Barn Roof
17 December 2006
The barn's roof is finally done! It is completely water-tight and
ready for drying coffee. In fact, we already have it full of
freshly milled coffee parchment. With no stairs built yet the wet
parchment had to be hauled up a ladder one bucket at a time but that is
worth the effort. Last year we dried all the coffee on
little screens. Stirring by hand
on those little screens could take
nearly an hour with one person and stirring has to be done several
times a day. Having a drying deck is much easier. With the
new home-made rake, stirring is easy enough that even Emily can do
it. Don't tell her it's work because right now she still thinks
it's fun. She even showed her friend how to stir the
coffee.
Depending on the weather, it takes about a week for the coffee to
dry. Eventually there will be a trap door so the dried coffee can
be swept directly into a chute that leads to the basement where it will
be bagged and stored. For now the coffee will have to be hauled
down using the bucket and ladder method again. That's still not a
problem compared to having to stir on those darned screens.
Besides having a nice place to dry the coffee it is also a huge relief
to have a dry place to store all my tools and equipment. It's
kind of bad timing that I finally got the roof on just in time for the
dry season. It seemed to rain every single day while trying to get the
roof trusses painted. It had become part of the daily
ritual to sweep the pools of water out of the barn's basement.
Now that the roof is on we probably won't get any significant rain
until spring. I want a torrential downpour so I can stand under
the roof and laugh.
With only a couple white fluffy clouds in the sky, I took advantage of
the clear weather to climb up on the roof and enjoy the view. I
can see quite a bit of ocean from up there. It makes me want to
take a break and go swimming.
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