The Barn on White Run

Every winter brings about some damage to the waterline for the hydroelectric turbine, a/k/a the penstock.  Usually this is because a tree branch has fallen on some of the 1100′ of 2-inch Schedule 40 PVC, which is cheap but gets really brittle when cold.  I knew from the very beginning that replacing some of the PVC every Spring would be an issue but just accepted it as the cost of doing business. Last year was great, I had to replace and patch only two little sections.  2015 was the worst as I had to replace 600-feet of pipe.

Except for the last thirty feet all of the penstock is above ground.  I did originally get an estimate to burying the entire penstock well below the frost line, but the >$75k+ price tag was a bit much.  My hydroelectric system is more of a hobby than anything else, at least until the EMP or CME or some other grid-down calamity, so that wasn’t in the cards.

A shredded section of the penstock just before the ice storm.

This damage was peculiar because it was a compound spiral fracture which is only supposed to happen as a result of water freezing in the pipe and bursting it.  Since I drained the system in November this damage was a head-scratcher.  I am not looking forward to surveying the entire length of pipe once the snow and ice are gone.

I am now rethinking the penstock altogether.  Rather than sticking with PVC I am going to check into industrial irrigation polypropylene line which is continuous and much more forgiving to the forces that bust the PVC.  Since a pressurized/enclosed water line can run down to about -15 degrees maybe I could even keep it running year-round.

Stay tuned.

In the aftermath of the snow/sleet/freezing rain/ice/snow adventure of last Sunday you could definitely say we were disheartened at the sight of the collapsed greenhouse.  The broken internal structure was clearly evident, in one place the end of the snapped off arched beam had poked through the plastic skin.  Mrs. Barn rightly insisted on clearing off the ton of ice to assess the damage and get a plan for the reconstruction.

One thing we did not want to do was wail away at the shell and damage the skin even more than it was already.  Finding the right tool was a conundrum.  She tried with one of her gardening tools but it was a poor fit for the problem, plus she was too short to get up high enough to get much done.  I’m taller and with my spiked boots I could get up on the snow/ice dam along the edge of the building.  And fortunately I had just the right tool.

Many years ago my woodworking pal TomS gave me my favorite walking stick, about shoulder length with a bulbous knot near the top.  Since the knot was gentle in shape I could stand and whack the ice until it broke up without risking more damage to the plastic skin.  After about an hour of careful work the last of the ice slabs slipped off and the arched structure popped back to its original shape.    Hallelujah!  You can see that slab leaning up against the greenhouse, it was about six square feet of four-inch-thick ice/snow composite.  It is several hundred pounds.   So even though we have not seen each other in more than a decade, TomS saved the day!

I found just a couple of punctures to the plastic skin and repaired them straightaway.  I still have to build four new laminated arches, but the necessary repair is much less than anticipated.  I’ll get to work on the repairs as soon as we get a bit more warming.

I just checked and the outside temp is 16 and inside the greenhouse it’s nearly 60.

PS.  Here’s a glimpse of what we were dealing with.  We estimate it would have taken a month to clear the six inch thick ice slab on driveway with a pickaxe and shovel.  It was brutal work for us septuagenarians.  Thank goodness for hearty mountain men willing to work all night long in frigid temps with their monster machines.  It was well after 10pm when we finally got to the top of the list.  They finished with us and moved on to the next name on the list.

PPS   A fellow at church told me he had seen some of the Amish kids skating in a field.  Who needs a pond or rink?  We certainly could not navigate our place without snow cleats.

I am happy to report that my broom-maker is on the mend and just before the snow/ice storm delivered some new inventory.  I’ve got a couple events this year so he has a standing order to crank out polissoirs as his health allows.

But for now, everything is in stock.  Ironically sales for everything has plummeted, about 40% in 2025 vs. the 2024 totals.  Just as well as I am making almost zero on each 1-inch ploissoir sale.  Good thing this is just a hobby at this point.  Not complaining, who else can say they have a hobby that doesn’t cost them anything?

