Does Your Barn Have a Lightening Rod?
Originally the Ontario Barn Preservation newsletter, June 2024.
Dear Members,
I've been thinking about the trees which barns were made from, originally. There were huge trees long ago. I wonder if people now can even imagine the size of the trees in early Ontario history. Jim Campbell and the others at the first Tenon Talks were talking about the size of trees used to make barns a hundred, and more, years ago. Jim said most of the barns in his area were made from pine trees.
Online, I found the Ontario Tree Atlas Project, from the University of Guelph. They created a pdf file, a science survey of Ontario's tree species. Here is a link to read it online, or download it.
Also useful is the Ontario Government's Tree Atlas, online.
Coming up to road trip season you might like to find places to visit from an Ontario travel blog by Stephanie, The World as I See It.
Does your barn have a lightening rod?
I like practical heritage things like lightening rods. But, I wondered how practical they really are. In order to be legitimate, they need to be grounded. This means a copper or aluminum line runs from the lightening rod on the barn roof (house or other building) down the side and is then buried in the ground attached to a metal rod, called a grounding rod. The idea is for lightening to be directed down the the earth to dissipate safely in the ground. A large building, like a barn, may have bonding connectors linking the rods. So, its an old fashioned surge protector.
How many lightening rods still around are actually grounded? Not all of them I'm sure. Nothing wrong with a pretty, decorative lightening rod... except that an insurance company might want a functional lightening rod before insuring a barn.
This question came up in email recently. The contractor said the barn could not be insured without a lightening rod. That brought up the question of how effective a lightening rod is at preventing lightening strikes and possible barn fires. The consensus at OBP was, not much. Some even thought a lightening rod could cause more lightening to hit a barn.
In the end, I think a lightening rod is still pretty decorative and a little touch of history for a barn, but it doesn't have a real, practical use. Which is a little disappointing but, I'll get over it.
Laura
Highlights from the monthly Directors meeting...
New barn related words: silage, hay harpoon, and hay hole. My brother and his friends would have loved to know a phrase like hay hole not so many years ago. Now he's too old and serious for those kind of things. (Most of the time, I know he'll still laugh about it).
At least twice now the subject of heritage designation has been brought up. Some barn owners are concerned that we will be pushing, or are affiliated with, heritage designations for their barns. We are not. It may be useful for some barn owners to look into, but we don't especially support or have influence about heritage designations. If you have concerns please ask us.
Heidi, our Regional Representative for most of Northern Ontario has left. I hope she will come back when she feels she has more time. If you know, or you yourself, would be interested in becoming a Regional Representative please let us know. It'd be glad to find someone else in Northern Ontario because we don't hear very much about barns and rural history from the north.
In case you missed it!
I posted about heritage apple trees in Ontario to our social media accounts. If you missed it, here's the post.
Are you curious about heritage apples in Ontario? I see them growing along the roadside, unpicked or cared for all over Ontario when we go on road trips, visiting and so on. My Mother and Grandparents talk about the apples they used to have for making pies and wonder where they could still find those now. They don't see them sold in farmer's markets and certainly not in stores any more.
I found a few good links and then this book, by Sher Leetooze, "Identifying Heritage Apples Across Ontario".
Orchard People The Kitchen Orchard The Ontario Heritage and Feral Apple Project
Pick some wild apples this year. You could even try planting some of the old trees seldom seen any more. Give them a chance to get a new start and have apples close at hand when you get into pie making mode.
See also, a CBC link: Set in Stone: Ontario man turns the clock back at ancestral farm
I have also posted to our social media about dry stone walling/ fencing. A skill I have admired and even tried a few times in a small way. I'm sure it would be useful if you were making Inukshuks.
Dry Stone Walling Across Canada
Screen capture from https://sdstone.ca/why-drystone
One Last Thing...
I cross posted this wonderful photo from Facebook today.