even more carefully how & when we do the larger farm projects in spite of wanting to get everything done and to get started farming. Aw shucks!

But seeing that we’re progressively limiting all our liabilities going forward and being that we’re in the Year of the Horse, this was all to be expected, don’t you think?

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