Back-of-napkin sketches for a new barn

Several trips were made to the neighboring barn.  It has given us Barn Envy.  Ken sketched a new barn design:

I elaborated on that sketch:

(I put this sketchup model on the interweb, here: https://sites.google.com/site/mattritzman/test/test2/Ranch_barn.skb?attredirects=0&d=1)

Perhaps the biggest problem with both of our sketches is that they completely disregard the site dimensions.  We need to collect measurements of the barn and its environs.  That will certainly be another blog post down the road.

The Johnson Barn is sagging in many places.

The story goes that Dick built the barn when he was 17.

It has done fairly well considering...

But it is time to start considering a replacement.

We'd love to keep it around to honor his memory, but we fear it may fall over so we're planning to do some extreme renovations.  If you have any ideas for a new barn design, let's collaborate!

The Other Old Barn: a follow up

Turns out the "Old Barn" is just a stone's throw away from our barn.  Who knew?

It is just 180 feet away

This barn is Huge compared to the one on Ranch property.  It obviously hasn't been used in years.  But the structure remains intact.

Does anybody know more of the history around this barn and the property it is on?  It is interesting to consider the stories that may lie behind the place...

Finally, we got to find the old barn!

By Kallan Ritzman
The KenJens were here, so finally Kaia, Rachel, and I got to go look for the barn. They were almost about to just walk into a property fence and not find the old barn. I remembered finding the start of a trail last time I looked. That time we couldn't get through the thorns and we had Josie. This time we became bush wackers and wacked thorns that were in the way with a stick and got through.

There was a fork in the road and at first we went the wrong way,the place  we went to had boxes for bees. Fortunatly no bee approached us. Then up a little hill was a gate to the road. After going there we realized that we should go back and choose another way because Abba did not lead us here. Along the other trail we found it.THE OLD BARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We came back to tell Andria, Lena and my dad what we found. They came after we cut a little bit of the thorns so that they could get through. We then proceeded to complete a legitimate trail in the midst of the thorns. Matt even got Josie through! Yay! Mission complete!