Saturday, April 9, 2011

Grandpa Webb's barn

I did these drawings of  Great Grandpa Webb's barn when I was 12 or 13. I loved this old barn. It was dim and smelled of hay and manure. Dust motes danced in the sunlight from the open door in the hay mow. Swallows nested high in the eves. The beams were heavy and wide enough to walk along without fear of falling- but only if the grownups weren't watching.
My grandpas, my Dad and my brothers stacked sweet smelling hay in the loft every summer when I was little.Later I drove the tractor while they picked up hay in the fields and I pushed the bales from the wagon onto the hay conveyor. Much later, I stacked hay in this old barn myself and milked my cow in the cool shade of it's lean to.
My drawings don't show the garage that was added on the North side. Just the barn. I never did feel like that after thought of a garage really went with the rest of the building. Not so very long ago, they tore the poor old barn down and put up a big yellow pole building. A combination garage workshop and tacked on the back a milking stall for my mom's cow.
It's just not the same. No swallows. No hay mow. No beams like massive wooden muscles holding everything together. No smell of hay and warm wood.
I miss that old barn. They just don't make them like that any more.