Watch that first step. It’s a doozy!
Who collects barns?
Jared Hickson, that’s who.
And so far, with the help of great friends, he’s hauled home two.
Long story short: On Highway 67 near Oak Hammock Marsh there’s been a six-acre parcel of land with a treed perimeter that Jared Hickson always had a yen for. Nothing had ever been built there. He thought it would make a great "homestead" site for him and his family.
While he’s thinking that, on the business side, he builds a house, an RTM (ready-to-move) in Selkirk, which he puts up for sale but for whatever reason doesn’t sell right away, so he starts thinking, "Hey, maybe I should keep this house and move it to a lot somewhere. Make it our family home!"
So he checks into the aforementioned property, arranges financing with his friendly bank, buys it, and moves the house there. The Hicksons have landed.
So his beautiful lot has a house with attached garage, and nothing else. Now, he wants it to look "farmsy," and he needs shelter to store a few things, so first, a friendly neighbour gives him an old metal grain bin, which he hauls home. Then acquires two more.
Sure would be nice to have an old barn. THAT would make this place feel very homestead-ish. So a few miles away, he comes across an old smaller barn, which the owner gives him, and one fine Sunday, with the much appreciated help of those friends, home it comes.
Done, that looks better.
He raises it two feet off the ground to have a higher ceiling on the main floor, closes it all in, installs a big garage door, and bingo, the Hicksons have a barn. It’s 18 feet by 24 feet. Well that’s not big enough.
So he finds another barn nearby. A 100 or so years old, 26-foot-by-32-foot sweetheart that had been granaries on the main floor with a wonderful big hayloft above.
"Gotta have that," he muses, approaches the farmer who owns it, who gives it to him, now he just has to get it home. It’s too big to haul the way he did the other one, so he contacts Brunger Industries, but they’re retiring, soon to have an auction sale and sell all their building moving equipment.
"OK," says the resourceful Jared, "I’ll buy all that equipment and move it myself." And that’s exactly what he does.
Sidebar, small world variety. When I mention I have a 1905 CN Railway caboose in my yard, he tells me he’s really been looking for an old caboose to bring home. When the name Brunger comes up, I tell him it was the Brunger Brothers who moved my caboose home for me from Gordon, Man., using the equipment he now owns!
No Jared, you can’t have my caboose.
So this barn, once settled in, Jared raises almost four feet off the ground to get the desired main floor ceiling height, and is working to get it all closed up and weather tight before the snow falls. He’ll do it.
This man builds things. In non-COVID times he’d be busy with his regular day job as owner/operator of Hickson Construction (they do everything in construction and renovation), but with business slowed down a bit, it’s giving him much appreciated time to get his barns buttoned up and ready to play in.
So what’s his plan for them? He was thinking maybe just use them for guy stuff, which may have been displaced somewhat by his wife Amy and in-laws suggesting he turn all the barn stuff into a wedding-venue adventure, and it looks as though that just may be what happens.
Fine with Jared. If he needs more guy-stuff space, he’ll just haul another old barn home! Easy peasy. Gotta love it when a plan comes together.
lmustard1948@gmail.com
