The Barn

The Barn

         I was raised on a farm in the Platte River valley of central Nebraska. Our family raised corn and alfalfa hay on a crop sharing basis. Farm work varied throughout the year, being the most hectic during the growing season. Things settled down a bit in the winter months, but there was never relief from the everyday chores of feeding the livestock and milking the cows. Corn was stored in cribs and bins and hauled to self feeders in the hog pens. Baled hay was stored in a haymow on the second story of our barn. From the haymow we could feed animals on the first floor by pitching hay down into mangers.

         Every evening I would find our milk cow and bring her to the barn for milking. Sometimes she would be right outside of the barn and sometimes she was still out in the pasture, a meandering ravine about a third of a mile long with a spring fed creek at the bottom. If she was feeding on grass down near the creek she would be out of sight so I would go looking for her. As I walked down the well-worn cow path along the rim of the ravine I knew that I wasn't the first to do this and I wouldn't be the last. I tried to picture a youth in the future walking this trail... I wondered if he would be thinking about the generation to follow.

         The milk cow was always ready to come back to the barn, munch on some hay from a manger and eat a few handfuls of corn. The food kept her occupied while I did the milking from a one legged milking stool, merely a post with a seat board nailed across the top; it was perfect for the job. Several cats waited nearby for the milk that they knew I would pour into a bowl for them when I was finished. Sometimes I would squirt milk into the open mouth of one of them as they waited patiently. They weren't really pets and, except for leftover table scraps that the family dog didn't eat, had to fend for themselves when it came to food.. Their scavenging kept the rodent population of the farm from getting out of control.

         There was something peaceful and renewing about the time I spent in the barn. It was a refuge from the screaming of tractor engines, the rattling and moaning of working machinery, the clanging of lids on the hog self-feeders and the penetrating cold of howling winter winds. The warmest place to be on a cold winter day was in the barn, on the milking stool, nestled up against the cow and absorbing the comforting heat radiating from her body.

         After the milking I would pour a portion for the cats, then hang the bucket of milk on a peg on the barn wall and climb a ladder to the haymow. I considered the haymow to be my private space; a quiet respite with the fragrant aroma of alfalfa hay. The haymow was never completely filled with hay so I would arrange the bales to give me some room to practice basketball skills. I nailed some boards across a couple of risers on each of the gabled walls, and mounted basketball goals there. The close proximity of the rafters demanded that the goals be slightly lower than regulation height. This combination of a lower goal and the low roof beams gave me a tactical advantage when friends would play basketball with me; at least until they adjusted to the conditions. I felt I was king of this domain.

         I was small for my age and having skipped a grade in elementary school I was younger than my classmates; but I dreamed that someday I would be big enough and skilled enough to play on the high school team. Alone in the haymow I would become the greatest basketball player of all time. I made many a last second shot to win a championship game as the cheers of the crowd filled the high school gym. It was a fantastic feeling!

         We had a fold-up ping pong table in the haymow to provide another form of entertainment when we had visitors. As the hay supply diminished I would stack the remaining bales along the walls, leaving room to play either ping pong or basketball. I had some great times playing with friends in that haymow … it reverberated with unbridled laughter. Echoes of those days have been with me for a lifetime.

         Everyone has a few ups and downs in life, and those of a teenager seem magnified. I didn't make the basketball team, nor did many other things fall into place as I had dreamed they might. But every evening, after milking the cow, climbing the ladder into the haymow, picking up the basketball, and taking that first shot, all my troubles would fade into the realm of insignificance.

         I am an old man now and my wife and I have spent our lives raising a family in the suburbs of a big city, far away from the farm. My kids will never know what it was like to grow up on a farm... a farm with a barn and a haymow. I am sure that they have each found their own way to deal with life's pitfalls, but I am also sure that the results of their methods could never surpass the solace I found as a teenager in the haymow of our barn.