Many of you reading this will never have been to rural America. What does that say about a population which never leaves the inner city? It is because of this most of you have no concept of food or where it comes from.
Traditionally, if it had to do with livestock, it involved a barn. Not all that long ago, the only way for a farmer to get a barn built was to be well liked by the neighbors. Some time after planting, usually before bean walking, but could be as late as just before harvest, great stocks of food and beverage not to mention a wagon train of lumber would arrive at a farm. That farmer would invite all his neighbors to a barn raising.
Take a good look at that image. They didn’t have cranes and power tools. That lumber was carted and placed by hand. Once enough of the frame was up they could use something as high tech as a block and tackle to lift more, faster. With enough neighbors a barn could go up in a weekend. Really fancy barns had fieldstone or hand mixed concrete floors.
For lack of a better name, hillside barns were cherished by many a rural community. I call them a hillside barn because they are built into the side of a hill or small rise in the earth. They were cherished by rural communities because that second, or middle story had a solid wood floor. The place could be cleaned out for wedding (barn) dances. Laugh all you want, it is true.We didn’t and still don’t have big fancy halls. You have to go to a city for that. Barn weddings are now a growing trend. Some places are even completely refurbished just to host weddings, even in the God forsaken state of New Jersey.
I haven’t been into this particular barn, but, I’ve been into barns like it. Hopefully you can see that tiny square door near the top center of that lean-to piece. The bar would have had a small hay mow there and their “should” be another door on the side facing away which allows access to the hay mow that “should” be in the space where that line is over to the security light.
Barn raising parties eventually followed by barn painting parties. Someone had to climb all the way up to that roof ridge and begin painting, continuing all the way to the ground. You have to paint a wood barn to keep the wood from rotting. Besides, they look much nicer painted.
Eventually it got to be too much hassle to keep a hundred foot ladder around just so you could paint the barn. Many barns started getting asbestos (or other) shingles on the sides. Of course, when these things started coming off, it looked really sad. Much worse than something which just needs a coat of paint. Most of the siding choices didn’t hold up well to hail. You either got used to a sad looking barn or you needed the ladder more and more.
Most family farms started getting out of the livestock business decades ago when the economy made it nearly impossible for a small family farm to remain in operation without a “city job” to support it. Besides, once the kids went off to school there wasn’t anyone around to do all of those chores. One by one those beautiful gable roofed barns fell into disuse and disrepair. That particular barn with shingles missing is the one which used to be on my farm. It’s gone now. We had to tear it down to build a machine shed.
Today it is really hard to know must by looking at it that a barn is a barn. If you don’t see the livestock out and about, they look just like a short machine shed. On the plus side, painting them is much easier. In fact I just helped my brother paint this one. It was really hot this weekend so we worked two mornings until lunch time. We also didn’t use any ladders. You can reach a lot from the ground using extension rollers. The triangle above the canon ball track for the door I did from my bucket truck.
Yeah, I’ve written about my bucket truck before. If not on this blog then my geek blog. It’s not that I enjoy painting buildings in the hot sun. Just the fact they seem to disgust me long before the rest of my family and I don’t climb ladders anymore.
