\nThis beautiful barn and silo were built in the 1920s, in a style typical of Wisconsin farms. This is a dairy barn. The first floor was devoted to the daily milking of the cows, and was also their cozy winter home (where outdoor temperatures routinely reach 40F degrees below zero). It would have also contained a granary, where oats were stored for supplemental winter feed. The second floor was used to store their hay, which had been cut from the nearby fields, and could be fed to the cows if the silage ran out before the grass greened up in the spring. The silo would have stored silage (fermented field crops, probably corn) that provided the cows with their primary winter feed. The silo room, seen in the photo below between the barn and the silo, allowed the farmers to move the silage for the daily feeding of the cows, without going outside. Such barn\/silo structures represent a marvelous combination of architectural form and function. Their purpose was simple … provide a safe and comfortable environment for the feeding and milking of a small herd of dairy cows.
\nNote that Hugh McCaffery converted this old silo to a living space, with an interior circular staircase connecting four floors with a wooden room added to the top. The windows at the top provide a grand view of the McCaffery farm.
\nThousands of these lovely old Wisconsin barns and silos have been torn down for land developments and have been lost due to decay. But Hugh McCaffery worked hard to preserve this barn and silo \u2026. no doubt anticipating it\u2019s eventual importance to Ishwar\u2019s tribute to Great Master!
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![](\"http:\/\/ishanews.org\/ishwarsprojects2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/BLOG-Hughs-Barn.jpg\" "\\"blog-hughs-barn-jpg\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nHere are some \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafter\u201d photos of the first floor:<\/p>\n
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And, some \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafter\u201d photos of the second floor. Note the amazing architecture of the barn walls, where sturdy, local, rough-cut lumber was used to build the curved walls.<\/p>\n
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And, the second-floor cleaning crew dancing with joy as they sweep up pigeon droppings: Here\u2019s a photo of one of the happiest barn-cleaning crews: The contents of the barn were sorted into trash (which went into a big orange dumpster), and scrap metals (which were sorted into piles for recycling): The waste wood was tossed into a pile, for later burning: The evening bonfire was impressive: The crew clearing brush worked on the ISHA hill trails near the site of the Meeting Hall dome: The fencing crew repositioned a silt fence by the ISHA parking lot:
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