Growing up, my sister, brother and I all got a good education in school. But, with the farm, truck garden and regular garden, we spent a lot of time down in the barn and there were some good lessons that were taught there too.
Our barn was cement block with a hip roof and was originally set up for milking cows. Besides farming, Mom and Dad raised feeder hogs so they had to revamp the barn. When my folks bought the place, they took out the milking stachions but left the gutter and made pens for farrowing sows. Next, they added a cement patio with a roof that served as the feeding and watering station.
The old milkhouse soon got filled up with “stuff.” Dad started storing extra hoses, gates and such in there but then we kids started to take over. After climbing over bikes, wagons, kites, fishing poles and whatnot, I think Dad just gave up and let us kids have it.
Needless to say, we were all out
in the barn quite a bit doing the chores. At the time, we kids thought it was
just mundane work, but later in life we realized that there was a lot more
going on than just the work.
Besides the usual chores, whenever Dad said, “Come on, come to the barn with me,” we knew to listen up. It could be anything as serious as “What exactly do you plan on doing with your life?” to “You know, work’s mostly caught up, it’s time to go fishing, you better find a bucket and start digging those nightcrawlers.” And sometimes it was just, “Come on and help me with chores tonight,” meaning he just wanted a bit of company. Those were the best times!
Then there were the other times, the very special ordinary times like when he built a trailer and I got to help him lay the lumber and bolt it all down. Or when we would get the fanning mill out to clean seed. Or when he told me to pull my 1969 Ford Fairlane, my very first car, into the bay and we gave it a good wax job. It wasn’t much of a car, but it was like a Cadillac to me.
At the time I thought we were just making my car look good, but what was really happening was he was instilling in me how important it was to take care of a vehicle. It didn’t stop with the waxing though. He proceeded to lift the hood and explain a few things to me. Back in the day, we had to change spark plugs and he was adamant that I should learn how. After two hours of my hands-on learning, I think he was re-thinking that one!
The barn became a hands-on learning place for all of us. My sister decided that she really liked working with the pigs so she spent a lot more time with Dad learning the ins and outs of raising them from piglets to feeder hogs. She even raised a couple batches of her own to earn some money.
My brother was the mechanical-minded one of all of us. For a while he had his own wood-cutting business and decided that he wanted to make a wood splitter from scratch, implementing a few changes on the commercial ones. He and Dad worked long and hard one winter designing and building a prototype.
I, on the other hand, have always been a little more right-brained than left-brained. Instead of practical applications, I wanted to create and make things. Dad was less than thrilled when I proudly announced one day that I had bought a wood lathe and wanted to learn how to use it. His look said, “You have to be kidding!” but all he actually said was, “Let’s make room in the barn.”
So, we did and we spent the better part of one winter mastering the machine. I actually think that he enjoyed our venture, learning and being together. We made some pretty unique bowls that I can guarantee no two were alike!
The lathe experience did go better than the time that I commented to my brother, “That doesn’t really look so hard” after watching him weld. “Oh yeah,” he answered, “then you try it.”
I did exactly that as my dad slowly stepped away from both of us and decided he wanted no part of it. I did listen and I did weld and I daresay that it looked rather pretty even though I doubt that the weld would have actually held anything!
The time that Dad put his foot down to an idea was in later years. He couldn’t do as much on the farm and sometimes got bored. He wasn’t raising hogs anymore so much of the barn wasn’t being used. He loved to watch wildlife so I thought he may like to raise a fawn of his own. A neighbor had a deer rescue operation and offered to supply one.
I had spent evenings re-arranging the barn to accommodate the fawn and Dad walked in one night and asked what I was doing. After explaining, he had this look of disbelief on his face and calmly said, “Put my barn back the way it was,” and walked away.
At least I had enough common sense not to remind him of the time his bright idea didn’t work out so well. It was the year that the price of soybeans went to over $13.00 per bushel and Dad decided he wanted to keep some. He made a makeshift bin in the barn and filled it. This was all fine until about a month after harvest and we heard an awful sound.
His “little gold nuggets” as he referred to them were in every nook, cranny and hole in the barn. That bin gave away and the barn looked like a sea of soybeans. He had three kids and three shovels and that’s where we were for three days. At the time, we thought that cleaning up those beans was the worst thing that could ever have happened to us but now it is a fond memory of time spent together….mostly.
Through the years, we washed and sorted potatoes for selling at the roadside stand in the barn, all the while laughing and telling jokes. We built forts in the haymow with bales of straw. I would go there sometimes and write, craving the peace and solitude. When I sold my first article, I couldn’t wait to run to the barn and tell Dad, I was so proud. When my first boyfriend broke my heart, I ran to the barn to cry. That barn was my safe, happy place.
“The barn” has been so much more than just a building…it’s been a big part of all of our lives. It still stands although it needs some TLC. Sadly, it’s not in the family anymore but the memories it holds will last forever.
Now I have moved to a new barn. Ron and I spend a lot of time in the barn, repairing, getting machinery ready and drinking in the sunset after a long day. More memories made in the barn.
Perhaps my most important lesson from the barn is that I learned how blessed I am to have grown up in the country where I had room to explore and to dream. And I had a barn, a place where simple, everyday tasks that seemed mundane at the time would become cherished memories that let me smile and go back and visit those happy times with special people in my life who are no longer with me.
I wish every kid growing up had a barn, it makes life so much richer.
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