My Neighbor's Barn Burned Down.

[Mahnarch]

This was last Saturday, already, but, I've been addicted to other sites (mainly NBC.com and Wikipedia [oh, once I get on there,,,,,it's "click click click..."])

Anyway:

...It was about 10AM. I smelled it before I knew anything else. It was a pungent smell that only comes from something burning that shouldn't be burning.

Trash is one thing. Insulation and shingles are another, and I ran outside to make sure my own chimney wasn't on fire, since I only have a fireplace/pellet stove and no furnace when I saw a huge plume of smoke next door (an eighth of a mile away).

I jumped into my truck and raced down there to find my neighbors, both in their 80's, standing outside.
Barney and Missy were going wild as, they were still inside the barn (they're horses).

I slammed my truck into Park and checked on Gerald and Claire before running into the barn and opening the pens for the horses.
Barney and Missy seemed pretty kosher after I opened the pen gates, letting them into the yard.
(The smoke was building but, not too thick, yet. Not a lot of hay around, inside. They pay guys to put it into the field [I should petition for that job - *tractor noise* Pfft! "There you go!!.)

They were the only living things in the building (besides mice) but, Gerald lost two John Deere tractors, several tools and his prized Ford Falcon that he's kept under a tarp for, what, 30+ years.

It took the fire department about 30 minutes to get to the scene (which is something that sucks, living in the county) and, they almost wiped out Gerald's septic tank when they showed up [20,000lb truck driving over a tank.......not good!....for owner OR driver.]

They razed the barn yesterday, scouring anything they could.
It goes to show how close something like this can happen to home.

The barn (and house) was built in the early 50's, the same as my own home.
I'm getting worried about the wiring and such.
The telephone wiring in my home was still a two-wire, single line system until my big power surge last August.

I've been sleeping very lightly, lately.

The moral of this news: Check your batteries on your smoke detectors, folks! Even the detectors in your barns.

[Edit: Speaking of batteries: To all your non-US Lewasiters. I know that your electrical outlets are messed up and funky.

Example:

Here's a 'regular' outlet.


But, what the heck is this?


and this?


and this?


and this?


Are batteries the same as in the U.S.?

Here's a U.S. 9volt battery, typically used in a smoke detector:


Are they the same in the U.K. or elsewhere?

[Kimm]

Im sorry about the barn thats such a terrible thing to have happen.

Its good that you were able to save the horses. Its a shame about the Ford Falcon and the John Deere. But at least you saved the living beings.

[Jason O'Lewa]

oh no.
some people have tons of treasure in thir barns.
my grandpa has all kinds of old tracters, and a bunch of other things in his barn. he put a strong roof and heavy insalaten on his barn to make sure it was not like a old style farm yard barn its strong and protective of weather to keep his stuff nice

i am sorry too about your friends car and tractors. my grandpa would be really sad for this news you did a good thing though by feeeing the horses ontime.

[Mahnarch]

I don't want to take too much credit. The barn was on fire but, it was at the other end from the horses (though, I did have to duck down to keep from inhaling smoke).

The horses are fine. We put them up at my other neighbor's kennel for the time being and they seem to be happy mingling with the other boarded horses.

Yesterday I checked out all my wiring inside my house.
It all seems O.K. but, I did find that the insulation in my attic was laying against my chimney and I cleared it away.

Other than that, I seem to be good.

[dannyboy]

If it was one of those old barns from the 1800s or early 1900s it probably was old dry wood and that would burn forever and right down to a few charred twigs. Very sad.

I don't mean to echo everybody else but I'm glad that the horses are safe, I'm sorry about the Falcon and the John Deere tractors.

[Phil]

That's a shame and its scary when there's a fire on your property. Jason has already mentioned my father's passion for the tractors. The Falcon too actually.

I hope there was insurance at least. But I realize that doesn't really make up for what was destroyed.

[Jersey]

That sucks man. I'm glad you were able to get there quickly Mahnarch and save their horses. It's a shame about the barn and the car though. Fires, floods and other natural disasters can really screw up peoples lives.

[Phil]

There's what's called the '36 year flood' that seems to come to the Susquehanna river.

The river floods often but it has a devastating flood every 36 years. 1900, 1936, 1972 and this year would be the time it would be due.

My father did a lot of the re constructive work from the 72 flood which was allegedly the worst of the 3 discussed. I kind of remember the construction as it took a few years to complete. I don't remember the flood itself I was not even a year old.

youtube.com/watch?v=O1zxfQ8T3QE

I kind of discuss that here.

[Blastgirl]

It's strange that things have a pattern but there's a lot of things like that. Haley's Comet comes about every seventy-six years, and I have heard of some other things that follow a pattern and the time comes due again. With this flood it's hopefully going to miss year number thirty-six. You mentioned in the video it floods more often but those are the severe disastrous floods.

[Mahnarch]

Geez, Blastgirl! You and Kimm are, like, some sort of history knowledge machines.

That's awesome but, you girls weren't the nerdy kids in school that everyone picked on, where ya?
(I just finished watching 'She's All That' on ABC, so I've got that idea freshly brewing in my mind.*)


*OH! I watched TV for the first time in months, today.
My computer needed to do a reboot after an update and I was down for a bit and it's too cold to be outside, comfortably.
....I really do need to get on that garage cleaning, though.
Meh! Maybe tomorrow will be warmer.

[Kimm]

Im a history teacher.
No, lol not the nerdy picked on type. In fact my high school grades other than history werent very good thats pretty much why I didnt get started on my studies until I was about 21 and didnt get my degree until age 26. I wasnt ready to get started at age 18 like youre expected to.

