We've done a ton of work and expect the barn to stay dry now. It is built on what is essentially a sloping sand dune and all the sheep activity and poop removal during the dry summer resulted in a depression in the floor that was filling with water that drained through the sand. So the first step was to build a French drain, similar to the one we built in Homer but on a much smaller scale. I didn't take pictures of the process, but it involved digging a trench along the front of the barn, laying landscape cloth in it, adding the holey pipe in the bottom on a slight slope down to a bucket in a deeper hole beyond the barn, filling it all with large gravel and wrapping the landscape cloth around the top, then covering with sandy soil. The first picture shows that part completed.
Then we started to add smaller gravel at the outside base of the barn wall and inside to fill the depression and raise the floor a couple inches. Here's the outside as finished product.
With the gravel base laid we put down holey rubber stall mats - the holes allow pee to drain rather than sit on the mats - and spread gravel. Here's how that looked.
Then we spread finer sand to help compact the gravel. Here is Bob using the foot tool to distribute sand.
And here is the new barn floor, ready for sheep.
I expect the sand and gravel to compact as the sheep walk on it so every week or so we can spread more sand until it stabilizes. This is a good surface for cleaning and should be a nice place for my spoiled boys, although they usually prefer to sleep outside. If they poop on it I will consider it a success.
Hattie approves of the new floor and is ready to boss the boys around.
Now that's done I can focus on glazing. I've underglazed these poppies and will spray clear glaze over later, so that's all for now.