When I built the greenhouse last year I was determined to overbuild it.  As the evidence indicates, I was wrong in my assumptions and execution of what I thought overbuilding was,  The center laminated arch just snapped this week under the weight of the snow, sleet and frozen rain.  A pretty substantial rebuild must occur before next winter, building bigger (and more) laminated arches.  In addition to replacing the destroyed center arch I will build two more inside the greenhouse and one in the outer workspace on the far end of the structure. I’ll make them each 1-1/2″ x 3″ rather than 1-1/4″ x 2″.  That calculates to a four-fold increased strength. I don’t know yet whether the plastic skin can be salvaged.  Part of me was pleased to see the laminations remained intact, just the weight and the wind literally snapped the center arch.

Also, if I was so inclined and equipped, I could absolutely ice skate down the driveway.  (I left my ice hockey days behind me many, many decades ago)

One thing I was very pleased about was the performance of my spiked-sole lumberjack boots.  They made traipsing around the icy landscape a breeze.  I was absolutely right to buy these a couple years ago.  I was only expecting to use them when harvesting firewood on sloped ground, but they sure did the trick here.

UPDATE

The plowing crew finally came at 10.15 last night to dig us out.  They brought three big machines.  The first was a V-wedge icebreaker to bust everything up, the second was an 8-foot plow blade, the third was a 6-foot blade to make everything purdy.  Was great to look out this morning and actually see the driveway, we can now get out after four days of being icebound.  Free at last, free at last!

Right around zero at dawn this morning.

Although I have been spending any shop time over the past few months cleaning, tidying, and reorganizing the barn, I had long ago penciled-in this week as Firewood Week 2026/7.  We are deep into Winter 2025/6 with an extended forecast of unseasonably cold weather, with overnight lows for the next fortnight running at or below zero.  That was motivation to get a good jump on next winter and beyond (we’re fine for this winter).

My target was the cluster of windfall trees (mostly maple and birch IIRC) that came down in a storm some time ago, up the hill behind the cabin.  The main trunks on these are all 18-24″, a few a bit more.  The beauty of such a trove is that it is already down but standing above the ground, making it easy to get to while seasoning “on the hoof.”  I’ll have to clear a couple of scrub saplings to get my 4WD S10 up there but if the ground is clear it will be a piece o’ cake.

Then came the disheartening forecast last week for a Storm of the Century!!! with somewhere between 12 and 24 inches of snow.  Such an event would disrupt my firewood harvesting and processing plans.  Not an existential problem, but I did have my mind set on it.  Then came the Snowpocaplyse.  Big whup.  Not even enough to get out the snowblower.

The forecast is still for very cold (for us) weather so I’ll see if I can work in well-below-zero wind chills.  My old Minnesota home town has wind chills of minus-60 so this isn’t all that bad in the cosmic scheme of things.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE

The monster snowfall never materialized, but the gradual deposits from the storm front wound up to be about three inches of snow, followed by three inches of sleet, all encased in a saturating half inch of freezing rain.  Even my 13hp snowblower choked on that combo.  We spent yesterday hacking out two of the vehicles and will spend today and tomorrow working on our long driveway.  It’s like clearing demolition rubble as I first have to break everything up then shovel it out of the way.

Probably like many of you, as I watch the paroxysm of manufactured “rage” throughout urban America I am almost continually running an OODA Loop especially when I leave Shangri-la and go out into the larger world.  (OODA is the military acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act, a decision-making model for use in uncertain situations.)  In the environment that is the USA 2026, OODA is in my mental background like a virus scan.  Since many/most/all(?) of the “spontaneous” riots are conducted by trained out-of-state professionals provided by entities like Crowds on Demand, Inc. (a real LA-based rent-a-mob temp agency!), the need for OODA is an imperative.  I for one am curious about the money trail for the rent-a-mobs.

