Wednesday, August 27, 2014

BARNS - Just off the Road



Barns are personal.  Rather like people in some ways.  Having grown up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, I can relate.  Our barn was strong and sturdy, well-maintained, and painted an unassuming barn-red.  When I think of it, that barn was a great representation of the man who owned it, my dad.

As I drive around our new home in Sequim, WA, I see a wide variety of barns and it makes me wonder about the people they represent.  Just down the road from our house is a particularly dilapidated barn. 

 I can see the sky through the missing roof, the breeze blows through the walls, and there are weeds everywhere.  There’s also a No Trespassing sign posted, so we can’t walk near it.  Perhaps the owner was a private guy.  He might have enjoyed star-gazing, so the holes in the roof were purposeful.  Or maybe he just got tired, and chose not to farm anymore.  Either way, the barn is beautiful in its own way, and it must be full of wonderful stories.
Another barn is, how shall I say, meticulous!  It’s neat as a pin, landscaped, (who ever heard of a landscaped barn?) and appears to be without a single loose board.  It seems that this farmer might be gentlemanly, or perhaps he has a wife who loves to decorate.  I wonder if there’s anything in there that is barn-like, dirty, smelly, or maybe there are flower pots and seed packets.

BIG is the word for the next barn on my list.  When I was growing up, the size and appearance of a man’s barn said a lot about him as a farmer, a success, and an example.  If the adage that big is boss still holds true, this barn is truly the boss of barns in Clallam County.  Its owner must love to do things in an over-the-top way, or perhaps he just has a lot of cows to feed.  Maybe he collects tractors (Oh, what I’d give to drive a Farmall H again!).  At any rate, he’ll never have trouble finding his way home on a cloudy night.

There’s a structure on my list that barely qualifies as barn-like, but it’s lovingly tended and speaks volumes about its farmer.  Maybe this barn was built because someone had a dream when he was a little boy.  He played with toy farm sets, plowed imaginary fields, and just knew that someday he’d drive those huge machines down the road, feeling all grownup and important.  Dreams sometimes need downsizing, but this barn tells me that once dreamed, they can come true.

1 comment:

  1. Hello, I was hoping to use the picture of the large barn of Kitchen-Dick Road in a report about Clallam County demographics. Please let me know if this will be okay, and to whom I should give credit if it is. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete