THE DAY OUR BARN GOT A NEW LOOK

THE DAY OUR BARN GOT A NEW LOOK

September, 2008

To my Grandkids with Love

A few months ago I gave you a pretty thorough description of the house on our farm and all the bustle of activities that went on there. Now I want to describe another important building-the barn, where I spent considerable time. I don’t remember that I ever disliked doing chores that much. I would rather do outside stuff than be in the house.

By the time I was 10 years old on up through high school I helped daddy milk and even did field work with the tractor. Lois was in nurses training by then and Vara had health problems so by the time I was in high school I was unofficially daddy’s help.

Since I have no pictures of our barn I will do my best to describe it to you. It was painted red as most barns are. It was not shaped like the ones you see in pictures. It wasn’t that large. Inside on the south end we had 8 or 10 stanchions for our milking cows. Most were Holstein but a few were Jerseys or Guernseys to add richness to the milk.

Daddy was not one to do much talking but I remember how I chatted away while we milked, relating all the happenings of the day at school. It was mostly a one-sided conversation but I didn’t seem to mind. I helped some with morning chores but not as much as I did after school.

One time daddy rigged up a way to have a small radio to listen to while we milked. He heard that music caused the cows to give more milk! :-)

On the north side were rooms for other animals such as pigs, or occasionally a horse. There might be stored wheat in another section that we were holding until we sold it. In the middle was something like a breezeway and at the end was a ladder where we could get up into the haymow. There was never a lot of hay up there but it was a wonderful place for kids to play. When our city cousins came they always wanted to play up in the haymow.

One day, a stranger came to our farm. He said he represented the Ringling Brothers Circus and they were going to have a circus in McCook. They wanted to advertise it and asked permission to put up a sign on the side of our barn. I have often wandered since then if these men were drunk or had just fallen off a turnip wagon. Our farm was 50 miles from McCook and possibly no more than 20 people would have been driving down the road in the front of our property.

I think my dad wasn’t there at the time but my mom gave the man permission. I’m sure she was thinking in terms of a small poster type thing.

Much to everyone’s amazement a crew of men came and pasted up a huge sign that covered the full side of the barn. Yes, I said pasted or glued! It never dawned on anyone what that meant until later. The lettering was huge and very bright colors. You could see it for a long ways. I think my mom was shocked. She probably had some explaining to do when daddy came home. (That part I don’t remember) There were many laughs over this, not only in the family but all the neighbors and visitors had comments.

However, it wasn’t so funny when it came time to tear the sign down! The ones who put it up were long gone and the glue they used was there to stay. Many an hour was spent trying to get that sign torn off the side of our barn. This became a great conversation piece and produced many belly laughs for years to come.