Not much will stop checking. The good news is that after a certain point, they don't do much more. The (well, not bad, more like interesting) news is that they can make some really intimidating noises about 2/3 of the way through the process. When I had my big barn built, there came a day in mid-March when the structure made several loud cracking noises and I thouight the whole think was coming down. I got the animals out of there and we all spent the day in the dooryard, waiting for something to happen. Fortunately a friend came by, late in the day and explained the nature of things, so I didn't have the spend the night out there too. I put them all back in and went and tapped the bottle of Bushmills (that's what it's there for).

Score - unimpressed animals - megapoints
- my exhausted self - minus numbers.

Another option - Down the road, if you don't like the look the beams develop, it's really pretty easy and not horiffically expensive to box them in. There are all sorts of looks and materials available no, too.

ps. a year isn't enough to be quite finished with the major portion of the checking, but don't let anyone tell you that just because they check, they should be replaced - not so.