But ruminations on OODA are just the gateway for this post.  Almost all of us of a certain age have had our awareness formed, at least in part, by two classic dystopian novels we read in high school — 1984 (1949, George Orwell) and Brave New World (1932, Aldous Huxley).  However, my favorite novel of this (or any other) genre and roughly contemporary to them, and one that I am unreservedly recommending to you, is the far less known 1945 C.S. Lewis That Hideous Strength.  When reading THS I find many of the parallels to 2026 to be inescapable.  It is almost a fictional recitation of the seduction Hannah Arendt described as “the banality of evil” but set in the campus and village of a small British university.  It brings to mind the old quip, “The smaller the boat the meaner the rats.”

The understanding from this trilogy of dystopian fiction is IMHO foundational to being a modern grown-up.  Not the full foundation, but still foundational.  Read or reread them for a refresher course in the human condition and of the evil that men can do.  And if you are unfamiliar with That Hideous Strength, pick it up and be edified.  Every time I reread it I find myself saying, “Holy cow, that’s just like now!”  Yes, it is a semi-fantasy, but the parallels are too powerful to ignore.  It is not a fast read, not because it is turgid or difficult, but because you might just find yourself pausing by necessity to consider the implications of the tale for our modern, debauched world.

For extra credit when exploring the dysfunctional human condition take a stroll through The Minor Prophets of The Old Testament, Hosea through Malachi.  Since the books do indeed chronicle accurately the nature of the human condition, like me you are likely to pause and reflect that the truths therein are as current as tomorrow’s headlines.

Since finishing the fourth floor of the barn fifteen years ago I’ve used that space for a lot of things; a meeting /presentation space for Groopshop,  a video studio, a classroom, a Gragg chair workshop.  With the demise of my teaching schedule here the function of the space has (d)evolved into primarily storage especially for extra workbenches and such.  Over the years I’ve probably moved benches from the main floor to the fourth floor (and back) a dozen times or more, using my compound block-and-tackle hand hoist.

But here’s the part where the story gets very mysterious.

Somehow the benches gained weight over the years, and I was at the point where hoisting them by hand was problematic.  What was once no big deal is now a very big deal.  And, since in recent months I’ve been reorganizing and reducing the contents of the main floor, I was faced with the task of hoisting several benches up and out of the way.

Hmmm.

The solution?  Buying and installing a Harbor Freight power winch.   Their smallest 120v plug-in model was more than adequate.  I bolted the winch unit to a 2×8 then lag-screwed the 2×8 into a number of the 2×6 rafters.  The new system works perfectly and moving heavy things up and down to the barn attic is now a piece o’ cake.

After more than a month being out of commission, between family gatherings and what my dear old Dad would call “the epizootic,” as of yesterday I am back in full swing.  Not quite full strength and speed, but that will come with ongoing activity.

I am now fully caught up with all my orders of polissoirs, waxes, and videos.  Interestingly, for the first time in many years I got zero orders for Christmas gifts (the buyers always tell me).  I’m looking forward to getting my PayPal annual statement, I am expecting that this past year I only sold half as many as the year before.  Perhaps the market is saturated.  Given that at this point it is just barely even a hobby I am fine with that.  In looking backward, I noticed that the shipping/postage costs for my first order more than a decade ago was $2.97, padded mailer included.  My latest per unit shipping cost is now approaching $8 for padded envelope and postage.  Good thing it is not a growing enterprise on which I am pinning my retirement hopes!

At the moment my greatest concern is my supply.  My broom maker has also been under the weather and unable to make any new inventory since the beginning of November.  If this continues, I’ll soon be out of stock.  Fortunately, I spoke to him this week and he is confident he can be back in his own shop in a week or so.

Wish him well. Perhaps now he will take me and his wife seriously when we implore him to train a successor.

‘

After being out of the loop for the past three weeks I’m finally easing back into the world of donsbarn.com.  My first stretch of being out of circulation was sublime as the clan gathered to celebrate the Incarnation.  An extra special treat were the hours spent in my basement workshop with two of my little guys, repairing toys and explaining all the tools.  That tradition will continue for the rest of my life.

