Last I wrote of the seasons, I mentioned that we had been in a season of ‘waiting’. This fall, we’ve begun moving forward with our new barn. After feeling stuck and overwhelmed by feelings of “what to do now?”, we’ve talked and planned a LOT, and the plans have changed then they’ve gone back to the original and changed again. Now that our barn is here, we are in a season of doing.

For insurance purposes, we were told we’d have to replace the barn, and after all having this property means having a barn (to me). We sat down, and talked and planned and dreamed and drew what we knew we wanted and played around with some potential options as well. Of course, in the previous post, Season of Waiting, I mentioned we were under-insured, so we were unfortunately not able to rebuild a barn the same size as our previous one, nor were we able to go with wood at current prices. We settled on a good sized, metal barn for us and our needs at about 30 ft x 40 ft. We’ve had the barn space cleared (from the debris) and leveled, and since then have had our new barn put up as well.

But before it’s ready to house any animals, we’ll need to be hard at work this winter making preparations to make it more than just a big empty shell. On one side, we plan to have a closed in / finished feed room along with two stalls, and a walk-in chicken brooder for our meat chicks next spring. The larger space, we plan to use for tools and storage, and the third section (more of a lean-to) will be used for equipment. Now that it’s here, it’s becoming easier to envision us using the space, and we’re getting excited.

We know that next spring, we plan to do meat chickens again, and think that a walk-in brooder is a safer alternative to the previous brooder we had as this will ensure the chicks are completely safe from predators until they go to pasture. Meaning, predators will not only not have access to the chicks, but the entire space including feed and heat source will be predator proof.

We’re undecided what other animals we may try to include next year. There have been talks of pigs for meat but also talks of a small herd of cattle or sheep. We’re trying to figure out a beginner-friendly option that may be best suited for the property we have and keeping the pasture bush hogged. Of course, that means that in addition to preparing the barn we’ll also need to prepare the pasture as the fencing has been neglected for so long. It’s going to be a lot of work, and I have a feeling this will be a busy winter for us but we’re excited to see what we can get done.