Dave Nieuwsma and his wife, Sandy, hail from Sigourney, Iowa. At the 2014 National Farm Toy Show in Dyersville, Dave competed in the farm layout large-scale competition with an entry based on the farm where he grew up. The display took him around 1,000 hours over a five-year period.

“I lived there until I was about 15,” he said. “The buildings are like those on the farm with a few modifications, and the scale is around 1/16. My interest in farm buildings began as a young boy. While visiting a neighboring family, I spotted a small wooden barn on their back porch. It was just the right size for a toy tractor and small farm animals.

“My first attempt at making a farm building was a cardboard box. I used a kitchen knife to cut some doors and windows. I had a few small horses, and I also cut out a few pictures of animals to complete my farm.”

Dave has come a long way since his cardboard box, with this sentimental project that includes an amazing barn, chicken house, hog house, corncrib and shop/garage. This project is special not just because of the technical aspects of the farm, but because of the memories shared with each building. This display is a standing family history scrapbook.

“The buildings are handmade from scratch, from scrap wood I was able to obtain from my place of employment,” said Dave, who works at Pella Windows.

Framing and wood beams were ripped to size and siding boards were cut and planed for the wood siding. “The roof shingles were made from individually cut pieces of wood veneer. The roofs have viewing portals to reveal part of the framework and building contents. Bare wood in the structures has been ‘aged’ with various watered-down stencil paints. Most of the buildings have battery-powered lights installed to provide lighting.”

Keeping a farm running requires a place to work on equipment, and the garage/workshop is where this happened on Dave’s farm. “A few pictures and my memories of the building and its contents were my blueprints for this model. There was a workbench lined with all sorts of tools and projects; cans of oil were stockpiled for future use, and nearly every cross-brace became a place for a can of nails, bolts or spare parts. The welder sat proudly in the corner and had an extra-long cord so it could be rolled out to fix what it could.”

This shop and workbench were both scratch-built. “This building brings back fond memories,” he explained. “Here, my younger sister and I had our own ‘repair’ shop, where we oiled bicycle chains, pounded on anvils, turned wrenches and did anything else that looked like we were fixing stuff.

“And, when Dad retired from farming, this building served as a place for auction-goers to step in from the cold and get a hamburger or a piece of pie.”

Like many farms, Dave’s had a corncrib. It was his first wooden structure. “I have a few old farm toys, and I wanted this building to be the correct size for them. My ‘blueprints’ were mostly mental pictures of corncribs I’ve seen and been in over the years. It took me about 130 hours to complete this project because of its detail and the fact that I had to figure out several steps as I went.”

The corncrib design was modified to accommodate his Carter Tru-Scale elevator and includes a granary, handmade ladder and wheelbarrow.

Dave’s hog house began as a chicken house converted by his dad to farrow sows and keep small pigs when they were weaned: “I can remember watching Dad cut the boards with a circular saw, framing the pen dividers and bolting them together. On another occasion I remember asking Dad why there was no hay loft. I thought one would be nice so we wouldn’t have to haul straw from the big barn. 

The partial loft is a feature I added to this building.”

The barn, which dominated his farm scene, includes a dairy parlor with functioning wooden stanchions. 

“The Barn,” Dave explained, “was the most impressive of the farm buildings, towering above all the rest. When it was filled with hay you could easily get to the top and see out for a long distance.

“Countless hours could be spent in the loft making a hay fortress, exploring some secret hideaway or observing the livestock from an opening in the floor and throwing down some hay to see what would happen. The barn was a hub of activity during milking time. It was my job to fill a container of feed from the feed bin to give each cow a can full when she came in to be milked.

“The barn could also be a quiet place of solitude, where you could hide out and just think about stuff. You could get that safe feeling, perhaps not unlike what the livestock might have felt when they were bedded down with a fresh bed of straw.”

The barn includes a feed bin, horse stable, bunks and feeders and removable pen dividers with a hay mow viewable through the large door and the cutaway in the roof.

Like a true old-fashioned farm, Dave’s has a chicken house complete with a hinged roof to reveal the contents, which include handmade nesting boxes and a chick feeder and waterer. “What a great time it was when we went into town and picked up several boxes of the peeping poultry,” he reminisced. “We would haul them home and scoop them out gently into their new home. Feeders and waterers were on hand to supply the eager little eaters their nutritional needs.

“On occasion a few heat lamps were also necessary for extra warmth. Most of the chicks we bought were broilers for eating purposes; I lost interest in the cute little chicks when they grew into the homely stage with their budding combs and sprouting white feathers.”

Besides the outbuildings, the farmyard included artificial putting turf for grass, ballast for the rock driveway and several painted cement lots, surrounded by handmade wooden fences. Dave added, “Many of my favorite farm toys and farm animals complete the display.”

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.