Yard Remodel - phase one

Where the barn has been for 10 years.

We moved here in 2006 and set up our out buildings in a way that was appropriate for our family and pets and interests at the time.  Well.  Times have changed a bit since then.  The barn has been an excellent investment.  We spent minimal money for a very well built structure.  It was delivered on a truck and just dropped off on the site.  So easy!  But for 2 years now it's been sitting vacant most of the time.  We built a shelter in the back field some years ago and the horse really preferred to live out there.  So for 2 winters now we have attempted to keep him out there as much as possible.  Turns out it is possible.  But it's a real pain.  The shelter had no storage with it so the hay was kept in the tent structure as we had kept hay for the last 10 years.  The tiny barn still had the feed room and blanket storage.  And we were storing shavings in the old chicken coop.  It made for very challenging feed routines.  We've struggled with the decision to build a "real barn" the whole 10 years.  Our long term plan had been to construct a 20'X30' bank barn in that hill near where the tiny barn has been.  But after many, many pro and con lists we just can't seem to justify building that structure now.  However, a yard remodel was desperately needed.  

There are just 3 of us living full time at the house now.  And our youngest son has different interests than his brothers.  Naturally.

A boy in his element...in the summer.

The same boy in his element...in the winter.

So not only did we need to consolidate the horse hobby but we needed to house the motor hobby as it has been growing for some time now. 

Project overview...Move barn to back field, run electrical power to the barn, re-purpose the run in shed to a hay storage building, relocate a portable garage tent and repurpose it to a, well.  A garage.  Remove old chicken coop and clean up yard (remove old horse fence, re-configure new fence, etc.)  

Gravel arriving.

We rented a nice backhoe for a day to remove the soil and install gravel in it's place.  We moved the gravel with this equipment too.  Turns out the 15 year old could run this thing as if he'd had one his whole life.  The word "element" really does come to the lips when we see him spending time with machinery.

Rented backhoe to prepare the site for the barn.

While we're at it maybe we could pop out a few of those pesky rocks...

Construction Trades Day

So much so that he hopes to go to college for heavy equipment.  The high school had a construction trades day and he got to go.  This photo is of him on a slightly larger backhoe.  He also got to work with an excavator.  

After finishing the work they had set out to do (by just after lunchtime) the green light was given to the boy to go and dig out some rocks that he really wanted to get at.  They are in the way when he mows the yard.  They are also in the way when he snowplows the yard.  He was just itching to get them dug up and moved.  He was successful with a good handful of them and then he discovered that some rocks were just way too big to move.  We did finally find the bottom (or at least one bit of the bottom) of this rock and it was a full 4 feet from top to bottom.  We attempted to undermine the rock and shove it over a little to reduce it's poking out of the ground but that wasn't very successful.  It proved to be of an odd shape too.  I think this boy dreams of getting at that rock again someday--with a full size excavator!!

Some rocks are just too big for this equipment.