The barns of North America are some of the most nostalgic places among all others throughout the heartland. All barns have a story to tell, and their insides share with us what has went on inside them for years. Like a hunter finds delight in looking at his environment to tell what his prey is doing, I find delight in meticulously looking at the innards of a barn. A person can start right at the tremendous double doors, look down to see the wood of the main floor where the wood is worn smooth and is almost silken to the touch from the years of use.
Archaic oil stains, almost defacing the beauty of this wonderful body of timber lay where once an antique tractor set. There is a light coat of dust on the floor, and it clunks hollowly or creaks as a set of work boots cross the floor. Many pair of work boots have followed the same paths for years, indicated by the sandy finish leading to a milk house, hayloft ladder, or over to feed bunk are all worn spots where feet have consistently tread. The towering walls of sweetly smelling hay and bright, clean straw up above in the loft seem to hold warmth inside even when the snow is pushing through the knotholes and loose boards.
These bales muffle the sound of blowing wind that sifts snow across the drifts outside. A pitchfork leans against a wall, its worn tines sunk halfway into a bale of scratchy hay. Looking up to the loft opens a new possibility for imagination. An old hay sling, covered with age hangs retired, as a new generation of devices has been concocted to do the work. Sisal twine strings hang on a nail, discarded and set aside for another practical use. The floor up in the loft is littered with old feed sacks, an assortment of tools, ropes and other homemade devices used to speed up work.
Way up high is a window, a pane of glass missing probably due to a boy and his bb gun. The horse stalls lining the wall underneath the loft is still full of straw and bunks full of dust sit rendered useless after the tractor was invented. In a stall sits a corn sheller, one with a hand crank and iron wheel that give the gears their turning power, it has shelled hundreds of bushels of corn. Leather horse tack still hangs on the wall where it serves as a spider web anchor. Stepping outside, age is defiantly evident with peeling paint, rotting shingles, and missing boards.
The glass globes on the lightning rods all have been broken in one way or another, their wires rusting down the barn siding and into the ground. A forgotten Studabaker pickup rusts the years away beside an old elevator. Both were once essential to everyday workings, now they have been lost in the modernizing of machinery and are left to crumble. Barns have been essential in the evolution of America throughout history, but they are soon to be no more. Time has aged them in every way imaginable and yet they continue to hold hidden treasures in every nook and cranny.