Changes on the Farm

My sister posted this on Facebook, and I just have to share it. The barn was a place of exploration for me as far back as I can remember. It will be very different to go home and not have it there anymore. Granted I am very emotional this pregnancy, reading this brought me to tears. Its a part of my childhood memories that my children will not recall or experience. It always makes me sad to see history come down. I understand the reasons, as it has become a safety hazard - its been propped up on the side by 4 x 4s for some time. Its just another part of the world moving forward.



I came home tonight to find my dad sitting in the recliner. Which is not unusual after a long day of working, especially lately with all the projects going on around our house. He called me over and asked me to read something.
This is what he had written:

Recently we have begun the task of tearing down a barn on our farm that dates back well into the 1800’s to make room for a modern farm shop that our current farm operation is in desperate need of. With that task has come a flood of memories of a childhood spent within the confines of one of these grand structures. It would be fair to assume that most any farm kid born on any kind of a livestock farm before the 1970’s would also have spent a significant portion of their youth in a barn.

This place which was only a few yards from the house could transport a young man to a world only limited by his imagination. It was a place where a work ethic was learned that could not be attained by any “town kid”. Yes they came to help buck bales up to the hay mow in the heat of summer, but they were not around the rest of the year to clean out of the barn the results of the feedstuffs and bedding that went into the mow. The responsibilities learned when your life span is still measured in single digits can be replaced in precious few other settings. Having a cow to milk by hand 2 times a day every day at the age of 6 is something not forgotten.

It was a place where heartache and rejoice were often experienced, sometimes within minutes of one another. The satisfaction of the birth of a litter of 12 nice pigs could quickly be offset by the loss of your best sow overcome by heat during farrowing. A beautiful Guernsey cow giving birth to a healthy calf and then being hit with a case of mastitis. A young man could experience the satisfaction of feeding a steer to finished weight to take to the fair, and then realize that the steer to which he had given so much effort and attention would not be coming back to the barn after the livestock auction.

Even when we were not “building character” it was the place we went to play. The forts and rooms we could build out of straw bales were enjoyed by us farm kids as well as our cousins from another state. It seemed to be their choice of playtime activity when they came to visit. It never crossed our minds that there were many places cooler than a hay mow to play.

Somehow it doesn’t seem feasible to expect a building that we will construct today using modern construction methods to still be standing 120 years from now. We will fuss about engineering a new building for snow load and wind load specs, while this one constructed in the post civil war era still stands, however worn, sitting on boulders with its hand hewn mortise and tenon timbers held together by wooden pins. The wind was rattling the siding boards today, but the timbers 35 feet in the air are still imposing. The men and their families who built these structures were people to admire, and they did not have the mechanical means available to me.
To even consider the changes this structure has witnessed would take some time. Just during my 53 years, as a child I sat on the seat of an 8N ford tractor dreaming of tractor pulls, I could not have imagined GPS, auto steer, 24 row planters, 12 row combines, 4 wheel drive tractors, and 1000 bu grain carts that have led to the demise of this type of structure.

It seems each board reminds of an event or story of what was done here or there. My children have been reveled in stories of Grandpa Mellert and how things were done back in the day. My father at 83 years of age and a farming career that has spanned 64 years, has been here helping. Although he has firsthand knowledge of almost every nook and cranny in this barn, there are a few items even he has not seen used or has hung on the same peg since he began farming for his grandfather here. I can only hope that I will give the attention to each board and each timber that it deserves before a decision is made to burn or save for another use. As a living tree these timbers were probably alive at the time of the American Revolution and George Washington.

What is most amazing right now is the introspection that is occurring: am I doing the right thing for the generations to come? Although “The Barn” has been an eyesore for several years, it’s role as a tool of learning will not soon be forgotten.
-Dennis Smith