By LENORE RUTHERFORD

The Union Democrat

This week the U.S. Forest Service had to revise plans for the historic Fahey Barn.

Ten volunteers with the agency's Passport in Time volunteer program started work thinking they would spend two weeks restoring the old barn to its heyday condition.

However, it was decided Tuesday morning the barn was too far gone to completely restore it without endangering the workers.

"I feel so much better," said retired U.S. Forest Service Engineer Tony Beke, of Salmon, Idaho, who recommended the change. "I didn't sleep the last three nights worrying that it would fall on somebody."

"He's our brains behind the project," said Mi-Wok Ranger District Archaeologist Stacy Lundgren. "He engineered the 2005 project to restore the cabin while he was still working for the Forest Service."

Beke said if it hadn't been for bracing that was done to the barn in 2005, it would have fallen to the ground by now.

He said the volunteers are stabilizing the barn this week, meaning they are creating a whole framework inside the barn that will take all the weight off the original building. They are also patching the roof and doing cosmetic work to the exterior, including siding and doors. It won't be open to the public because of all the framework inside.

That work will take one week instead of two, Beke said. He contracted with the Forest Service to come out of retirement for the project.

Steve Arionus, of Black Diamond, Wash., is one of 10 volunteers working on it. He worked on the cabin in 2005, and has done several other projects on the Stanislaus Forest as a Passport in Time volunteer.

Arionus has been a Passport in Time volunteer for five years, working in Washington, Idaho, California and Montana. He has worked on four projects so far this year and has two more to do.

"I really like doing this," he said, "and I meet really neat people from all over. Some of them I see over and over again on different projects."

He retired seven years ago from the construction industry.

Passport in Time is in its 10th year, using volunteers to help preserve historic and archaeological sites. The volunteers do such things are manual labor, carpentry, engineering, surveying, archiving and scanning old photos.

"The volunteers are wonderful," Lundgren said. "This program has been so successful for us, the Bureau of Land Management is starting its own Passport in Time program."

Volunteer Carrie Ashe, of Tuolumne, and Forest Service archaeologist crew member Sammy Joaquin, of Sonora, said they had just spent four hours shoveling out a lean-to, and had become good friends in the process.

"You get to know each other really fast doing something like this," Ashe said.

She is a stay-at-home mother. Both women are working on their archaeological degrees.

Kathy Strain, head archaeologist for the Stanislaus National Forest, said the work being done this week should save the building for at least another 50 years.

"We have to make the best decisions we can for the building and the safety of the public," she said. "Maybe in the next 50 years, we will get an influx of money to save the building even longer."

The historic cabin and barn, about five miles east of Long Barn on U.S. Forest Service Road 3NO1, were built in the 1880s by Michael Fahey, who grazed cattle there during the summer. It has been vacant since the 1970s.

Contact Lenore Rutherford at lrutherford@uniondemocrat.com or 588-4529.