Yin and Yang

[Don P]

I drive by these sheds often, I'll guarantee there is no footing so they sank into the local geology till the end of a post found sufficient bearing. They still make me smile as I drive by, sort of like an old couple.



 
The clearing behind went to Christmas trees this year. Locally that conversion is our biggest deforester.

[Mainecoast]

Where is this? 

[Tom King]

Maybe a little frost heave too.

[Don P]

Where is this?

  Virginia, the southwestern end. If you think about the Appalachian Mountains as 3 bands running sort of N-S, this is the Blue Ridge, the easternmost band, granite roots, best water, acidic soils. The Shenandoah Valley and I-81 is in the central band aptly called the Valley and Ridge, limestone based, Rich Valley(s), however, a number of my minerals washed into shallow warm pools and settled into deposits. Leadmines is nearby, Iron Mt, Saltville. The innermost band is the Allegheny Plateau, the coalfields, Poor Valley(s), In both of those inner sea inundated soils deep valleys were acidic and poor. Shallow, higher valleys were oxygenated, alive and created good soils. The most exploited, your water is more threatened, they were in the hydrocarbon window.  From there inland all the mountain soils dropped out, my topsoil is that deep stuff in the Ohio Valley. Our soils are good pasture, good oaks and pines, poor walnut and cherry. I know you are looking around which is why I described the geology of the entire chain that way. The basic trends carry through, wider and narrower, and to varying degrees but up and down the mountain chain that is what you are looking at under you as you choose where to be.

Or did you just want to know its near the end of Peachbottom?

[Don P]

This one was on the way to where we were doing a little cleanup today. I call it the Bigtop, it looks like a circus tent.



 

This one is pole barn construction, I'm guessing with stick frame thinking. The posts are spaced 12' apart and the builder put 2x4's flatways on top of them as plates. Then rafters on the 2x flatways plates. In this case the girts and siding are what is holding up the roof.

[Don P]

 We had a blustery day last week, there must have been something significant from a different direction, my mixer blew over. This is at a neighbor's, this was the house his mother grew up in. I'd guess it is around a century old. That one freak wind in a century. Uplift of the porch roof, flipped it up and back over onto the main roof.

[Don P]

This is one I like, I'm guessing it started life as a corn crib. It was moved to the current farmyard jumble I think sometime shortly after WWII.


 


This is from the rear left corner in the pic above, looking back this way. Nice half dovetail and a neat overhang/projecting plate holding up that open drive around corner of roof out front.

[Don P]

I remember when this was being built... I'd guess it made it ~25 years. They neglected to "tie" the roof. There are no ceiling joists forming a rigid roof triangle and the ridgeboards were not beams. The walls were pushed out at the top until the roof could snap through.



 

This popped up this morning and I recognized the name from really good articles in trade magazines over the years. This is a good video on how trusses work;
How Trusses Work! (Structures 5-1) - YouTube

[WhitePineJunky]

Probably just the small building changing the perspective but that tree looks massive. 

[Don P]

I didn't even remember that tree  :D. I just came by there, the tree is about 50 feet closer to the camera than the building, its about 2'dbh. 

Back in the day one of the oldest houses in the county was where that modular is. I never thought to take a pic. It was a cute tiny gingerbread cottage, too far gone to restore but way better looking than what replaced it.