Our Life On The Hill

barn clean up progress

Jerry has been hard at work on cleaning up after the barn tear down.  He also had to take out the foundations that the barn and corn crib sat on.  

It makes me so sad to see those buildings gone.  I can't believe it's been almost a year now since the tornado hit and took the corn crib out.  Even though the barn was ruined in March, we didn't get the structure down until December, so we could still look at it. It looks so weird to me to see that empty space now.  The silo looks so sad standing all alone.   We'll get used to it I suppose.  

   

Tearing out the corn crib foundation

 

.......to be continued
   

bye bye barn

Jerry was working hard trying to get the barn down before his knee surgery.  It's such a huge job and he's doing it all alone.  Here are a few pictures of it when it still somewhat looked like a barn.  

 

He finished the rest of this on Dec. 19th.  He had his knee surgery on Dec. 21st and still can't put any weight on his knee, so the clean up will just have to wait until he heals.  It's so strange looking without the barn.  I really miss it.   

             

tornado clean up photos part 3

 

 

 

 

 

Jerry used the forks on the skidsteer to sit the rest of the corn crib up right, and then he finished dismantling it. 

Tornado aftermath and clean up photos part 2

 

You have to smile and laugh through times like this.

 

All of the damaged items in the background.  We have to go through them and photograph each one and look up their value.

 

Only half of the corn crib left.  It was break time.

 

The kids getting off of the bus and excited to see the burn pile and progress.  That's our neighbor boy with Ashton. 

 

 

My little man, loving throwing wood into the fire, with my dad.

 

 

Ashton making sure his golf bag and clubs were okay.  They were and he took them out back and hit golf balls into the field.  My mom and Hadleigh were just checking things out.

 

 

Tornado aftermath photos part 1

It's been a busy and crazy few weeks trying to clean up.  I've taken a lot of photos and wanted to share them. 

Here are our totes of holiday stuff that was stored in the 2nd floor of the corn crib. 

 

Here is the damage on the main floor.  We had antiques, tools, a generator, welder, a fridge, new shingles for our porches, and garage sale totes. 

  Jerry's utility trailer and our fridge.

Jerry's first car.  It's going to be our date night car again someday.   

  

 

 

We've had a rough week

Both boys have had the flu, and we had to cancel Sawyer's family birthday party and his celebration at school.  I've been decluttering like crazy and filling totes with stuff for a garage sale.  All of this is being stored in the corn crib.  I should say WAS in the corn crib.  Today, just a few hours ago, a small tornado or rotation hit our farm.  We lost our corn crib, garage, and we are going to lose the main barn.  All of these buildings were old and we planned on restoring.  We were in the process of doing the barn.  Our farm landscape has dramatically changed.   Besides all of the garage sale totes I had stored out there, all of our holiday decorations were stored in the 2nd story of the corn crib.  Next to my photos, my children's ornaments mean the most to me.  Jerry's first car, his Mustang, and a tractor are in the corn crib.  We have yet to know the damages to everything because we have to wait for the insurance company to send their claims people out tomorrow. 

Here are a few photos. 

Some of the debris from the corn crib.   

 

The big slide blew over taking part of the swingset with it.  

There are many boards and pieces of wood impaled into the ground.  

 

 

The main barn has to go.  I'm very upset about this.  It's one of the main reasons we wanted this farm besides the house.  It was going to be beautiful restored.   You can see in this photo how crooked it is.  The wind cracked and broke the main support poles inside the barn.  It's swaying in the wind and probably going to go down if this wind keeps up. 

 

 

 

So, we lost 3 of our 5 outbuildings today.  We watched the corn crib blow over.  It was crazy and scary and we scrambled to the basement immediately after.  After I took these photos, the storm came up again, and we had to go to the basement once more.  We are so happy that our family is safe, our pets are safe, and our home wasn't damaged.  We are sad about the loss of these historic buildings.