The Farm:

Our Showstopper: 1940s Renovated Dairy Barn

Every season brings something magical at Tailwind. We love hearing owls and coyotes yip, and the we mark the spring by the return of sandhill cranes who frequent our pond. There is plenty of natural beauty to soak up.

Visitors and strangers often comment, “Oh, you have a nice place here!” or “Wow, what a beautiful property!” We take pride in that and, of course, agree with them. The place had us swooning at first glance. We were fortunate the house had reminded in one family, until the previous owners who purchased it and lived here for 12 years. The previous owners were fastidious caretakers, tastefully updating our 1931 farmhouse and also caring for the various outbuildings. It’s uncommon to find an “original” homestead with its pump house, corn crib, granary and henhouse. While most everything was turn key ready, the barn had been neglected. We were loosing shingles on it due to a combination of poor installation and high winds. We were faced with the decision about whether to salvage the barn or watch it die a slow painful death. We have an affinity for old things, especially old barns (after all, we were married in one in 2014). The aesthetic value of the barn was enough for us to invest in a facelift, but the more we talked about the barn, the more we saw potential to share its history and magic with others.

In her day, hay piled floor to ceiling to overwinter the animals that lived here. This was a working farm where cows gnawed teeth marks on stantion walls while they were being milked. Through many, many layers of dust, cobwebs, and 50-year-old hay we saw high ceilings, sturdy hardwood and evening light dancing in the windows.

Through literal blood, sweat, tears and a lot of our savings we’ve given this ol’ girl a new getup since early 2022. We hired a crew of Amish to reroof the barn. They worked acrobatically and tranformed the roof in less than a week. Then Adam’s family came for a weekend of power-washing and Adam singled-handedly repainted the entire outside in just another 72 hours. We replaced old windows with broken panes with new ones from Recycled Products Co. in Monticello, IA. The outside was looking like new in summer 2022, but it was time to revamp the inside.

We made a conscious decision to source as many items for the barn second hand for aesthetic, financial and environmental reasons. She has a new floor, which Adam laid over the course of winter 2022. The floor is actually bleacher boards from Winona State University are, weathered in spots from years of butts and some boards had A.B.C. gum on them. Adam and his dad build a 6ft wide staircase and we fashioned a railing. On a whim, Flannery bought two beautiful radial windows that legend has it once installed in the Decorah Post Office (now the Public Library). They sat in our shed for the better part of 6 months, until we finally decided they needed a permanent home. We were a bit overwhelmed about the installation, but after researching we decided to tackle the process ourselves. They fit perfectly between the main support side beams on the west wall and immediately changed the vibe of the place and allowed soft evening light in.

The Grounds

We own 27 acres, five of which are the original homestead, lush lawn, a veggie garden, rows of colorful flowers, and charming original outbuildings such as a pump house, corn crib, hen house, and granary. Surrounding the homestead includes acres of riparian CRP, open hayfields, and a shallow water excavation site (aka pond). We frequently are visited by deer, rabbits, pheasants, sand hill cranes, blue heron, muskrat, turtles, and frogs. Guests are invited to stroll the property and venture onto the mowed paths in the hayfield.