We celebrate barns!

A little mud doesn't stop us - the Barn Celebration carried on in rain, mud, and finally a great day of sunshine!

Inspiring speakers, great food and music, demonstrations of timber joinery, blacksmithing, weaving ... a good time for all of us at the Bushnell Farm in Old Saybrook. Thanks especially to our hosts Sherry and Herb Clark, and all the friends of barns and timber framing who gathered to make it a special time.

See videos of our speakers here: http://www.youtube.com/user/CTBarns/videos

Try out our new Barns Trail - get paper map and the iPhone App!
In the App Store, search for CT Barns

Celebrate Barns - June 7-8

We are making final preparations for our two-day celebration starting with a gala evening and ending with a Hoedown. Bushnell Farm is at 1445 Boston Post Road in Old Saybrook - information here to register.

In between - an array of sessions and demonstrations of everything about barns - 

and we'll be introducing the new 

Connecticut Barns Trail

 with a beautiful printed map and a fun iPhone App!

Our first barns are on the State Register!

This morning the Historic Preservation Council of the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO - what we call the "shippo") voted to accept our first group of 20 barns to the State Register!

Our barn team at Historic Barns has been working on writing these for a year and a half, so it's a thrill to know that the goal is being reached.

Here is one of the most fun barns, in Monroe - the signage was originally visible from Main Street (Route 25) though now it's obscured by commercial buildings. So it's the private billboard of its owner who has personally gotten the signage restored when repainting the barn.

Congratulations to all the new State Register-listed properties!

Barns and CSAs

Several of our favorite historic barns are home to working farms that are run as CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) - what a great way to live sustainably by eating local food AND conserving great old local buildings!

Here's Wild Carrot CSA at the 1870 Bristol Barn next to the Farmington River in Canton.

A couple of others are the Massaro Farm in Woodbridge and the Woodbridge Farm in Salem - those Woodbridges did get around!

Also Rosedale Farm in Simsbury where there is a walking trail in addition to tobacco barns, wine, and veggies.

Signs of Spring!

It was great to be outside yesterday, visiting a historic dairy farm, now enjoying new life as Crossen Arabians - here's this year's new foal, 3 weeks old. That was the most obvious sign that a new season is arriving any day now.

More to celebrate today:

  International Womens Day 

and

  National Agriculture Day 

Winter Reflections

from Jonathan Papers by Elisabeth Woodbridge Morris, 1912 One hundred years later, the barns that were groomed and spiffed up in Elisabeth's time, have returned to the "unkempt" condition that she loved.  Though, if not groomed a bit, they're apt to collapse entirely!

THE COVERED BRIDGE

The covered bridge of solid beam

Above the slow, meandering stream –

The misty lake below the hill,

The mountain forest, cool and still,

Where birch and oak with spruce and pine

In cheerful harmony combine –

The countryside, so good to see,

And, most of all, so good to be –

All this, though elements may rage,

Stays part of all our heritage.

In healing sun and windy rain,

The touch of earth brings strength again:

And if a while it lies behind,

It still supports our strength of mind.

Catharine Jackson Alger

CHRISTMAS 1941

Note from Barn Hunter Charlotte: 
This poem was written by my grandmother in the days after the Pearl Harbor attack.

October Fieldwork

We're getting to work on our Thematic Multiple Property State Register Nomination - that's the long way of saying, Todd and Charlotte are getting out in the field to "interview" and research 200 of Connecticut's significant barns which we are nominating to the State Register of Historic Places.

It's hard to choose 200 from the 8,000 that we have seen!

This is a classic 20th century dairy farm - it turns out the little 3-bay English barn was there first, and the big gambrel dairy barn was an addition following a pattern book from U Conn - the latest technology in the 1920s.

It's a gorgeous location on a ridge overlooking the Naugatuck and Little Rivers. Sad thing is, there haven't been cows here since 1984.

September Fairs

We'll be at the Guilford Fair September 16-18

 and 

at the Durham Fair September 23-25

Stop in and say hello!

