The Dairy Barn
The dairy barn on Butternut Ridge Farm was built in 1941, by carpenters Bill Becker and Arthur Langlan, to replace the earlier barn. Their first names and the date 1941 are inscribed in the concrete ramp that also serves as the roof of the milk room. This barn is what is typically called a bank barn because it is built into the side of a hill. Bank barns are also called; basement barns. In 1945 or 1946 the silo, which is 12’ in diameter and 35’ tall, and 8’ x 8’ feed room were added. The silo has been used in the past for both silage and haylage. Because the silo is too small for use with a modern silo unloader it had to be unloaded by hand. Because unloading the silo by hand is too difficult, the silo was last filled with silage in 1966. In 1952, a 28-foot addition was added to the barn's west end. Not including the feed room, the barn is 36’ x100’.
Milking took place in the basement, with the milk room located underneath the ramp going into the double doors on the main floor. Inside the double doors on the left side of the main floor are three large grain bins, where oats were kept in years past. The remainder of the entire upper floor, almost all the way to the ceiling was filled with "small" square hay bales. The dairy was considered a "Grade B" dairy. The herd of 40 brown Swiss cows were sold off in 1989. In later years, 49 head of black angus cattle, and 8 horses have also called this barn home.
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