Silo pg 1 7-26-12
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- Category: Past Issues
caption, page 1:
Dedication
George Looby stands in front of the small audience at the dedication of the Unadilla silo. Attendees sat in the Brunn Barn for the dedication and the silo, moved alongside the barn last fall, is a backdrop to Looby. More photos on page 6. Linda Lemmon photo.
captions, page 6, clockwise from upper left: Bob and Myra Anderson, left, listen as George Looby talks about the silo the Andersons allowed to be moved to the Woodstock Fairgrounds from their farm on Joy Road, Woodstock.
Glenn Pianka of Olde New England Building & Salvage of Lebanon describes the "challenges" of moving the silo last fall.
The silo is sidles in next to the Brunn Barn at the Woodstock Fairgrounds.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
WOODSTOCK --- No muss, no fuss --- that's the traditional rural New England way the Unadilla silo moved to its new home alongside the Brunn Barn on the Woodstock Fairgrounds and that's how the silo's "formal" dedication was handled last week.
The silo was purchased in 1920 by Vilhelm and Sarah Pedersen at Sunny Acres farm off Joy Road. Dennis Pedersen said he remembers all the time he spent in the silo shoveling it out. "My parents would be real pleased to know people can now see it," he told those attending the dedication.
The farm was purchased by Myra and Bob Anderson in 1969, but they never used the silo. George Looby of the Brunn Barn Committee, told those gathered the committee "working at glacial speed," had the notion of acquiring a silo for the last 12 years. "It's a fixture on almost every dairy farm," he said. The Andersons were very supportive and last October, in an all-day production, the silo was braced from inside, turned on its side, loaded onto a flatbed trailer and pulled, appropriately enough, by a tractor driven by Sab Spalding "with no muss, no fuss," Looby said.
Chairman Harold Foskett said the silo joins the Brunn Barn, which was moved to the Woodstock Fairgrounds years ago. It's another piece of the committee's eventual goal to create a "farm museum" of sorts. Next on the agenda would be a combination chicken coop/library. Many of the implements and tools in the Brunn Barn are donated. Looby thanked those volunteers who donated their time and efforts to get the silo moved including contractors, riggers, masons and other volunteers.
Glenn S. Pianka of Olde New England Building and Salvage in Lebanon was in charge of the move. He's dismantled and moved 137 old structures but realized that the silo was too fragile to be dismantled, he said. The silo had sideways nails and would have been "destroyed" if fit had been dismantled. The structure was shored up instead and then the challenge began. "I always liked a challenge," he added. A tractor pulling a silo down the road seemed like a normal occurrence and "it was a beautiful thing when it was going up," he added. He marveled at the community coming together to make the project work. Looby called Pianka a "magician."
Bob Anderson said "today's young people could learn a good lesson from what this represents."