Celebrate Barns - the Hoedown!

Thanks !

To Ragweed - the band, 
    Bushnell Farms - the barn raising, 
        Bring Back Barns - the joinery, 
               The Eli Whitney Museum for the barn, 
                     All our friends who came and made it a great time!

Hoedown Time!

We're CELEBRATING 

our Statewide Barn Survey
and
all the great volunteers who make it happen!

Join us at a Hoedown 

Sunday, July 24 from 1 to 4 pm 

at the Eli Whitney Barn 

940 Whitney Avenue, Hamden CT

$10 donation requested

RSVP 203-562-6312

Prizes

Live Bluegrass Band

Food

Barn-raising

Barn Art Show in the Barn 

Barn Challenge 

We've got over 7,920 barns listed so far - 

Help us reach 8,000 by the Hoedown

Scout out the missing barns and send in the barn photos to connecticutbarns.org

Photo by Alec Frost

Help us find this barn!

First in a series of mystery barns ...
Here's a barn - we don't know where to find it - can you help us?
If you know, email us at ctbarns@gmail.com

Tough News in a Hard Winter

It's been a hard season for our old barns - we've been learning of roof collapses all over the state from the weight of record snowfall saturated by rain.

Eli Whitney Barn's Wagon Shed, February 4, 2011

Just this week the 1816 Eli Whitney Barn, which we see out our office windows, lost its wagon shed. Wednesday it was there, Thursday a pile of rubble.

 Wagon Shed Rear (West), February 4, 2011

The "before" portrait shows the barn with its shed, which has had several different roof configurations over the years. Check out the story of this barn at http://www.connecticutbarns.org/1788

The Eli Whitney Museum, owner of the barn, had plans already in place to restore the wagon shed back to its earliest appearance. Watch for the work to get started after the snow melts.

Eli Whitney Barn, back in the Spring of 2010

Photography by C. Hitchcock

New Year 2011 - a Good Start in Sherman

Happy Acres Farm is one of the last working farms in the town of Sherman. Owner Tony Hapanowich has lived here all his life. 


During 2010, residents approved purchase the of the farm - all 96 acres - by the town, giving Tony lifetime residency. Plans are to eventually keep it a working farm with a resident tenant family or local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project.


Click this link for some great photos of Tony and his animals published by newstimes.com

Thanks to barn volunteers John Jenner and Hildi Grob for sending us information on how this farm and its numerous barns will be preserved.


Photography: Hildi Grob

A Tale of Two CSAs

Local food supporters in these two Connecticut towns have started Community-Supported Agriculture projects on historic farms purchased by each town for open space.

BEFORE -

In Cheshire, the old Lassen Farm is now producing weekly supplies of vegetables for its subscribers as Boulder Knoll Community Farm. When the farming group began, the old red dairy barn stood next to the fields.

In Woodbridge, the Massaro Farm on Ford Road had a decrepit-looking green gambrel dairy barn as well as a few other outbuildings adjacent to the vegetable plots.

AFTER -

The "after" picture reflects the different fate of each barn. The refurbished Massaro Barn stands proud in its new coat of red paint. The Lassen Barn is only a memory.

Photography: T. Levine, C. Hitchcock, F. Jordan

September Happenings

We've passed another milestone - over 6,000 barns in our collection - check www.connecticutbarns.org to see your town and all the rest!

Coming events this month:

• Volunteer Barn Surveyors Workshop - Thursday September 16 at ECSU in Willimantic - 6-8 pm
• Historic Barns will be at the Durham Fair September 23-26.
• Additional appearances in Chester, Suffield, and Bolton during the month - see www.connecticutbarns.org for dates and details.

Photography: J. McLaughlin, C. Hitchcock

Old and New Tech in Old Saybrook

Our intrepid barn hunter Cherie is at it again - here she shares a fascinating find from her adventures in the field!

The three little pigs would be proud to live in a barn like this, framed in the old traditional New England style, but with walls made of straw.

