The Barn, part 1 of 2

When our family moved onto the Peterson farmstead during the Depression years, the barn was still in useful shape and in reasonably good condition, but it must have 30 to 40 years old and it was certainly showing its age. It had been constructed on a foundation of rocks, which doubtless had been recovered from the cultivated areas of the farm. These rocks may have been on the surface as the result of cultivation and the alternate freezing and thawing of the ground. That considerable time had passed since the accumulated rocks were used for the foundation is indicated by the further pile which now existed in the middle of the hog lot, and which presumably would have been used had they been available. During the time we were on the farm I recollect at least one addition of a large rock to this pile. It was a stone that Uncle Carl’s plow ran into when he was plowing on the south 40 and it may have been that one of the ploughshares was damaged. I can remember him dragging it in from the field behind one of his small Hart Parr tractors. He had doubtless dug it out so he could attach the heavy chain to it that he was using. Several years ago a similar occurrence occurred on the south side of the old Joe Johnson farm that we purchased in 1960. Ole Olson, who rented the land from us at the time, pulled the rock into the ditch where Jean Strand took a picture of it and sent it to us.

The rock foundation of the barn was certainly a utilitarian use of these recovered native rocks but they were not as good a foundation as one of reinforced concrete. Most of the barn was reasonably plumb but at the southeast corner of the structure the land sloped slightly away from the barn and the sill, and the structure above it had slumped out of level. Further the rock foundation sis not project much above the surface of the ground, indeed the wooden sills may actually have rested simply on the soil in places. Thus the sills would have been subject to rotting, thought not in Iowa to termite attack. Midwestern winters are cold enough so that the ground is frozen for several feet, and this cold ensures against the survival of such insects as termites.

The symmetric axis of the barn is oriented east and west — actually the barn was not exactly symmetrical as the north side of the barn was originally designed for cattle while the south side was made for horses. But the basic structure, except for these adaptations specific for cattle or horses, was symmetrical.

The center of the barn was the haymow, which extended from ground level to at least the level of the bottom of the large hay door. This door was located at the top of the barn on the west. It opened and closed by sliding up and down on two vertical tracks along each side of the door. I suppose it was counterweighted to facilitate its opening and closing and to keep it static in whatever position it was placed after raising or lowering, but I don’t remember any details about this feature. Along the very top of the barn ran the hay track along which the hay carrier ran. In filling the barn with hay, the hayrack would be pulled alongside the barn. The hay carrier would be pulled into a locked position at the extreme western end of the hay track. The hay rope would at one end be attached to the hay track at the far east end of the track. From this position it would loop back to the far west end, then down to the hayrack. Here it would be threaded through a pulley that was in turn attached to the sling containing the hay and which lay horizontally in the hayrack. From the pulley it would rise to the hay carrier that ran along the top of the barn, back to the east end of the barn and thence by means of several pulleys through the aisle along the haymow on the south, out a door and to a position where a team of horses could be attached to it to raise the sling first to the hay carrier where a trip mechanism would then allow the carrier to move along the hay track. The hay carrier could then be pulled by the horses by means of the hay rope back into the barn, riding on the hay track to the position in the barn where it was desired to place the hay. The sling could be “tripped” at the middle by means of the trip rope which trailed along as the sling rode into and back into the barn. The sling would come apart and the hay would fall into the mow. I indicated earlier that the level of hay in the mow would be at the most at the bottom of the hay door. Actually it could be higher as the barn was progressively filled from the east end to the west end.






















Hay carrier


I don’t specifically remember a time when the haymow was full of hay to the extent it would be possible to fill it. But I’m sure that when the farm was fully stocked with cows and horses it would have been necessary to have it full of hay to make it through the winter. When hay is put in the barn it has been dried by lying in the field to the degree of dryness where it can be safely stored. It it is put into the barn too wet it will ferment, with the associated evolution of heat. Under extreme conditions the heat evolved can be sufficient to raise the temperature of any surrounding relatively dry hay that it will auto-ignite. The resulting conflagration has burned down more than one barn. I can remember while moving hay in the mow noticing that the hay lower down was indeed warm to the touch. I called the attention of Uncle Carl to this condition (perhaps I had been warned to be on the alert for such a condition) and he inspected the hay. He decided that the condition was not a worrisome one, and indeed nothing transpired, but I worried about it afterward for awhile until I was reassured by the passage of time that no fire was likely to ensue.