The second interruption was pretty ridiculous as I’ve been fighting Fauci Flu for the past two weeks, including a bizarre visit to a clinic that refused to offer any pharmaceutical response strategy other than some piddly cough drops.

Anyway, I recently reflected on the fact that two of my most faithful blog correspondents, PM and PM, have nearly the exact same name and they are a great source of things for me to look at.  This video came from that route and is immensely entertaining.

Looking forward to resuming a vigorous schedule of activities here in Shangri-la.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulders: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

And they said, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary?”

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 

I pray for you to have a blessed Christmas with loved ones and that you are celebrating the Incarnation, through whom we can be reconciled with The Creator.

I am the delighted recipient of Mrs. Barn’s foodie-ism.  She loves cooking as much as I love puttering in the shop.  One of the benefits of this relationship is that I come down the hill for lunch and supper every day and there is a wholesome real-live meal awaiting me.  She makes all our butter, yoghurt (our breakfast of choice for many years) and ice cream from scratch, as she does with almost everything else we eat.  No wonder my matchmaking sister told me 45 years ago, “I’ve got just the girl for you!”

In recent years as an attempt to reduce our carb and white flour/wheat intake she has been making sourdough bread from einkorn she grinds herself.  Admittedly she parcels it out like I was a junkie, maybe a slice or two a week.  When we went lower-carb years ago I gave up sodas and fruit drinks cold turkey with no problem, Same for wheat pasta and other starches as she has found excellent alternatives (I actually prefer quinoa to rice and pureed cauliflower is almost equal to mashed potatoes).  But bread?  That was way tougher as I had been eating a whole loaf of grocery store bread every week and still love it.

She has compiled a recipe repertoire that I think she should turn into a cookbook (especially the wheat-free treats and sugar-free desserts, but she doesn’t think anybody would be interested.  Sigh.)

Anyway, this video made me think of all this.  I found it fascinating, she found it old news.

For the last several months I’ve been prevented from getting into a rhythm in the shop due to a host of wonderful family happenings, sometimes even going for weeks without darkening its doors.  When I do get into the shop I spend a lot of time cleaning, organizing, and tuning up the shop itself.  That really does not require really getting in the flow, I can just spend a few minutes here or there moving nd throwing away. In fact I’m trying to impose a better order and functionality of several shop spaces.

One of the unintended pleasures of the undertaking has been the rediscovery of items I did not even remember I had, at least until I put my hands and eyes on them.  Such is the case with this 3″ x 3″ print, taken with a tiny Kodak Instamatic pocket camera fifty years ago.  This piece was one of the “kits” delivered to the Schindler’s shop in the back of a Mercedes station wagon.  Taking pictures of my projects was simply not part of my operating system back then, but this tulipwood and rosewood marquetry secretaire bore a royal inventory stamped, probably from about 1700.  Along with the other “kits” I worked on around this time, including a pair of bureaus by Riesener, a switch was turned for me that has directed part of my life to this very day.

And I did not even remember this image until I found it while going through a box of ancient stuff.  Heck, I haven’t even thrown away all my papers from college.  My college career lasted from 1972 to 1985, so…

In a recent eight-day stretch here at Shangri-la we had more than a foot of snow, much earlier than normal for us in the Virginia (!) highlands.  My pal MikeM lives in upstate New Tork and we note that our weather is basically similar, just one day earlier or later depending on which way  the fronts are moving.  Tomorrow night I think the overnight low will be approaching zero.  That usually does not happen here until late January or early February.

Just for reference — the snow buildup on my shooting bench of 6″x8″ timbers.

It made me all the more thankful I have a mondo snow blower that can clear the driveway with three passes.  On the other hand, even though it is power-drive it still requires rasslin’ a 350-pound machine on slippery ground. It took about an hour to clear the driveway from the front gate up to the barn.  It took two days for my shoulders and hips to quit barking at me.

Last night as I was heading down the hill for supper I noticed this fascinating formation on the edge of the log barn roof.  I’ve never seen anything quite like this.

Definitely time to get back to processing next winter’s firewood.

