Plough Winds and the end of another Prairie Giant

Took a trip out to the farm today......the barn was as high as a 3 story house until the gentle zephyr winds of the prairies brought it to its' knees (one of Dad's grain bins ended up 1/2 a mile away).

This message was edited Jul 24, 2005 8:40 PM

another angle

Other side. Looks like I'll have some barn planks to cap off my large pond and enough lumber left over to build a greenhouse or two......

That is so sad Pam. Another one down. Won't be long and there won't be any of these old ones left.

It is sad.........I remember it when it housed many animals and the lumber inside looked new (upper part is still in excellent shape). I was hoping it would have dropped a little differently so others could benefit from it's lumber but right now it's hard to tell what can be salvaged.

I do know I'll be getting some 10' x 12" x 2 1/2" planks to frame the top of my large pond with and that we will be picking up a gas powered saw. If there are a lot of the boards in the frame that didn't shatter we will be contacting Habitat for Humanity.

In it's early days it housed a neighbouring farm family on the second floor until they could get their farmhouse built.



This message was edited Jul 25, 2005 3:02 PM

What sadness Pam. Do you know when it was built? Should be some good wide thick boards there. We built our Kitchen cupboards from wideboards from a shed. Made furniture from some of it as well.

Is your Dad very sad about it or is he OK with it?

We have a cherry picker coming over one day soon to cut back trees that shifted a bit during our recent 'gentle winds'. This to stop roof/house damage. YWG city fathers say over 300 trees from our urban forest have been badly damaged -

Branches still lying round on boulevards.

Inanda

wow.....how fast do those gentle winds blow??? Was the barn not in use? that is a sad sight, all that history.

Ginny the area is known to get bad winds (so Dad knew it would happen sooner or later). I'll ask Dad and see if he knows when the barn was built. I'm definitely eyeing it's huge floor/pen planks.

Connie the plow winds (didn't catch my spelling above) are prolly better known to you as straight line winds or downbursts. They are an intense concentration of sinking air which fans out when striking the earth's surface producing straight winds with speeds of up to 124 mph (200 kmph) . They are the same winds that do the widespread damage to Florida when the hurricanes arrive. The area where the farm is situated is flat and without hills nearby so the barn didn't stand a chance. When we were getting the tornado warnings earlier this month plow winds broke in half almost a 100 telephone/power poles along the SK/MB border.

Only barn swallows, the occasional goose and a few predators have lived in it the last few years.

This message was edited Jul 25, 2005 2:55 PM

Pam
How sad to see the fall of so many memories. We too had a similar incident but the barn was burned down ( by kids with matches) after it was declared a historic site. It was the largest stone walled barn for miles. The historic society of Leduc turned the site into a garden! they reused the stones from the walls and had old telephone poles donated which were recut to resemble the framework(also donated time) and then the frame was reserected above the garden. It does look great and now is used for many outdoor activities. Perhaps there is some historic value in what you do still have there.
I will keep my fingers crossed for you.
Ann

Thanks Ann but I'm afraid it's too far away from the beaten track to get any historic help. There is a lovely stone barn and house by Buffalo Pound (a family named Nicolle homesteaded it) that has a historic designation like the one you described above and I'm sure we (local residents) would be doing as folks in your area did if anything happened to it.




This message was edited Jul 25, 2005 2:55 PM

Pam that's sad to see. It's like a piece of history fading away. Hopefully you will get a few of those planks.

Ann, after the fire, that was a great thing that happened. Wonderful to hear.

Pam.

Growing up, I visited many sites such as this with my family, never realizing at the time what great monuments they are to past times.

The barn is finished, but your memorys never will be.

Joan

Very true Joan....we marvelled at some of the wood we took out. In an earlier thread I talked about the grain elevators that are being demolished and the wood that is being salvaged from it. The highly prized wood is the wood that the moving grain has sculpted over the years.....in the barn it's the wood that the animals have worn down from their constant rubbing. Some of the huge planks have a very wavy look to them now and would be sought after for use as a fireplace mantel.

Linda we found wooden trays that held the salt blocks and they have a very interesting wear pattern to them now. One I'm sure I'll make a shadow box out of with a western theme. One of the windows I'd previously removed and used in a library display ..... I noticed it captured peoples attention. Easily recognized, silvered by time and had a bit of a haunting look to it.

This message was edited Jul 26, 2005 6:39 PM

what treasures you are finding there. can't wait to see them!

weeds I'll have some pics later on. We've also salvaged some of the equipment used on the horses and other animals. Said to DH that it reminded me of the artifacts peeps have brought up from underwater dives.....rusted and worn but sooo interesting to look at and figure out what they were used for. Some of the chains I'll probably use as outdoor plant hangers.

Am truly looking forward to pictures of old patina-ed (word?) wood Pam. Just love this old stuff.

We have an old estate in Mississauga that is going to be part of a garden-park/large natural wooded area. On it is rusted farm machinery from earlier times. They look as though they've had some care, but still rusted. Will be anxious to see how they display them.

I love reading your posts about the farm.

Good stuff!

