Dad's setup came up in 1975, we always had DeLaval and these I see in this old barn are the same we had. This old barn is way better setup than anything we could find in our area during the 70s and part of the 80s, in southern-quebec. My dad always told me that his uncle in upstate NewYork was 25yrs ahead of whatever we could find at any Quebec ag-dealers parking lot. The more you show these old barns, the more I see dad did not lie about his uncle's farm.
I remember my father marveling at those blue silos since they were the price back then of a few dozen pickup trucks. Our barn had two concrete and iron band silos and would fit about 150 head but only half was dairy the other half for calves etc. Cleaners were ladder-type chain. My folks were forced out of dairy because they were not big enough alone for the milk haulers to make a special trip as most other farms had already left the area as suburbia encroached and property taxes went up, "not a crop we could grow could pay just the property taxes".
What a neat barn. The first farm I worked on as a kid had an Allied hay vayor. It was a skeleton frame vayor much like what you can buy today. The barn was a big bank barn with three big hay mouws, two thrashing floors and two granaries. The one end of the barn, the vayor went up vertically. Then it went from there down at a 45 ° angel between two small silos to the wagon. It sure made filling that barn full a lot easier than trying to fill with a hay elevator. We actually filled it part way with the elevator so the bales weren't pounding down on the barn floor.
Thank you for the tour of the barn Wes. It brings back so many memories of my Great Uncle's farm. He had 2 big barns like that. Orginally they were both for milking but later on he turned one into a calving barn for his old hereford beef cattle. Sadly a year after he passed on, his grandson sold the place to a Dutch farmer and that guy bulldozed the whole farm down so he could grow crop there. All the beautiful well kept barns and sheds plus his log house all gone just to gain 2 acres of crop land. There used to be beautiful paths through the bush to the river and those are gone too. There isn't a tree left on that property anymore.
I’m glad as a kid I grew up on a farm. Barn next to me was build In 1877 with a beautiful farm house. Down the road is the (new) farm the inside looked just like this
Thanks for the tour, and bringing back memories of our neighbors farm. They had a huge in ground pool, if all us kids wanted to swim, we either stacked straw or hay in the mow, if you were lucky you got to go swap wagons for a bit, of get out and unload wagons on the ground. I definitely miss it. Those old time farmers taught us kids a lot, I know that I still use as well.
Here in PA you will see people dismantling the barn structure and sell the barn wood. May I add, for quite a bit of money too! For myself, I hate to see old wood that is still solid and good go to a burn pile. You are 100% correct that when a roof starts to fail, the rest of the building won't take long before it's destroyed. 👍👍👍
I a gree thanks for the memories as Bob Hope would say it looks like a vacuum pump system Do you remember putting a cheese 🧀 cloth over a can and it would suck the milk from the can to the tank the vacuum system was a real treat to the old way hay thank you for the memory lane did you also have the seamen tank
We had a radio antenna mounted on top of our 80’ harvestore for the local vet office before the era of cellular phones. It got hit by lightning, and the found bits and pieces of it out by the road, over 150’ yards away.
That's the same cleaner I have. Made by JW Hance Mfg. Company for Sears. The silo that used to be at what was Stanislawsky's came out of Round Valley, too.
The mold and silage rot that the bottom unloading system in those blue silos mixed in and hid within the good feed caused a lot of health issues among many herds.
My parents have a freezer from the 1960 in thier basement that is a frigidaire. It also says gm. It still works. There is probably a chicken in the bottom from the 1980's
My dad built 2 harvestore silos, made nice feed but they cost the same as buying 100 acres , be like spending 2 million on feed storage for a small farm today
The 80s were hard on lots of farms but the silo is not the reason they went bankrupt! No matter if it's a blue silo or concrete one or green red or orange paint tractors if you were a bad manager you didn't make it long! Plenty of harvestors still being used here in this part of the country along with concrete ones!
It’s wild to me that before all this social media bs and internet growing up on a dairy farm I had heard that term up here in western Canada. That Harvestore silos were tombstones on a farm. Continent wide term I guess.
The only reason they got the nickname blue tombstone was the farmer was a bad manager. The 80s didn't help farmers at all by then they had to much dept and that didn't work in the 80s here. Plenty of them still running here in Wisconsin!
Defiinitely save that barn, great big expensive barn...it's easy to save a barn...fix the roof first...foundation and side walls are in good strong condition. fix roof, then fix and brace-sandwich roof and floor trusses...and add patching in on floor.
What did the JD and NH things hanging from the ceiling actually do? I tried researching the word you were calling it but couldnt find anything. Probably spelling it wrong. Would love to know
It moves hay from the end of the barn to the middle of the barn there is diverters that will kick the bale off in the spot you want it to as you fill the barn
(mow) elevator. Your outside elevator brought the little square bales of hay or straw up to that one in the peak of the barn the mow elevator them moved the bales in farther then dropped them off to wherever you set the plow at. That way you could fill the barn with hay from one location!
One of the local 'organic gardeners' might have scraped it all out of there. My grandmother used to collect up the piles under the swallow nests in the wagon house and add it to her compost pile. But she was growing tomatoes and cucumbers, not the plants these guys are.
It is everywhere unless you want to milk 1000+ cows, when you get down to it the big 1000+ cow farm are not sustainable my no means and don't do much for the local community like the old 40 to 90 cow farms we use to have!
Damn it, opened up u-tube ready to enjoy a onelonelyfarmer's video and right next to Wes's video was a Transparent try on - See-through video. Ohhhhh, the Agoney in deciding which one to watch first. 😖........................Well, after Very, Very careful consideration I'm watching Wes first. Besides, those Transparent try on - See-through videos are ONLY for "Professional Presenting the Practicality and Aesthetics of clothing" and NOT for sexual gratification..............Right??? 🤷♂
