Old Barns

I grew up in town, but every Sunday afternoon my family spent time at my grandparents’ farm.

My cousins were always there, too, and my grandma always cooked a big meal.

We sat at the kids’ table, sticking as many olives on our fingers as we could before one of the adults said we had to stop.

Then we all ran down to the big red barn.

I have no idea what the adults did, but we cousins found lots to do at the old dairy barn.

If a pile of hay was in the right place, we spent hours trying to get the nerve to jump out of the hay mow.

If small square bales of hay were stacked in the hay mow, we shoved and pushed and cajoled them into forts and tunnels. I don’t remember accidently slipping wire from a bale or two, but I bet my grandpa found ruined bales later.

He never said a word to us.

If we could catch a horse with a piece of rope and coax it to stand sideways next to the manger, we would ride double around the corral until the horse got tired of this game and ignored our heel thumps to his ribs.

Every once in a while, we convinced an adult to slip a hackamore on the horse so we could take it out of the corral and ride bareback across vast fields to a mud hole that we were sure was quicksand.

If rain soaked the shingles, the dark crannies of various rooms in the barn gave us opportunities to scream in fright at the sight of a scampering mouse.

For some reason, my grandma’s semi-tame barn cats never seemed to be around while we were exploring.

To me, the barn was the center of the farm’s universe.

That big red barn burned to the ground shortly before Grandpa died.

The barn seemed to symbolize his entire life.

Which might be why I love my barn so much.

My barn is only one of several structures on the ranch and certainly not integral to the ranch’s success – that foundation is in the grass.

But my barn has watched the people here thrive, stumble, stand back up and thrive again.

My barn felt its foundation grow as flat sandstone rocks, created grain by grain under lakes and oceans, were meticulously stacked on three sides.

It felt spring runoff floods surround its feet, but never enter because a wise homesteader chose slightly higher ground.

It has weathered hurricane-force winds, housed 3-foot-high snow drifts blown in sideways after hand-hewn shingles blew away, protected newborn lambs from bitter cold and, once in a while, tolerated cows and horses that found an open gate.

It soaked up sweat from sheep shearers who bent and clipped the wool from hundreds of sheep with handheld scissors that remained razor-sharp with a whetstone and built Popeye hands that could squeeze a tin can into a crumpled glob.

Through the years, my barn heard the laughter of kids playing among the long, tightly-stuffed burlap wool bags before they were loaded high on a wagon and pulled to the train station in Conrad by a dependable team of draft horses.

That laughter came after those same little kids had been dropped into those same 8-foot-tall burlap bags and packed wool until they could climb out again.

My barn has sagged under the weight of time and felt itself lifted once again, set on stout young posts newly protected with repurposed tin -- work done with caring hands that feel the hands of those who cared so long ago.

My barn has thrived, stumbled and stood back up again.

Just like the people who have loved it.