But I do like and know my history. ;D

[Mahnarch]

But I do like and know my history. ;D

I'm a history/culture buff, myself (mostly Japanese culture at the moment) and I was picked on.

I was kind of a cross road for some people. For a guy, I had long, naturally curly hair - down to my butt - liked motorcycles, Metallica, worked on cars and was a hardcore outdoorsman so I was 'cool' but, I could spout off obscure facts (i.e. - talking about Einstein with friends: "Did you know he was a patent clerk before becoming a scientist?"), from memory, in a heartbeat so I was a nerd at the same time.

If my life were a comedy movie it'd have one scene were a bully would beat me up* and then ask me to tune up his motorcycle (which 'should' be called an 'enginecycle', by the way).

'Motors' need an outside power source to run them (windshield wipers)
'Engines' run on their own power to do outside work (....car engine)


*which never happened.....because all bullies were afraid of my younger sister.


***

Fun facts:

-You CAN fly a barn door but, it'd take an engine so powerful that it'd be inefficient.
-A cat's purr has no mechanical/survival purpose. They just do.
-Canadians tried to build massive, sea-faring attack ships during WWII made out of sawdust and ice but, the end of WWII ended that project.
-Germans proposed a tank the size of a modern cruise ship during WWII. And a rail car mounted cannon so large that it would launch a cannon ball into low orbit space but, the U.S. invasion led to the retreat of the testing grounds and insufficient funding led to them being left on the drawing board.
-Abraham Lincoln only grew a beard to cover a large mole on his face and to distract people from his deeply inset eyes (due to a physiological disorder that I can't remember the name of at this moment). He had also lost several other elections before winning the POTUS office (city supervisor, Senate, etc).
-Thomas Edison proposed to his wife via Morse Code in front of her over-protective father (by tapping his finger into her palm). Later in life, after going mostly deaf, his wife would talk to him in Morse Code.

[Blastgirl]

My Dad says the same thing about motor vs engine.

Were early motorcycles powered by electric motors and not gasoline engines? Or is that just one of those names that is simply erroneous?

[Mahnarch]

The first 'motorcycle' was built in 1889-ish territory and had only a single gas cylinder.

The inventor (Davidson or Harley, I don't remember which) assembled the bike and pushed it to the top of a hill near the edge of town.

He started the bike coasting down the hill and "popped the clutch".
The bike fired up and almost threw him off.
He held on, though, and rode the bike for 12 or so many miles before running out of gas.

The 'first bike' was basically nothing more than a 3 speed (equivalent to a modern mountain bike/18-speed) with an engine bolted on.

So, it was definitely an 'enginecycle'.

***

Wow, that's info I haven't brought out of the memory bank in, at least, 15 years.
My memory is a gift and a curse [try falling asleep at night when all you can think about is something you said to someone 20 years ago that you regret - and they probably don't remember].

I can remember enrollment day for kindergarten (and times before that but, I was a toddler and didn't know what was going on.)

Speaking of which - I can remember crawling up and over the railing into my sister's crib (which used to be mine) and stealing her bottle.
We're 2 years apart, almost to the day - which puts me back at 2-3 years old.

I even remember her white 'onesie' with little flowers all over it.
And the contents of the bottle tasted like crap - sour milk and some sort of licorice (formula?)
Have adults tasted formula? Yuck!
No wonder babies don't want to drink it.

*suddenly comes back to the present time with everyone staring at him*

Ahem....soooo....what's everyone else doing?
Is that an original Picasso?.....

[Blastgirl]

Babies are too young to understand the Its good for you speech.

I have heard that Indian Motorcycles had the accelerator on the left instead of the right because they were popularly used by Police forces and since most people are right handed, the accelerator on the left freed up the right hand in case a shoot out ensued.

Do you know if that's true?

[Kevin]

I was going to go to bed, but I had to debunk some of this crap:

Apr 12, 2008 19:35:56 GMT -5 Mahnarch said:

-You CAN fly a barn door but, it'd take an engine so powerful that it'd be inefficient.

The barn door itself wouldn't create any lift, so the engine would be doing all of the lifting.

Apr 12, 2008 19:35:56 GMT -5 Mahnarch said:

-A cat's purr has no mechanical/survival purpose. They just do.

Wrong.

Apr 12, 2008 19:35:56 GMT -5 Mahnarch said:

-Canadians tried to build massive, sea-faring attack ships during WWII made out of sawdust and ice but, the end of WWII ended that project.

The idea was proposed to Winston Churchill by Louis Mountbatten, an Englishman. The Habakkuk was to be built in Canada, and the furthest it ever got was a prototype. The project was abandoned in 1944, before the end of the war.

Apr 12, 2008 19:35:56 GMT -5 Mahnarch said:

-Abraham Lincoln only grew a beard to cover a large mole on his face and to distract people from his deeply inset eyes (due to a physiological disorder that I can't remember the name of at this moment).

Grace Bedell, an 11 year old at the time, convinced Lincoln to grow his beard.

Apr 15, 2008 0:28:27 GMT -5 Mahnarch said:

The first 'motorcycle' was built in 1889-ish territory and had only a single gas cylinder.

The inventor (Davidson or Harley, I don't remember which) assembled the bike and pushed it to the top of a hill near the edge of town.

The first gas powered motorcycle was made in 1885 by Daimler and Maybach. The first motorcycle, however, was made in 1867 by Sylvester Howard and powered by steam. The first motorcycle was available for purchase in 1894, 9 years before Harley and the Davidsons made their first attempt at a motorcycle.



In summary:

YOU LOSE, GOOD DAY SIR!

E: And now I sleep.

[jesusaurus]

[Jersey]

Mahnarch, I'm well known in my family for having an excellent memory. I can easily remember a whole bunch of events from when I was a little kid.