You may have gotten a sneak peek of this poor little thing yesterday. This use to be the smoke house on the farm. Even though protected by the large old mill barn, the wet from the cliffs behind have made a run-off thru this poor thing over time. Her age is telling!
She certainly isn't safe to venture into and basically gets to sit out in her final resting place.
She doesn't look so bad from the back though. This has become a safe home for our family of woodchucks and occassional skunk (the chucks chase them off).
And if you turn directly around, this barn sits. They clustered barns to make working from area to the next a little more efficient, but you can immagine what a fire hazard this set-up was.
So what is this barn's purpose? This was the original Hops barn. One of the 'lives' of this farm was a very successful Hops Farm. If you don't know about Hops, you can read this historical artical HERE. We have several local breweries that are trying to bring back hops into the valley.
I knew this old gal as the shavings shed. When the farm became a mill, the shaving from the planers were blown into this barn. We used it for our own bedding of the milk cows as well as a couple of local farms came to get truck loads. On a hot, humid day - this was the worst job to do!! You breathed it, melted into your eyes, ate it, wore it!!!!
You may have caught this little shed. This is the old milk house back when milk was shipped in cans.
She sits over a short well as the cans were placed in the cool waters to keep the milk until pick up. There were several wells on the farm, but they have all since been filled, capped and covered. We were on the 'out skirts' of town and now that town is our neighbor and the farm is on village water and sewer lines. Along with the new pipe-line system of milking now, this is also part of why there is no dairy here any more.
So that's our little cluster around the mother ship.
I had a travel day for a Quilters Hall of Fame meeting and then today is a review of tonight's program for my own local guild - haven't touched my machine in days. Wednesday she better be ready!
Sewingly Yours,
Sharon
9 comments:
a trip round the paddocks, and inside a few of the barns is so welcome. Wish I had photos of my Dad's sheds, really just one could have been called a barn, but it was all corrugated iron, sides, roof and doors.
Thanks for the wonderful tour of your buildings. As soon as you mentioned the milk house I was wondering if there was a well in it. All the old buildings on our farm were taken down years ago.
Love the Milk House, small that it is, it still looks good. I am surprised the Smoke House is still standing/leaning. That old gray color is a beautiful patina. Thanks Sharon for showing us around. How to see you sewing soon!
Lovely, I've so enjoyed meeting all of these "ladies" and hearing their stories, thank you.
I'm sure you will do good at your guild presentation. I love barns. You will be ready to sew by tomorrow.
Thank you for the tour of your home, it looks lovely and what a great history. Here in the UK all of those barns would have been turned into homes by now!!! Hope tomorrow is a better day for sewing. Hugs, Susie x
Sharon, I love this insight into where you live and the history of the place. Thanks so much for sharing.
So glad your woodchucks are keeping the skunks in line. I've had a couple skunks at my house (one got moved out to the country) and I always worry about Zorro getting "skunked". I do hope you are writing these stories in some kind if scrapbook. It's an amazing change of uses over the years and I'm sure future generations will find it interesting too.
you have some lovely old barns! They're getting scarce in Iowa. Too expensive to fix and too small for modern equipment - they're usually torn down. And even sadder - one huge old barn had to be torn down because some jerk stole most of the interior supporting structure out of it :-(
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