So for the last few weeks of December, Kit and his dad worked on getting stanchions built in the new dairy barn. We don't have the barn finished on the outside, but with the winter weather we figured we could do some of the inside work under cover.

The first step was to hew 8x8 Douglas fir beams for the upright supports of the stanchion. Next, some head scratching and careful measurments resulted in . . .

Some funny looking notches cut and chiseled into the upright supports.

But once seen upright and in position the funny notches looked more serviceable.

Top and bottom boards in. These will hold the head catch system in place. Pretty sure I can probably put the wildest cow I want in there and they won't be pulling this thing down!

The cool slam latch system Kit built for the stanchions.

In place on the stanchion.

Kit cut a steel plate, drilled a hole, and chiseled the head catch pole to fit. This will prevent the wood from being torn up by the latch.

And on the bottom some fancy washers and threaded bolt covers take the place of nuts.

And the whole picture assembled, didn't notice until now we still don't have the cover on that other top bolt, oh well, you get the idea.

I don't have pictures of the stanchions being assembled, but here they are ready for use. There are four stanchions.

As the barn is not finished yet, I am still hauling buckets of hot water from the house to clean our milking machine. Eventually the CIP (clean in place) gadget you see hanging on the stanchion will be located in the kitchen part of the barn, but for now it works good here because it is close to the vaccuum pump that runs it.

Not a great shot of the feeders but it was starting to get dark and I was having to use my flash.

The hand-hewn barn is finally occupied. Excuse the dirty cows, it's muddy here and they weren't washed yet. Eventually we will milk two cows at a time right where they are. But I have to get a new lid for my bucket for that and we need to get some tubing to extend the range of my vacuum pump.

At the same time Kit fashioned a heavy duty ladder for access to the hayloft. This was made from some leftover hewn beams from the barn project.

Here it is all assembled. He used some leftover 2x material for the steps.

Now I get to milk in this awesome looking barn!