Our old Barn is Gone

Well the big day(s) came and went and with it every last piece of our old barn. A few days before we knew the EXACT day, I realized I was in a really weird place. A place I’d never been emotionally in my life. Totally 50/50. On one hand I didn’t want this to happen at all and on the other I was ready to get it over with ASAP. It was like I just canceled myself out. I hadn’t been sleeping well and I knew what was causing my anxiety. Ready or not, it was time.

(I put the pictures at the end of the post, I know I’m not alone here and you may not all want to see it from beginning to end <3 Love you guys.)

For us, this big heavy thing in our future that would totally change our property. For my mom and aunt a thousand memories growing up with their parents, cows, love, horses and wood working.

Just out there sometime.

Waiting on a tornado that you know is going to land just not WHEN.

And then we did know and it was on a Thursday.

We were all up early.

We’d let our closest neighbors know ahead of time but everyone we told had watched it get more and more awful right along with us.

“Omygosh yes of course.” They all solemnly agreed that it was totally time.

The barn raised and housed thousands of animals over the years and, with retirement, it became even more so my grandparents favorite place: their wood working shop.

It sheltered a little girl whenever she needed a break from reality and then, many years later, the first thing that girl (no longer little) saw in the morning every day for the last eight years.

The barn has been there my entire life.

I can go on and on (and have) about being a dollar short and a day late.

But I can’t kid myself: I’m very practical.

The amount of extra money I would have needed to be willing to pour into that barn… Honestly I don’t think I would have rebuilt her.

She served no purpose for us… Of course that changes nothing on how I actually feel. I can go ring around the damn Rosie forever about practically, it doesn’t change how this totally sucked.

And what a damn shame her and all the old barns are that are leaving the landscape.

I can’t fathom what it took to build something like that 100 years ago.

When Lodi entered our lives he wanted so badly to do something to save it for a bit longer.

(He knew how much it meant to us.)

But the last few years the barn went hard and fast. Years of rot from the inside showed more dramatically with each day and storm.

I hope he knows how much it meant to me though, just how much effort he would have put in to what was essentially a lost cause… Just for us.

There’s a time for everything.

If I could go back with an unlimited budget I would never have let this happen though I wouldn’t have rebuilt her I would have saved all of her pieces.

I’ll never forget that hay mow floor. Hardwood. Worn perfectly smooth over years and years.

More beautiful than any basketball court I’ve ever seen just from decades of use.

That bothered me a lot here.

We saved a TON over the years using up the wood my grandparents’ stashed leftover from their wood working days and yards upon yards of barn wood… but it still feels like so much waste.

But here we are.

It went down very quickly and then it was just the dump trucks loading, heading to the dump and back again for another load over several days.

I took the pictures of course. I said I knew I was her last caretaker and I would be with her to the end.

And I was.

And now we have a barn sized hole in our yard and I also have one on my heart. (I decided I’m allowed some sappy statements.)

The biggest thing isn’t the sad (though of course there is that) it’s the ODD.

The yard is missing a nearly 4,000 square foot building that was like 80 feet tall.

Right down to the very acoustics its so… strange.

I’ve become accustomed to driving up and not seeing it.

Waking up and not seeing it.

But I never expected to still be struggling with how different our backyard SOUNDS.

Our matriarch has left the property.

I was suspicious when we were making plans for a new shop building to replace her with that I was really just propping myself up… I figured once the barn was gone any plans made would be hauled away with her.

(The more experience we get I think we all make the best plan we can for our own peace of mind knowing full well that when we get there… well holding on to plans without updating with new information is an object of futility. Maybe we all learn that the hard way, I know I certainly have.)

There is no changing a property so much without everything changing along with it.

The rectangle of dirt left behind feels amazing to me. (It’s ground that hasn’t seen the sun in a century!)

It doesn’t make we want to build anything.

It actually kind of makes we want to plant something.

One thing I wasn’t expecting (though maybe I should have) while I watched her go I just suddenly, terribly, missed my grandma and grandpa so much.

The house and the property really isn’t their place anymore. The barn really was the last thing.

I remind myself that they were very practical people too.

I think my grandma and grandpa stopped by that day but not for the barn. I think they stopped by because they wanted to remind their daughter and granddaughter how much they loved us and that there is a time for everything.