Piddler On the Roof

On the eastern side of our barn, there is a walkway right past a gate that runs between our barn and the goat barn.  It is a low area, to be sure, but what exacerbates the problem is that when cows walk through a narrow, low spot, it becomes a boggy mess.  It became so muddy that the cows (and their humans) hate walking through here.  This swampy mudhole has claimed our rubber boots on more than one occasion, causing us to step out of our boots and insert a socked foot into the mud.  Not good.  Something must be done.  We moved in fill dirt, but water stayed and the clay became sticky and even more muddy.  If you notice on the right side below, 4x4's have been cemented in the ground.

The south side of the barn looked exactly like that muddy mess before we put wings on both sides of the barn and brought in some fill dirt.  Now the animals lounge high and dry in relaxed comfort in the shade.  We were hoping to establish those same amenities on the east side.

Time to get busy.  I get off of work between 4:30 and 5 and have roughly an hour commute home (give or take).  That leaves a skinny minute or two before the sun goes down, so my wife and I screwed the header into the barn, put the 2x4's across the 4x4 frame and screwed the rafter supports into the header.  It was not an ideal place to work with all the mud.

Then we cut notches into the rafters and began screwing them down.  This canopy is approximately 16 feet long by 8 feet wide.

Then 1x4's were screwed across the top on the rafters.  These will serve as supports for the corrugated tin roof.

Finally, this afternoon I climbed up on top of the new roof support structure and installed the tin roof and screwed everything down tight.  I am not a skilled carpenter, so I was a little concerned that it wouldn't hold me up - but it did!

We'll add some additional dirt and perhaps some wood chips to the walkway beneath the new roofed in barn addition.  Pretty soon this walkway will be nice and dry.  Oreo the goat is already checking things out, giving us her seal of approval.  Mission accomplished.