Hayshed skirt

Thursday and Friday I worked more on my hayshed now that it is cleaned out.  I decided to completely close the bottom so the Winter wind doesn't blow snow into the shed and the hay.

I thought this work would take a day.  Once again I was over optimistic.

My plan was to cut some of my odds and ends of roofing sheet metal into strips to attach to the bottom of the hayshed.  The outside of the wooden hayshed was covered in sheet metal in 1980 by my dad. That is why you see the plywood when inside and metal when outside.

My odds and ends of sheet metal.

Curtis lent one of his electric metal shears.  I never knew they existed.  They made cutting the metal sheets easy.

The remainder after the metal was cut.

The plan was to slip my newly cut metal strips an inch or so between the outside metal sheets and the wooden plywood and 2by6 boards.  The metal strips would go down into the ground where I dug a trench.

Thursday I started on the north side.  I started with long strips of metal.  I quickly found it was not easy to slip the new strips between the outside metal and boards.  It took me forever to slip the first three long pieces into place.  Making it harder was being off balance by the trench, the dirt piled next to it, and the small room between my shed and Curtis's stuff.  I also found that while the outside metal was nailed five or six inches from the bottom, the outside metal tended to be held fast to the wood.  The nails had not loosened over the decades.  And some of the wood was soft or starting to rot as in some places the dirt actually went up to the bottom of the wood.  That seemed to make slipping my strips harder as they would catch on the wood.

After the first three pieces were installed I cut shorter pieces as they were a little bit easier to work between the metal and wood.  Thursday I was one piece from the end when it got dark.

Today I finished the north side.

The west side had dirt to the wood all the length.  Unlike the north side, I found on the west side grass had grown up between the metal sheets and the wood.  For quite a length as you can see in the photo below.  It is surprising grass would grow so long in a dark and tight space, but I guess it was ever hopeful of finally reaching the light.

After the first couple of new pieces were installed, I decided pull the remaining bottom nails in order to loosen the outside metal sheets.  These sheets were so tight to the wood, coupled with the grass, that I could not slip my strips under the metal sheets.  I was able to get all the nails out.  Yesterday when I tried to pull some nails on the north side, half of the nails wouldn't come out and instead the nail's heads broke off.

With the nails out, the sheets loosened and the grass removed, the installation of my strips went well.

New metal strips added.

Dirt replaced.

The south wall was a little rockier to dig.  I also pulled all of the bottom nails.  I didn't break any nail heads.  While it was now easier to install longer metal strips I continued to use the shorter strips as I have plenty of short pieces of metal that don't have many uses.

After I finished adding a "skirt" to the hayshed, re-nailed the metal sheets and filled the dirt back in, I moved my haybine and baler into the hayshed.  The hayshed is 24 ft wide and the haybine and baler just fit inside the shed side by side.

I am not sure if I can also fit my hay rake inside the shed.  It was dark once I got the haybine and baler inside so I'll measure tomorrow.  With luck I will also get all my hay inside the shed tomorrow.