Grey Duck Garlic
Garlic Building Project
New Garlic Drying Barn and Hoophouse
Right: Ollie helps Steve work.
Oh no! What is Steve doing with that big machine? Jane can’t stand to watch him move dirt and trees!
Grey Duck Garlic is building a new garlic drying barn. We don’t have enough space in our old barn anymore for all our garlic. Last year we had garlic drying everywhere including Chris's tractor shed. Drying garlic properly takes a lot of room!
Jane and Steve spent some time this winter designing and drawing blueprints for our new building.
.
Right: Chris uses his old John Deere tractor to help pull out a few old fence posts from around the chicken coop.
We will reuse the posts in the cow fence. John and Susan are removing fence staples in the background.
.
Unfortunately, we had to take out a few scrubby trees to clear the area ('we' meaning Steve and his helpful equipment). We were careful to plan so we didn't have to 
remove any large trees. The smaller trees are being recycled as firewood.
Right: Steve removes the old chicken house.
We recycled the tin roof but the wood was too rotten to save.
.
Left: John helps cut trees into firewood.
We try to recycle everything we can on the farm. Patty has a wood stove and any downed trees are cut up to provide her with heat. Branches of all sizes are given to the goats who love to chew off the bark and play with the old branches.
Once the site was cleared and leveled, the concrete walls were poured.
Right: From left: Susan, Chris, Steve, Jane and Katie remove concrete forms and/or wander around 'looking busy'.
Note that Jane is the only one doing any actual work in this photo! She is cleaning a 2x4 so it can be reused in another concrete form. All the wood will be reused for other projects.
Over Memorial weekend Jane and Susan painted on the concrete sealer (can you guess why it is so easy to identify them in the picture below?). 
Sealer helps prevent water from seeping into the building and protects the concrete foundation from crumbling.
Right top: Jane and Susan roll on concrete sealer. Chris brought back the lovely hats they are wearing from his deployment overseas. The sealer was very sticky and dried quickly.
Right bottom: As Jane and Susan paint Chris and Stevie move dirt to fill in around building. They kept trying to fill where we were painting.
For pictures of what we are up to in the garlic field this year, check out Garlic Report.