Barnology

Current Project: The Firdale Barn

Like the mighty Percheron draft horses it was intended to house, the 1902 Firdale barn was built big and built to work.  Even after the horses had moved out -- no longer needed after the introduction of the tractor to the farm -- the barn stood tall.  The mighty beams hewn of Old Growth fir trees from the Willamette Valley and surrounding hillsides stood through a century of change.

Through the first half of the 1900's the bales and loose hay gathered up in the loft were measured in not just tonnage, but sweat too. Below the loft were stalls for the draft horses, a shop area with a work bench in the back corner, a feed storage room and storage for the array of equipment used to work the 160 acre farm.             

Leather tack, needed for all variety of horse-drawn implements that worked the farm for over three decades, hung on nails driven into the hand hewn beams and rough sawn timbers that framed the big barn.

As time went on, mechanization replaced the draft horses and the complexion of work on the farm changed. The Firdale barn was turned to other uses -- a small dairy herd was kept on the premises and turkeys were commercially grown for a number of years. When a descendant of the original homesteader began raising hogs, the Firdale barn saw a steady diet of bedding straw in the loft and a variety of grains off the farm that were ground and used to feed the livestock and flocks that were kept.

For over a century the Firdale barn stood, looking out on a picturesque landscape -- a patchwork of farmland and trees across rolling hills and valleys up to the distant Cascade Mountains.  Time changed the region and the great timbers of the Firdale barn gradually began to give way to the wear of weather and years. 

Now the old timbers of the Firdale barn have been reclaimed to a new purpose, their history preserved, and given a new place to call home. Wipe your boots!