Old Barns

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Today I am grateful for old barns. Although it’s much hillier than my original state of Wisconsin, the barns that grow across the countryside make both places feel like home.

For years we’ve driven around both states and counted monstrous blue silos to determine how big, or small a farm was. When I was a kid, I thought my grandpa’s farm was huge. As an adult, when I figured he maybe had 12 or 14 cows at a time, a pig pen that didn’t always have pigs, a tiny chicken coop, a milk-house with the coldest fresh natural spring water, a granary with big beetles and only one concrete silo, I realized how small it was. There we so many lucrative farmers back then because they could all make a wonderful living. It was and is a 24/7, never-ending job that I’m glad someone else does. I couldn’t take the schedule. Animals need to be tended and cows need to be milked whether you have the flu or not. There are no “sick days” or “personal days”. Grueling.

Now, it seems that unless you have huge co-op or some kind of backing from meat packing or canning company, you can’t survive on a farm. Sad. Blue metal silos and modern barns smatter the countryside like dandelions in spring. But I prefer the old structures, with newer sections added on like arms growing out of a cactus in Arizona and worn clapboards that need paint. Old barns have stories to tell and I like a good story.

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