"The Sleeping House", the small building George Robert Winn (aka PA & my father-in-law) slept in as a boy, with his brother Peyton. PA recently reminisced about this place: He carved the name he wanted to be called into the wood- "Bob", there were screens all around...lots of fresh air, he woke up to snow or frost on his bed covers & there was a small woodstove to take the chill off those cold winter nights.

As Daniel and I made our way painting this old, and somewhat tired, farm building this summer we discovered carvings in the siding PW+JA, BAJ+JC & EFW and a big blockish R. Wouldn't it be fun to see back in time when those were so fervently carved. I can surmise that the R is Robert, and PW is Peyton Winn, and EFW must be Ellen, Bob and Peyton's sister, but who are JA, BAJ & JC? This little building isn't standing exactly straight, and the floor is not level, but....oh.....the stories it could tell!

This summer Preston found some used fir 1x4 tongue and groove lumber (salvaged from an old elevator near Helix) and determined it would be great flooring material. When progress on the floor in the barn came to a standstill, because of potential building code hurdles, Preston decided that The Sleeping House would be a great place to use this wood. He put it on the floor and walls. When he was done the cabin looks pretty darn good. We will leave the rafters as they are (including the big ol' nails that, I suspect, were used to hang clothes on). I like how it looks old.Preston is going to add trim to the corners and few other "finishing" details, we will give it all a light sanding and maybe some sealant finish.... oh... and I need to vacuum the cobwebs & dust.

I am going to plant some old fashioned iris and daylilies around it to perk it up a bit on the outside.

I think this little building is standing a little taller today, what do you think?

We are hoping that it will have many more stories to tell as a Grooms Cabin.

Meeting County Code: Parking

One of the stipulations for our Barn Project is parking areas. The county code says we must have one parking space for every 200 sq.ft. in the barn(that would be about 24 spaces), and it must be graveled . Overflow parking must be non-flammable and not bare dirt. We talk to our local excavator C & D Thacker about bidding for this job. We are counting on strong wheat prices to pay for it all.

We now have a beautiful, graveled parking area south of the barn. Gravel parking

The overflow parking is north of the Barn Yard
When we asked what was nonflammable and not bare dirt the county suggested grass... irrigated grass. We already have 2 acres of irrigated grass we have to irrigate and mow. We didn't want more of that. We opted to use bare rock (not flammable, and not bare DIRT). We think it makes a nice parking area.
Looking East
Looking west
Thacker is "walking" the rock in to smooth it out a bit.



This is where the rock came from.
The Winn Rock Pit now has a really deep hole.

Family Weddings

August hasn't been good for progress at The Barn. We have had the fun of spending time with the Perisho family at three family weddings! The amazing part is that all 6 of "us kids" (now, we all like to think that we are kids, sometimes act like we are kids, but our bodies keep telling us differently... pictures do too!) have been able to be at all the weddings.

Priscilla, Me, Lesta Cyndi, Lura, Bert

This is what we looked like about 40 years ago.









The first wedding was Priscilla's son Erick. 2:00 P.M. on August 2nd at Caldwell Friends Church.

Erick & Karen Smith



The 2nd was Lura's son Jacob. 6:00 P.M August 2nd at Boise's Capitol City Christian Church. His bride, Samantha was shy... I couldn't get her to come out from behind the cake :)

Maybe it was because Jacob's aunts were so crazy and unruly at the rehearsal dinner. We got to sing a fun old song "Sweet Violets" together. We had the best time working together on the rehearsal dinner.

Work, Singing & Good Food... always a great combination for memories.











Then August 14th Lesta's son Forrest married Elizabeth at Old Laurelhurst Church in Portland, OR. That had to be the hottest day of the year. But that didn't hamper all the fun of being with family and friends

Horse Side Cleaning

We have mucked out the horse side of the barn. It was quite a chore. Daniel and I worked about 2-3 hours a day for 7 days. There was no reason to hurry through the job. Dust, and heavy lifting, pitchforks, shovels and wheelbarrows.

My arms, and shoulders can only take so much at a time.

After we moved the feeding trough, (I am saving it to use in some creative fashion... somewhere. Ideas anyone?), the Pine Car Race Track (to Jess and Granella Thompson's barn :) Thank you!), tables, and other junk, it was time to remove the straw and manure.


