By Virginia Dean, Standard Correspondent
POMFRET — Something is missing along this scenic route that leads to Barnard and beyond, something that was around for over 40 years and stood as a towering signature for not only most traditional dairy farms but one in particular.
The Fox Valley Farm, owned by Jim Lewis, recently lost one of its wooden stave silos that had been leaning precariously for a number of years. Like a lighthouse marking the shoreline, it had become an endearing landmark for most travelers along Route 12, particularly as it became more and more angulated.
“A lot of people stopped this summer to take its picture,” said Jim. “I’d say over a hundred. It seemed like every day someone would pull up their car and get out. It’s nothing to brag about — it was just leaning.”
Making the decision to pull down the 18-by-40-foot structure about two weeks ago, Jim – along with sons Scott and Jeff and grandson, Adam — related that the fear of it falling spurred the family members to act. But the task was not as easy as it might have appeared.
“They tried a couple of times to get it to go down,” said Anna Lewis, Jeff’s wife. “They took some slats out and then tried to push it over but that didn’t work. So they then decided to pull it. Jeff lifted Scott up into the bucket on the tractor, and Scott hooked some chains to the iron bars that went around the silo. Then Jeff began to pull. It started to move but they thought that it would go the wrong way.”
Unwaveringly, the two men kept pulling, and finally the 40-yearold, Southern hard white pine silo fell nearly to the spot where they planned.
“It does look different,” said Adam who took a video of the event. “We’re not used to it yet, but in the long run, it will help us out.”
With the silo gone, the large square barn door that sat behind it is now exposed.
“Now we can put round bales into it and they’ll land right in front of the cows,” said Adam. “We’ll be catching up with the times and changing from square to round bales this year. That means we’ll go from making 16,000 square bales to roughly 5-600 a year.”
With a total herd of 130 Jerseys and Holstein, 60 of which are milked, the Fox Valley Farm has been around since the turn of the 20th century when Jim Lewis’s grandfather, Robin J., built the house and barn. There, Lewis’s father, Ora Cobb, also lived and raised his children. Now, Jim has brought up his own children and grandchildren there.
An addition to the original 1910 section of the barn was added in the late sixties, Adam related.
“That original part is held up by 8-by-8 beams on the top and wooden pegs that hold it together,” he said.
Of the two silos that accompanied the newer portion of the barn, one was built in the mid-’80s and the other, 10 years earlier. This was some 100 years after the first modern silo, an upright wooden one filled with grain, was invented and built by Fred Hatch of McHenry County, Illinois.
Used to store grain or fermented feed known as silage, the original wooden type did not have the lasting power of its galvanized metal or cement counterparts, according to the Lewis’s neighbor and cousin, Paul Doton.
“Losing the Lewises’ silo wasn’t surprising,” said Doton, who also owns a nearby dairy farm in Barnard. “You have to think of all the juices that result from that fermentation. Those will begin to rot the wood over time.”
So, even with a conventional concrete base and intermeshed metal hoops tightened directly across stave edges, the Lewis silo could not only stand up to its own internal ingredients, labor intensive upkeep, and environmental factors but also to eventual non-use.
“Three years ago, we contracted with Spring Brook Farm in Reading,” said Scott. “The farm makes cheese and, because of the specific kind, we couldn’t use fermented feed for our cows. So, we stopped using the silo altogether.”
As a result, the hoops — whose purpose is to hold the silo together — began to loosen and needed to be adjusted periodically. Although inexpensive and relatively easy to build, the wooden walls were difficult to make airtight which also promoted decay. Leaks and silage losses required constant maintenance. Worse yet, the bottom began to rot.
“We’d been thinking of pulling it down for quite a while,” said Jim. “We knew we should be getting on the ball and getting it back in shape. We’d have to get inside the silo and push it out and tighten up the hoops.”
It took about five minutes for the silo to be razed and, after it was, cars began to stop and line up alongside the road to look at the empty space that once held what many considered a timeless and valued feature of the Lewis landscape.
“All its materials have been sold,” said Jim. “Some have bought the best of the wood, and a man from Lyme, New Hampshire, purchased the top. The rest we’ll cut up for scrap metal that will be used somehow.”
This article first appeared in the October 6, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.