2007 Year in Review

THE OLD MAN AND THE OLD BARN

Many of you know that I have an interest in barns. They tell us much about the history of when this was a true farming community. They are rapidly disappearing from the scene.

Morrison’s Heritage Museum has one of the largest collections of barn pictures to be found in this area. We have over 500! The Morrison Historical Society plans to have a barn exhibit later this fall. So, if you are interested in barns, be sure to watch for it. I wrote a little story that I would like to share with you this month about the evolution of the big, red barn.

The old man had known the old barn all of his life. He was not the first in the family to have unhooked the door latch and walked into its hallways. Three generations before him had made the old barn part of their lives, as had two generations since.

The old barn had stalls for ten horses. There were blacks, dapple grays, sorrels with white manes and tails, and blue and strawberry roans. They all left when the colors became John Deere green, Farmall red, and Allis Chalmers orange.

One stall was kept for the saddle horse, but that soon went because of old age (the rider’s age, not the horse’s.) The barn had stanchions for twenty dairy cows. The milk was carried to the milk house in cans and chilled by the cool liquid of the water tank.

Farming methods kept changing, and soon, twenty more stanchions were added. A new milk house was attached to the barn to hold the new bulk (storage) tank. The old silos were gone, replaced by cement ones with mechanized unloaders.

But again, old age, mechanization, and “progress” meant that the cows would go the way of the horses. Progress would mean that the barn would stand empty and silent in its old age.

There was no livestock to feed. Braced and supported by those big, wooden beams held together by wooden pegs, the big hay mows would no longer see the work and sweat involved in filling those mows with hay. Just a couple of cats, an occasional raccoon, and a family of possum roam the empty structure today.

The old man stands by the old barn and knows that, with a little luck, the old barn will last longer than he. As long as the foundation stays solid, the roof doesn’t leak, and someone nails a loose board on occasion, the old barn will stand just as it has for one hundred years. They look around the countryside. The old man and the old barn know that someday the barn will have to go the way of most old barns.

How long can you let something stand unused? Probably the lumber will be used for making bird houses, picture frames, or the wall of a family room in someone’s country home. Or, maybe it will be used just for a bonfire. I suppose that is progress!

by Orville Goodenough, Guest Columnist
July 23, 2007