Joan

Thanks Joan. :) I remember as a child going with family to museums filled with things from times past and thinking how boring but now I look and marvel at what our pioneer forefathers went through AND the quality of the materials from those days. If moisture hadn't got to the metal the wonderful equipment you have pictured above would be still in running order. Can't find much now that will still be functional in 20 years never mind a hundred or so.

Must admit DH and I grinned when we discovered the back of a barn shingle that said *Made In Canada*........ sure don't see much now with that proud stamp on it.

I'll try to capture some more pics of the farm when we head back there. There is an old wooden wagon that the original settler probably used when he moved out west over a hundred years ago.

GET THAT WAGON!!!

LOLOL.........Yes Ma'am! :)

HA HA Roundem up...raw hide!

Sooooooooooo when is the Southern Lady (whose got an inner cowboy) a comin' to the wild west?
.......y'all got the accent down right!

This message was edited Jul 27, 2005 1:50 AM

You might even see some Moose........couple of yearlings were spotted in our city's graveyard. Town may have the name Moose Jaw but dem Moose are rarely seen this far south.

This message was edited Jul 26, 2005 9:43 PM

Where is the wagon Pam? Inside or outside a building?

Outside and slowly succumbing to the elements (and the scavengers that took two of the wheels off it).

We've brought back partial pieces of some old equipment.......two metal wheels attached to wood work (that no one in their right mind would try to take.....weighs a TON).

This message was edited Jul 26, 2005 10:01 PM

Ah yes the scavengers. If nobodfy lives there, nobody cares, right? They are just rescuing them. Isn't that how it works?

We slapped some preservative on ours and it helped for a few years, but ours was pretty far gone when we got it. Now its collapsing, but all the wheels are there.

So seems to be the attitude of the ground slithering type.

Will have to figure out a way of getting the partial one we did retrieve up into the yard. Right now it's on the boulevard......Imma thinkin' we will have to work out with weights to move that beast any further. Should follow your lead and get out the paint too.

Looked at the camera and saw a few pics I missed. On Section 32 is one of the earliest settler's homes.....one step up from the sod house they prolly lived in prior to building this one.

Think they felt a bit isolated come winter (or even summer for that matter).

The wildlife may have given them some entertainment.

edited to say look closely at the picture. ;)

This message was edited Jul 27, 2005 12:27 AM

These flowers were prolly picked by the young-uns to grace their Mom's table.

Not tooooo far away, in the hills, is where they probably went to get their firewood. On the bald part of the prairies most trees in the wild only survive in the valleys.

One little family is still happy however to call the shack home.

My grandmother, raised in Weyburn Sk, first lived in a sod house. I remember her telling me she swept the dirt floors. She's gone now, but worked hard all her life. Quite an amazing woman.

I think your grandmother would have found the sod house cozier Linda ........ this one too had dirt floors, but I don't think it was as well insulated as the sod houses (some steps up weren't for the better). I love visiting these old places and trying to look through their eyes. You have to give the early pioneers a lot of respect for what they managed to survive (esp. living in the above conditions and facing some incredibly nasty cold winters with nothing to break the wind). I imagine quite a few had buffalo robes to use as comforters.

Nice pics Pam....I missed not getting to Alberta this year. Your pics remind me of the areas west of Calgary towards Medicine Hat....a few tipsy old buildings around there as well. I saw loads of Ratibida in a coulee just south of Calgary...prairie wildflowers can be quite showy in mid-summer. I'll have to like vicariuosly through your pics for this year. But I am planning to get back to Calgary next spring.

Todd, there are some great things to see in Saskatchewan and Manitoba too, if you're thinking prairie provinces.

Thanks for those Pam. I really enjoyed seeing all that space again. Yep, our grandmothers and greats were tough old birds.

"Made in Canada" - for sure Pam we don't see that too often these days. So much is made in foreign countries it makes me wonder what on earth DO we make here!!

Buying clothes has become a nightmare because of the various sizings and I have to admit I don't understand much of it. I think there should be standardization of sizing, Whoops, going off on another tangent. Maybe we'll talk about that on another thread.

Here's a wagon from the same place that I mentioned earlier. No idea how high it would have been originally. The wood has that same time-worn look you spoke of, but it's not too clear here.

Joan

LOL...Todd I had a feeling you'd come up with the wildflower's name and save me from looking for my copy of Wildflowers of the Northern Great Plains. ;) I often spy the prettiest ones while we are travelling in a rush to get somewhere......will now try harder to get DH to hit the brake (and do the subtle reverse and search;). I'm pretty sure Medicine Hat (and area) is also in Palliser's Triangle.....I agree it does look pretty similiar.

So echoes when are you going to get your camera out and show us Manitoba thro your eyes?

I wonder that too Joan.....it's been a long time since I saw something new with *Made in Canada* on it (or maybe I haven't been looking close enough). Our rarely seen PanamonCreel is an mechanical engineer....so I do know one or two things (or at least 40) are still being made at his company's plant in Quebec.

Well, I will have to look for some old ones, haven't been far this year, just to Morden and Selkirk. I did show the daylilies from Morden Research centre, but I think your talking scenic and wildflowers. Do weeds count?

Joan the wagon you've got pictured above is, I'm pretty sure, what the two wheels with attached wood (that's sitting now in our boulevard) looked like many moons ago.