The barn was torn down Labor Day weekend in 2013. After Scott Robinson, Vice President of Meadow View Growers and son of founder Earl Robinson, heard about the barn being taken down, he wanted to find a way to use the barn at the garden center.
“I just love old barn wood,” Scott Robinson said. “It fits into the garden center well, and I really wanted to use the siding around here to cover walls and stuff with. It makes our plant displays look really nice.”
The pieces are being used to make a smaller barn at the business. Rick Burnside works at Meadow View and serves as the primary designer of the new barn, mainly due to his passion for carpentry. While working with the timber, Burnside discovered how old the wood was.
“We can count 115 to 120 rings on some of the timbers we looked at,” Burnside said. “The tree was 100 years old when it was cut. That puts (the wood) in the 1700s for when the acorn first sprouted.
“Structurally, it is very sound,” he continued. “It is a better quality wood than a lot of wood that’s being sold today.”
Burnside and the Robinson father-son duo plan to further examine the timber to find out more of its history. One way they can do that is by looking at the width of each ring to see if it is consistent with the weather reports from that time period. If the wood has wider rings, that means it was a wet year. If there was a dry period, the rings on the wood will be more narrow.
Part of the barn’s story goes back to when Frances Harris and her husband bought the farm in 1952. The Harris family used the barn to raise horses and sheep with their two daughters, and to store hay.
“During the winter, my husband and kids would take the hay around to stables and sell it,” Harris said.
Although Harris sold the barn in 2004, she still feels attached to the barn that her family owned for over 50 years.
“I spent a lot of time over in there,” Harris said. “I am so glad that it’s going to be preserved and that the Meadow View Growers are going to use the timbers.”
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