Raise this barn, raise this barn, one, two, three, four
September 8, 2014 10:42 PM   Subscribe

A time lapse video of ten hours of an Ohio Amish barn raising.
posted by frimble (13 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
So, flashing back to my teenage years...

My father's family is related to some Ohio Amish back a generation or two, like his grandmother or something, I'm not entirely clear on it all... I've been to family reunions in Ohio where there has been an equal number of horse buggies parked as automobiles.

One summer I went to Ohio to spend some time with the extended family and somehow ended up participating in a barn raising.

I was only a teenager, I wasn't Amish, and I wasn't particularly proficient with most of the skills needed to be a true help. I spent the day doing a certain amount of fetching and carrying, and some time doing on-the-ground assembly of segments to be hoisted up to be added to the structure, and a certain amount of time pulling on a rope to help get things up into the structure where they would be placed and fastened.

I had never been involved in anything like it. I wasn't a particularly useful part of the whole process, and I'm not even sure why I was included, as I wasn't a particularly aware teenager. But I was there, and I did what I was told to do, and it was this amazing display of teamwork and community involvement that involved a shit-ton of very physical labor and was followed up with a massive meal at the end of it all, where there was much conversation that I was entirely on the outside of.

It was a much smaller project than is what is seen in this video. It was a single barn structure, not the two-part building seen there. And we finished it completely in a day. I think there was some inside structuring left to be done, things like stalls and haylofts and such, but the superstructure was entirely complete when we were cleaning up our tools and such.

Some part of me wishes more of life were like an Amish barn raising. We could get a lot more done, in life and in general, if the community were all coming together regularly to just fucking get it all done, and then sitting down to a monstrous meal together afterward.

(I've worked on a 24-hour house for Habitat For Humanity, too. And while it was similar in some aspects, it was entirely not the same in so many others.)
posted by hippybear at 11:55 PM on September 8, 2014 [10 favorites]


For anyone who doesn't catch the reference: the post's Title Song.
Remix, remix, remix, remix, cover, piano, parody, parody, Italian, Polish, Finnish, French, Spanish, Russian, DXMed, chipmunked, Disneyed. More.
posted by DataPacRat at 12:56 AM on September 9, 2014 [2 favorites]


That was good fun, but whoa, so much vertigo from all the people on the roof.
posted by ktkt at 1:21 AM on September 9, 2014


What kind of plans ("blueprints") do they use ? Who's in charge of the planning ?
posted by nicolin at 2:30 AM on September 9, 2014


Even after all the object lessons I've had in how "simple" doesn't necessarily mean "unsophisticated" it's still a wonder to behold.
posted by psoas at 4:30 AM on September 9, 2014


How did they attach the roof panels? When I did mine I used a Li-Ion cordless driver to fasten the panels down with neoprene-gasketed screws. Do they use battery powered tools?
posted by dukes909 at 5:10 AM on September 9, 2014


Looks like a lunch-break at the 2:00 minute mark. If so, quite a productive morning...
posted by jim in austin at 5:17 AM on September 9, 2014


Other than using hand tools, one strong possibility is air power, but batteries are also possible: some Amish communities have started permitting electricity so long as it's wind or solar, so that the community isn't dependent on the larger world for it.
posted by frimble at 5:22 AM on September 9, 2014


"'Tis a fine barn, but sure 'tis no pool, English."
"D'oh-eth!"
posted by history_denier at 6:37 AM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


Anyone care to estimate the man-hours of work shown in this video? It hurts my brain but I must know.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:38 AM on September 9, 2014


Incredible. So many people who know just what to do and when. That is a vast quantity of work accomplished very quickly.
posted by that's candlepin at 12:32 PM on September 9, 2014


Feels like a massive flat-pack kit. I was wondering if they ever have any bits left over at the end as well...
posted by Auz at 12:46 PM on September 9, 2014


That was great. I'd love to see a half-speed/double-length version to be able to catch some of the details.

Thanks for posting this!
posted by Lexica at 7:11 PM on September 10, 2014


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