The Barn

This is our barn. It is huge -- at least 40'x120'. It has three stories. On the bottom are horse stalls, an old manure pit, and some storage space. The second story is the milking parlor and hay lofts. The third story is the high drive, which is a huge open space where they used to drive tractors into the barn to dump hay into the lofts, which in turn open up down on the second floor across from the milking parlor. The picture is looking up at the entrance to the high drive.

The question is what do we do with this barn? It is an old dairy barn that hasn't seen a cow in probably 30 years. It is obsolete by today's dairy standards. Plus, it has some problems. One of the hay lofts has a collapsed floor, the north foundation buckles out some, there is some damage from an area where the roof used to be missing, and the roof needs a new ridge covering.

On the other hand, it is beautiful, and has a lot of character and history. Like the house, the barn is probably 120-150 years old. Walking through the barn you can find calving records with dates scribbled in chalk and charcoal from 1943, 1939, 1936. There are all kinds of old feed bags, feed barrels, hand tools, and frayed leather harnesses. Plus, the two seater outhouse must have been pretty deluxe in its day.

And there is help available.

Francis, the retired dairy farmer who lives across the road, thinks it should come down. Our friend Eliza thinks we should turn it into a convention center or a dance hall or something.

Richard, my friend, mentor, and sometime employer, is one of the more accomplished organic vegetable growers in Vermont. He thinks the barn is a wonderful resource for our farm. Its lines are straight, the roof is in order (more or less), there are no immediate maintenance problems, there appears to be a water line coming into (or at least near) the barn, and it wouldn't be that hard to wire an electrical box out from the house. So he sees a washing station, a packing line, cold storage areas, etc., and he has these visions because he largely did the same at his place. His converted dairy barn looks great now, but he acknowledges that we have a bit of work in front of us.

We are fortunate that these questions do not have to be answered today. We have time to grow into this place, and we have plenty of place to grow into.