Perhaps because I am lackadaisical about organizing my own living and working spaces I find presentations of exquisite spatial and functional organization to be compelling.  This video included ideas I will file away for that “whenever” time that I no longer have the barn space at my fingertips.

Recently Li’l T got a small rasp and has been going to town carrying it around the house with the rasp and a scrap workpiece from Dada’s latest project.  The time has come for Grandpa to think about lighting the torch to be passed to this little guy and his littler brother, Mighty M, who wants to be doing everything his big brother is doing.  Littlest brother Wondrous W is only a month old so he is behind the curve for now, as is their cousin Dynamic D who is nine months old.  Yeah, walking and talking are helpful in the process.

About 35 years ago I made a pair of half-scale but honest to goodness workbenches for my girls.  To that end I recently took Mama’s workbench to live in Dada’s little workshop in the garage for Li’l T amd Mighty M to sue to their hearts content.

This new epoch makes tools a part of the equation for every Christmas and birthday from this point on.  Whew.

The day began with smoothing the parquetry compositions, first with toothing planes, both manufactured and home-made, then followed by blocks of pumice.

The next step was to lay out a simple banding knotwork design for one corner as an exercise.

Excavating for the inlay came next, followed by cutting and fitting the elements of the design.

In the end everyone went home with examples of the techniques to apply to their upcoming projects.

If this technique interests you I hope you will join me for next year’s class on October 1-3, 2026.

It’s been a banner year for the Barn Clan, with grandson #3 born in February and grandson #4 born last Friday, giving us quite the inventory.  As the fates would have us all the grandsons live within five miles of each other, so Grandma Barn is always ready for a road trip.

Good thing Grandpa Barn has bins of tools ready for the new hands.

Opening up the panels glued up the night before is always a thrill for the students to see their work coming to fruition.

The next step is to trim the fields to make them good rectangles for the banding followed later by the borders.  A variety of veneer saws were at work, ranging from pricey French saws to inexpensive Japanese ones.  They all work.

The perimeter banding was applied and adhered with 192 gws glue, and the banding held in place with aluminum push pins that are surprisingly similar to those used by craftsmen 250 years ago.

Throughout the day and overnight, if a panel was not being worked it was placed in front of a box fan to drive off as much moisture as possible, to harden the glue under the parquetry.  That strategy was somewhat successful.

Thus endeth Day 2.

Last month, for the first time in many years, I was able to offer an Introduction to Parquetry class at Joshua Farnsworth’s Wood and Shop near Charlottesville VA.  We plan for me to offer the workshop again next year.

I had two exercises in mind for the students, all based on sawn veneer edge strips from boards.

The strips were then cut into identical 60-120-60-120 parallelogram “diamonds” or lozenges with a simple jig and a dovetail saw.

NB/ mea culpa – over the years I have attended and spoke at countless woodworking clubs and guilds, and invariably there is a show-n-tell session, and invariably they feature prominently some elaborate jig a member made to do this or that function.  (Yes I know I used “invariably” twice in one sentence.  That is a purposeful literary flourish.)  In the old days I would just roll my eyes and tell myself, “That’s not woodworking.”  Then we started the Roubo Transalation Project.  Turns out the world of the ebeniste’ was all about jigs and patterns.  To quote LBJ, “I reserve the right to be smarter than I used to be.”

Once the pile of lozenges got big enough, they laid out X and Y axes on a piece of paper to guide them then started assembling the composition by gluing down the lozenges to the paper with 135 gws hide glue.

Once the composition was large enough to cover the “field” of the substrate panel, in this case 1/2″ Baltic Birch plywood, the working face of the parquetry (ultimately the verso) was slathered with 192 gws hide glue, followed immediately by the face of the substrate panel.

Then the wo glued surfaces were brought together and clamped using another 1/2″ panel as the caul and a double layer of corrugated cardboard as a gasket.

Thus ended the first day.

Something you do not see every day, a gilded throne heading down the road.  Image courtesy of my son-in-law.  Just gotta wonder what the back story is.