Grandpa’s Barn

 

My granddad’s barn was like so many others in Pennsylvania built on a sloping hillside where one side of the barn’s foundation was partly underground and the other open to the air. The underground side had a graduated ramp that allowed easy access to the second story barn floor. The part of the barn not underground allowed doors to be built giving farm animals’ ingress to their stalls and mangers. There often was a large covered area that ran the length of the barn giving the animals shelter from cold wet weather. The second floor consisted of a wide main floor giving farmers a place to store wagons or tractors. At each side of the main floor were large areas that were used to store mounds of loose hay and  when balers were available, it was space for the bales. That central area had a floor above it for storage.

At one corner was a small square room to keep corn and feed safe from rats, birds, and mice. It was solidly built of wood and covered in a wire mesh as a barrier to rodents and birds from gaining access to the grains inside. The entire barn’s skeleton was made of huge beams fastened by wooden pegs in tennon and socket joints.

Granddad always had two milk cows. He preferred Guernsey’s, saying that their milk was richer and filled with cream. He raised a bull for butchering in the fall, usually a short-horned Herford.  He had several pigs, raised for their meat.

At one time when I was small, he had two horses; one was a black stallion, named Blackie (, that allowed no one near but my granddad and one stupid kid. I was told that I was that stupid kid. I toddled out of the house to where my granddad had the horse tied. I was standing under its belly trying to pet it. My mom and grandma went to get my granddad, they were afraid I’d get trampled if they approached. My granddad rescued me. I was too young enough not to remember the story my mom told me. The other horse was an older workhorse named Pet. Granddad would sometimes hoist several kids onto her back and walk the horse to give us rides. Pet was gentle and followed my granddad around like a dog.

My uncles Charles and Dale decided to work on Charles’ car in the barn. The overhead beams made a great place for pulleys to lift the motor. It was an older Buick; wide and heavy. Charles backed it inside. The main section of the barn floor groaned under the weight, then in one loud crash, the floor collapsed’ It remained intact and the Buick was partly in the bottom of the barn; the back end down and the front end up. Fortunately, it made a ramp. They were able to pull the car out of the hole. Later they lifted the barn floor back into place and secured it more strongly than before. 

The outside of the barn as long was weathered gray, while the inside was honey to a bleached bone hue. Its beauty was enhanced by rays of sunshine slipping through open spaces in the barn’s siding.

Little can beat the smell of fresh hay stored in a barn. The smells of animals below sometimes add a sharp tang to the smells of the hay and feed. It’s almost perfume to a person who grew up on or has worked on a farm.