tripreport10904

Field Trip Report for Saturday, October 9, 2004 (Historic Cache Valley Barn Tour)

left to right: Dennis and Dick getting friendly with BJ. Ron, Reinhard, Dennis and Dick checking out the M.L. Ballard barn

Lisa Goede led BAS on a tour of historic Cache Valley Barns on Saturday, October 9. Starting off in Paradise we visited the Brook Ranch farm.
This site has 3 main historic buildings–one of the first creameries in Cache Valley, a barn built in the 1860s and a barn built in the early 1900s.
Everyone was delighted to spot a Barn Owl in an old cement silo, and dissapointed to find a dead Great Horned Owl in the loft of the dairy barn.
The group explored both barns, some going to the top of the cupola of the oldest four story barn.
The rest of the tour took us to Hyrum to the Clawson barn, which has a section that looks like it was built before 1900. Then in Mt. Sterling, we visited
one of the Mormon churches early Relief Society granaries. While there we spotted a Ferruginous Hawk. In Young Ward we visited the popular
Dr. Pierces barn and rubbed noses with the horses, Dusty and B.J. In Mendon we saw the unique levels inside the Neff Hardman barn, created
by its being built into a bank of earth. In Benson, we visited the M.L. Ballard barn, which sits on a turn of the Bear River. There was an owl box in
place there. Another feature of the M.L. Ballard barn is the obvious presence of bats in the lower level milking parlor. In Richmond, we visited three sites consisting of a cheese making farm, a 1900s Intermountain barn and a cute little rock barn built by the Egan family–an early pioneer family involved in the Pony Express. At the RockHill farm, in Richmond, an owl box was placed in the barn. The folks who own this farm are in the process of becoming a
cheese making farmstead.....they are geared up for making artisan cheeses, and we got a tour of their cheese making room and farm
Perhaps the highlight of the trip was seeing the inside of the Dr. Pierces barn and seeing the inside of the Neff Hardman banked barn in Mendon.
A good thing about the tour is that people got a sample of what the Bear River Heritage Area Barn tour is going to be like. Handouts were made of nine barns with an essay about each barn. The group was also able to see first hand what restorative measures are needed on some of the barns.
–Lisa Duskin-Goede 10/12/04

left to right: The inside of the Dr. Pierces barn; Reinhard and Dennis spotting a Ferruginous Hawk in Mt. Sterling