Day 1: Crew Arrives

The crew arrived around 8:30 am today. They brought the lumber for the cribbing and begin preliminary work of cribbing the barn.

Cribbing is the term for strengthing the body of the barn from the inside. The structural skeleton of the barn will have four by fours added to it. These pieces will stay in place. Some 2x4's will be used to do the cribbing. The 2x4s will not stay.

Cribbing makes the top structure stronger so that when the barn is jacked up and the foundation is removed, the barn will stand.

Roger called Ed to get the information needed to call Miss Dig -- township, crossroads. I talked with the guys about restaurants in Pigeon and Caseville. The crew is staying at the Franklin Inn in Bad Axe. They brought two pickups with a trailer and a flatbed this morning.

I ran into the guys at Main Street Cafe during the noon hour. "Hey, you guys found the restaurant," I told them. They also discovered the club sandwich and homemade potato chips on the menu. Two more men had arrived by this noon, bringing the total crew to five, plus Roger the Barn Man.

Here's the view up the bank of the barn. Notice that the vegetation has been skinned away. The old barn looks like it issued a sigh of relief. "Ah, someone is coming to give me back my shape. Barn spa time!"