The barn may not be historic in age - it was built in 2007 to replace a pole barn that burned - but its construction will likely stand the test of time.

While there are other houses made of hay, including a well-known one on this property, this is the only straw-bale barn we know of in Connecticut. It was built by Barn Raisers of East Haddam using traditional timber framing. The post and beam frame is joined in the English Square Rule style, mortise and tenon joints, pegged. No nails or bolts were used. In addition, very little power equipment was used in the joinery, relying instead on hand tools.

The walls are straw bales, stacked up, then covered with a mixture of clay, chopped hay, and lime plaster with a lime wash.

The owner, David Brown, organic farmer and artist, chose to color his 20 x 30-foot barn and 17 x 18-foot addition, in a light shade of southwestern brown.

The two-story barn serves as his cozy studio, above, and houses vegetables, flowers, eggs, farm equipment, and tools below. The barn was "raised" in the old way, relying on people of the community for its construction and becoming a social event that created new friendships and reinforced bonds between people who built something together, with the Barn as the "center of life."

photography by Brendan Matthews - the Barn Raisers

The Barn Survey comes to Litchfield County

Our next volunteer workshop is
in Kent CT, on Wednesday, July 28
from 6 to 8 pm

Sponsored jointly with the Kent Historical Society.

We invite volunteers to help us identify the location of the barns in their towns and help with the windshield survey (simply taking a photograph of a barn, usually from the safety of a car, thus the name).

Our target area is the northwestern corner of the state including Bridgewater, Canaan, Colebrook, Cornwall, Hartland, Kent, New Hartford, New Milford, Norfolk, North Canaan, Salisbury, Sharon, and Warren.

Please join us on July 28 at 6 pm
at the Kent Town Hall, 41 Kent Green Boulevard, Kent CT.

Light refreshments will be provided.

We will present the history of barns in CT and then teach you how to categorize barns by type, use and construction technique. The workshop will involve noting the approximate locations of the barns to be surveyed. Then we will divide up the town into manageable areas for the survey groups to survey. Teams of volunteers will adopt an area to survey and input the data into our database, found at www.connecticutbarns.org.

To participate in this exciting project, please RSVP by email to
barns@cttrust.org or call at 203-562-6312.

Barn Art Show - Celebrate!

Celebrate Connecticut Barns
this Weekend
- All the Details Here -
It's happening in the historic Village of Riverton, in Barkhamsted, Connecticut on Friday and Saturday, June 25-26, 2010.

Artists from across the state have lovingly documented an array of iconic Connecticut barns for this show.

Art sale

House Talk walking tour of the village district

Fly fishing - Antiques - Restaurants

Gala opening - Friday 5 - 8 pm
at Lambert Hitchcock House 8 Main Street, Riverton

Art Show & Sale plus much more - Saturday 11am - 3 pm

Sponsored by the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation

and
Merchants Association of Barkhamsted

Featured artwork by Robert Ensor

Where are barns built? Secrets of the land ...

The history of farming in Connecticut is a story about settlers looking for the best farmland - not surprising that they moved first to the flats along the Connecticut River. The rocky hills east and west were slower to be cleared and farmed, but water power was there for small mills and industry.

Compare:

Land around Windsor that is famous for Connecticut Valley shade tobacco

And an abandoned barn in Ledyard where subsistence farming has nearly disappeared.

CT ECO, a web site from the University of Connecticut and CT DEP, has valuable resources to learn about the land - all kinds of maps that you can view online or download - soils, open space, farmland, watersheds, the list goes on. There are user-friendly FAQs and tutorials to help you figure it out.

Compare the maps of farmland soils - green and yellow indicate the best soils for farming!


Windsor Locks - here's the farmland soil map with the Connecticut River at the right and Bradley Airport (guess what color it would have been before all that paving).

Here's part of Ledyard, a land of rocky hills and narrow stream valleys - Connecticut River at the left

Check it out - enjoy!

http://www.cteco.uconn.edu

Photography: T. Levine, C. Hitchcock
Maps: cteco.uconn.edu