What do you do with an old barn?

It’s a question I have been asking myself for seven years, ever since moving to a 5-acre property that came with one.
Many have offered opinions. Some say, “You should burn that thing. The fire department will come do it for free, you know.” These people usually do not value old things, things from days gone by. Others, like myself, can see the beauty of this aging agricultural ship and all it symbolizes.

While I do not know exactly when my barn was built (unlike houses, nobody seems to have thought recording such information was important.) I do know this: It is quite old. According to architects and historic restoration experts who have examined it, it likely predates my home, built in 1898, by many decades. Some say the barn is one of the oldest — possibly the very oldest — in Clark County. In fact, in the entire state of Washington there are only a handful of barns still standing that share her pre-1900 birthday.

It is somewhat of a mystery who built the barn but my best guess is it was Alexander Heisen, the pioneer homesteader of German descent who settled the Heisen Valley along with his wife Mary in 1866. Homesteaders often built their barns first, living in them along with their animals until a separate home could be built. In those days such barns were not a luxury, they meant the difference between the family surviving or perishing in the wilderness that surrounded them.

When I think my life is difficult I will often go out to the barn and sit. Looking at it reminds me that whatever struggles I face, they pale in comparison to those faced by Alexander and Mary. Alone, and expecting a child, they erected this enormous structure themselves. No power tools. No home improvement stores. No one to help for miles around.

The barn is constructed from trees hand hewn square with an axe and pinned together with dowels. The individual marks from each stroke of the hatchet are clearly visible. It rests on a foundation of boulders carefully collected, positioned, and stacked at strategic points under the timber frame.

Inside there are stalls for draft horses, cattle, and large bays to hold the hay that would sustain the animals that would in turn sustain the family over the winter. Ancient milking stanchions line the north side. The boards are rubbed smooth where the cattle once placidly poked their heads through to eat as they were milked.

Initially the barn had a hand split cedar shake roof. (More labor, splitting each and every one of the hundreds of shakes.) Some 50 years ago, according to my neighbor who helped reroof the barn when he was a teenager, the shakes were covered with the current metal roof. This single move likely saved the barn from the fate of so many others. Water is a most destructive force. Once the roof goes the barn — no matter how solidly built — will soon collapse back into the earth.

While I would say she looks darn good for her age, my barn is ailing. Years of water splashing up against the base of the structure have rotted away the wood sills. Two beams along the sides have given way. Unless something is done, she will continue her decline, gradually sinking in the heartbreaking way that far too many old barns do, to their knees and then finally to the ground. Too late then. Gone forever.

My barn’s only hope is restoration. For someone like myself, a writer, this is no small feat. I do not really need a huge barn. And yet, when I bought the property I knew that as my barn’s unlikely caretaker, I would have to do everything I could to save her.

Luckily a few years ago the State of Washington recently established a Heritage Barn Register and earmarked funds to help homeowners like myself do the repairs needed to stabilize these aging agricultural icons and secure them for another generation. They recognized that if something was not done, barns like mine would disappear from the landscape not only from age and neglect, but because most people who own barns today are not farmers. They really don’t need a barn. The expense of repairing and preserving the barns is immense. It is easier to do nothing.

And even though that actually makes the most sense, I cannot shirk my stewardship of the barn the Heisen family built so long ago. So I will apply for the grant. I will beg, borrow, and steal. I will seek volunteers to help, donations of time and materials. I will do my best.

What do you do with an old barn? Mostly you hope and pray that somehow, someway you will be able to do something before it is too late.

Michele Bloomquist is a contributor to The Voice and a freelance writer who resides in the Battle Ground area. You can reach her at michelebloomquist@gmail.com.