By Tere Dunlap
tdunlap@ themonroetimes.com
MONROE - Ken Schlapbach's mother, Helen, insisted their barn receive at good coat of paint in 1997, just before the family hosted the Green County Breakfast on the Farm at their farm near Albany.
The barn was destroyed Wednesday night by the high winds that battered the area.
Schlapbach was keeping an eye on the wind storm and his cattle that evening near his home on County F and Wis. 59. But at about 8: 30 p.m., when he looked out toward his still brightly-painted barn a quarter mile away, it was already gone.
"It was a nasty straight line of winds," Schlapbach said. "Those can be nasty in their own right."
Even seeing it from a distance, he knew the damage was bad.
"The wind tore the roof off, and it pulled everything with it," he said.
The old barn was built perhaps in the 1940s, Schlapbach said, and was there when his father bought the farm in 1967. Schlapbach was a teen-ager at the time.
"Actually it was not in the best of shape (anymore)," Schlapbach said, but, still, he was using it for storage.
Schlapbach is considering selling the remains of the barn for rustic lumber.
"There's not much (else) you can do with it," he added.
tdunlap@ themonroetimes.com
MONROE - Ken Schlapbach's mother, Helen, insisted their barn receive at good coat of paint in 1997, just before the family hosted the Green County Breakfast on the Farm at their farm near Albany.
The barn was destroyed Wednesday night by the high winds that battered the area.
Schlapbach was keeping an eye on the wind storm and his cattle that evening near his home on County F and Wis. 59. But at about 8: 30 p.m., when he looked out toward his still brightly-painted barn a quarter mile away, it was already gone.
"It was a nasty straight line of winds," Schlapbach said. "Those can be nasty in their own right."
Even seeing it from a distance, he knew the damage was bad.
"The wind tore the roof off, and it pulled everything with it," he said.
The old barn was built perhaps in the 1940s, Schlapbach said, and was there when his father bought the farm in 1967. Schlapbach was a teen-ager at the time.
"Actually it was not in the best of shape (anymore)," Schlapbach said, but, still, he was using it for storage.
Schlapbach is considering selling the remains of the barn for rustic lumber.
"There's not much (else) you can do with it," he added.