Blowing the Roof Off

The barn on the very first day we saw her and fell in love.

The barn today, with all her friends.

We came to see a house and fell in love with a barn.  

And while I'm very happy with the home we've made in Freegrace Tavern, it's the barn that sits to the side of the old house that has stolen our hearts.

Our adoration isn't particular to us.  All of Vermont is in thrall to her agricultural structures.  We take hour long, winding drives for the sole purpose of viewing our agricultural landscape.  We celebrate a round barn, restored to her former glory.  We applaud the post and beam barns that continue to serve her farmers admirably. We rage at seeing our barns dismantled and crated, sold for astronomical sums and shipped to fancy Flatlanders. We mourn a monitor barn, its roof collapsed by snow; catastrophes that make front page news in these parts.

First Coat

And while Freegrace the house is on the Vermont historical registry, it's her barn that gets all the local loving, her picture appearing in Vermont Barn pin-up calendars yearly.  

We're so proud.

Raking off 100 years of shingle. 

As the year ends, we're beginning to shore up our agrarian beauty.  First the cupola was sanded, mended and painted.  Today, years of shingle are being scraped away to reveal the original barn boards. As the last layers fell, we stood inside the barn and admired the sunshine streaming through, imagining how many families and animals she's sheltered.

It's the little details that warm my cockles.

Sun shining through the barn boards where the shingles have been scraped away.

One day.  One day we'll make something of this beauty.

Side door to the lower barn.

View from an open door into the lower barn

A paddock for holding Myrtie during milking.

Myrtie the Cow may have left us for heavenly pastures but we'll never forget her contributions to sweet cream.

A little work to be done here.

Trough!