The coop has been part of the landscape here for decades.  You see it in the background of photos taken at the turn of the century (1900).  When we moved here in 1967 and over a good many years stuff was thrown in there never to see the light of day again.  “You never know when you might need it” is the refrain that continues to this day and there may have been once or twice that something was salvaged.

Miraculously the building continued to stand, through some pretty snowy winters when other, newer buildings didn’t fare so well.  We always joked that it stayed standing because all of the junk was holding it up.

I finished cleaning it out a couple of weeks ago and stood back to look at what remained.

There were structural repairs made over the years and the only thing that was really holding it up was the metal column in the center.

Yeah, time to go.

Now I have been waiting for many, many years for the tear down of the building.  Bill just happened to be driving by on his way to put the tractor away and decided to just knock it down.  Damn, I missed it!

This is the aftermath of about 5 minutes of tractor work.  Amazingly it collapsed in on itself.  Now some real work begins in cutting up the huge chunks and hauling it away to make way for a new building.  I think it’ll be one of those little by little kind of tasks.  Everyday cut up a few more things into manageable pieces.

There are chicks arriving July 1st but won’t be housed in anything like what this coop was.  The only thing in common the new coop will have is its orientation to the sun.  Work is in progress but that’s a post for another day.  I can tell you this – I did salvage 12 squares of perfect roofing shingles that were stored in a faraway corner of that now gone building.  You never know when you’re going to need something.