My name is Jon Radojkovic and I am an author, timber frame builder, journalist, photographer and farmer. I didn't start out 30 years ago to be all these things, but by homesteading in Ontario, Canada with my wife and three kids, I was drawn out in all sorts of practical ways-- such as fixing the tractor in a snowstorm so that I could blow the snow out of our driveway, or getting a job at the local newspaper to help with the bills.
First things come first so I began in 1984 by building a timber frame house for my family from the trees on our farm. I learned a lot by doing that, using mostly hand tools (like the original timber frame builders) as we didn't have electricity for the first 10 years we were here. After building my workshop and then home I began constructing these structures professionally for customers-- some were residential houses, others workshops or cabins and some were barns. I got more and more interested in the old barns that dot my landscape, as all of them were of the post and beam or timber frame design. Incredible buildings, some with 60 foot 12 inch by 14 inch timbers, which led me to writing my first book in 2001 Barns of the Queens Bush, published by Brucedale Press.
Meanwhile during the early 90's, I got interested in local politics, and having a degree in urban planning and writing came in useful for the first time as it helped get me a job as a freelance reporter with the Owen Sound Sun Times, our local daily newspaper. I also wrote for other weeklies in the area, and now have an agricultural column with the Hanover Post. (Some of those are under ARTICLES) There are so many issues concerning farming, but perhaps the most fundamental is that farmers are not getting their fair share of the money pie.
In 2007 my second book on barns was published - Barn Building: The Golden Age of Barn Construction by Boston Mills Press. This time I looked at historic barns in Ontario, Quebec and seven north eastern States. I photographed and wrote stories about these amazing structures, travelling thousands of miles to find and record them. (See BOOKS).
I'm still building post and beam structures, inspecting barns and fixing them and looking at another book in the near future. It will be on timber frame structures, of course, but this time I hope to explore the amazing traditional building techniques in south Asia.