My hard working partner, and the muscles of the the job. Daniel, 15 year old, cheerful, and generally willing worker.



Our tools. Shovels of all kinds, pitchforks (2 sizes), rakes, broom, a reasonable wheelbarrow, and "The Monster" wheelbarrow. The Monster is heavy empty, very heavy. Put a load in it and ....it is impossible to keep under control. The first day we worked Daniel lost The Monster over the ditch bank. He had the fun of retrieving it in typical 15 year old boy fashion. Tie a rope on it and drag it up with the pickup. The advantage of the monster is it's indestructible. After that experience we used a very long and heavy piece of lumber as a wheelbarrow stop.

We broke a wheelbarrow ( the reasonable one) during this project, and a rake, and......

Once we got the fluffy straw off the top, some area had more of it than others, it was hard pack layers of dried manure and straw. Some more decomposed than others. We loved it when it came up in large chunks, it was rewarding, and challenging to see if you could get the whole chunk, no matter how big, to the wheelbarrow without breaking it. Some of the chunks were 3 feet square(or bigger). The pile Daniel is standing on came from one of the seven stalls.


This picture shows how deep we dug in some places. When we got to rocks or soil we figured we had gone far enough.
















How it looked when we hauled the last wheelbarrow load out.









Now it is time for hosing down the walls, ceilings, stalls & window frames to get the cobwebs, bird nests, dust, and manure.












Preston and Daniel replacing one of the many broken windows in the barn this last winter. It gives you a feel (shiver) for the cobwebs.



And now..... nice and "clean"









The initial cleaning is complete. We still want to pressure wash and finish vacuuming with my new Wet/Dry Shop-Vac.

It isn't perfect , but definitely an improvement.














It looks like when the water dries up I need to do some raking of stuff that floated to the surface during the hose down.



We are discussing what to do on the horse side. Do we put down wood chips, rock, pour concrete or build a wood floor. Preston is leaning heavily toward building a floor.

Waay Before Pictures - Barn History

These are pictures of the barn in it's early years.

The fact that there are horses in the pictures suggests to me that they are very early days. The barn was built in 1916 when horses were still being used for farming.














In the 1930's the Winn's got their first tractor. Horses quickly became obsolete.

Barn Yard

These "before" pictures were taken by photographer Gary Hamburgh. Doesn't he have some beautiful shots of the barn and the clouds!

I don't think you can see it but much of the area around the barn was on a slope. Nothing was level or smooth.

In front of the barn is a runoff ditch that rarely has water in it.

The first thing we did was bring in a bulldozer (CD Thacker Excavating) to create some level areas. They laid culvert in one section of the ditch and covered it up so we could create another large smooth area.to the south of the barn.

This area had lots of weeds and behind the barn were piles of rolled up fencing wire, fence posts and more "stuff" that accumulates in a barnyard. Before the excavators came in we sorted through all of the stuff and stored what could be used at some point, and took the rest to the dump.

Even with all that work, when Thackers started moving soil around he found remains of machinery. Bear in mind the Winn's have historically kept a clean farm. They aren't ones to keep piles of stuff around. It was interesting what we found under the surface.

Introduction to Barn Project

The Winn Barn built in 1916 is without question the most underused asset on the Winn Century Farm (1875). We are currently working to rectify that situation by cleaning it up, and making slight modifications, in order to make this beautiful building a place where people will have memorable events.

This blog will be directed to those who would like to follow the progress and development of this project. I will occasionally throw in miscellaneous Winn happenings that are either helping or hindering that progress. My goal is to share our excitement in big and little step of progress.

When we started the barn had many items of little value and numerous decades old cobwebs, (do those things ever disintegrate on their own?), mice and their turds, many layers of cow, chicken, pig, and sheep poo mixed with straw and urine. Yep, a lovely concoction!

We made several trips to the dump with junk, and sold some stuff at a yard sale, torn down, now unneeded, fences or dividers that were erected in a typical farmer style. (lots of baling twine and wire) I started hosing down the cobwebs, and poo. Much work later the "dairy side" of the barn is now presentable.