Fits and Starts and Moving a Building

It's been months since I've written here.  I still think of things I want to share all the time but not having the time and brainpower to make it happen trips me up and my intentions are abandoned almost immediately.  But writing is good for me even if I can't share all that I hope to so I'm going to try to ease myself back into things.  Bear with me, please.

We have a couple big projects going on around here all in anticipation of an even bigger project which at some point I hope to share a little bit about.  One of our pre-project projects (got that?) required us to move our smoke house to another location on our property.  This used to be a hog farm many, many years ago and the smoke house was used to smoke the pork as well as other meats, I imagine.  When we moved here (about 13 years ago), we replaced the floor and turned it into our attic since there is not a good way to access our actual attic. Unfortunately, we've never used it as an smoke house.

In order to move it, Jamey used car jacks to raise the building and created a frame underneath it which the building was then attached to.  This frame extended out the front and additional braces were put in place to allow the smoke house to be pulled when rollers were placed underneath.

We hoped the smoke house wouldn't come apart in the process.  A friend and neighbor came over with his front end loader (I think that's what it's called) and with the help of another neighbor (who helped move rollers), the building was rolled halfway to its new home.  At this point, it came off its rollers but was able to be turned and pushed (bucket against frame) into position.

We think it looks awfully sweet in its new spot. Since then, Jamey has jacked it up again, set it on proper posts and laid a dry stone skirt with some of the stones from its original foundation.  He's also started on its front porch.  For now, it's still our attic but one day we hope to move the stuff out and add a couple windows.  Our girls have dreams of turning it into a one room school house.

Summer Activity Idea for Kids:  Move an old building on your property and let your kids dig underneath.  It provides hours of entertainment as they unearth broken pottery, a few coins, lots of broken glass (which, thankfully isn't very sharp any more), and old bottles.  We even found a porcelain doll leg and a round glass (ACME Nursing) baby bottle.  Summer boredom, be gone!  Well, at least for a few days until there's no more to dig up.

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