MY BARN by Dean Hughes

Look there!
It stands today
As strong as six-score memories years ago;
A big barn built to hold fat crops in its massive mows,
As provender to last the long rows of sleek cows,
In the stables underneath,
The long dark winter through.
Examine, if you will,
These giant plates and beams,
These stalwart loins and limbs and thighs.
Each one was once upon a splendid time
A giant pine
Singing a hundred feet towards the skies,
Then topped to sixty feet of needed length,
Hewed from the round to fourteen inches square.
See there!
The marks of hewing axe and adze,
Swung straight and true.
Read there the tale
Of toil and sweat and a fine pride
In shaping these great timbers.
Stand with me
A wondrous moment.
In that crafted tree
Is history enough of old great-grandsire times
A century ago and more.
Those sheathing boards,
Those tenons, mortices and dowels,
Those thews and sinews,
Those mitres beveled true,
Fitted in tight embrace to fight the winds
And the strong side-thrust of the sheaves and hay.
There stands my barn!
Monument to the past!
Feast for the present!
Song for the future!

Arthur, Eric, and Dudley Witney. The Barn: A Vanishing Landmark in North America. Canada: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1972. Print.

Historic barn leveled by fire

Click to enlarge

Many area firefighters spent all of Thursday, New Years Eve dousing a barn fire on Town Street in Cornwall. An excavator was used to pull the smoldering hay out to wet it down.

CORNWALL — In a tragic prelude to New Year’s Day, an historic three-story barn in a picturesque section of Cornwall was leveled by a fire on Thursday.

At 7:57 a.m. a call was dispatched to 256 Town St. for reports of a barn fire on a dairy farm. A few farm workers who were tending the property saw the fire that reportedly began in the left front part of the building, said Gordon Ridgway, first selectman and volunteer firefighter. The witnesses then alerted authorities.

http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2010/01/01/news/doc4b3d45b3e9150882672530.txt

Happy Holidays!

Wintertime, especially with snow on the ground, provides a beautiful landscape for photographing barns. In the spirit of the upcoming holidays I am posting a few examples of these photographs we have received!

Looking back, this time of year is one of the best for photographing barns.

This barn sits near the mid-18th century Stiles house farmed by the family from the 17th century to the present. The wreath gives this English bank barn in Southbury CT a holiday feel to it. The photograph was taken after the leaves had all fallen and provides us with a more detailed and clear view.

Once the snow starts falling we are given another opportunity to photograph barns in a different landscape, equally beautiful. The snow seems to give these examples a peaceful holiday look!

Located in Easton CT on North Street, this English barn is an excellent example of how a little bit of snow and no leaves can provide barn hunters with a clear view in a serene winter setting.

Above is another of our "holiday barns". It is located in Northford CT on the Old Post Road.

We are looking forward to the upcoming year and would like to say, from all of us here at Connecticut Barns, Happy Holidays!

Celebrate Chickens!

In anticipation of the coming holiday, today is all about poultry.

Long long ago, back in the twentieth century, there were a LOT of chickens in Connecticut. Our volunteer barn crews have sent in more than 20 chicken coops so far - here's a small one in Canterbury.

Sad to say, most of them are no longer in use for poultry.

They range from neat and trim, to empty shells like this in Ashford.



Some old barns were converted to chicken coops by the addition of extra little windows, like this one in Stafford.



The purpose-built coop is most often two or even three stories with a nearly flat roof, and long rows of windows.
This one in Ellington has enough room for 22,000 chickens.







Most of the chicken coops we've seen so far are in the northeast part of the state,


but here is Brenda's Silver Lace Wyandotte, who lays her eggs in Bethany.

Check out our web site - search under "Historic Use" and you'll be able to browse the chicken coops.

Photos: T. Ells, J. Szalay, P. Niessen, C. Seifert, C. Hitchcock

Falling leaves - perfect for barn-spotting

The days are getting shorter, the leaves are falling fast - that means the best time of year is coming for barn photography!

It may sound crazy but once those beautiful red and orange leaves are down, we get a better view of the barns themselves, and the low sun angles are super for good pictures.

Here's a connected barn complex in Woodbury that is only revealed when the leaves are off.

At this bank barn in Beacon Falls, the horses enjoy the warmth of the sun - they probably don't care about the dramatic backdrop!

In case you're getting tired of barn red, take a look at this rare octagonal barn on the Woodbury-Southbury town line - a treat for the winter tourist.

If you like taking pictures, we're planning our next workshop for volunteers - it's a chance to join the crew of barn surveyors. The shoreline towns from Groton to Old Lyme are our target audience but all are welcome.

Learn about the history of Connecticut barns (with lots of pictures) and how you as a volunteer can help find and document barns throughout the state. It's on November 19, 6 pm at the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library. Call Historic Barns at 203.562.6312 for more details.

An Exciting Day In The Field.

Hello fellow barn lovers, owners, and hunters, my name is Stephanie Lessard aka the "CT Trust Intern." I started working in mid-September as an intern for the Historic Barns project. On October 5th "Barn Hunter Charlotte" and I spent the day surveying historic barns in Chaplin, Connecticut. This was my first time in the field and hopefully not the last!

While driving through Chaplin, Charlotte and I had our eyes peeled for barns and always kept in mind to look for signs of agriculture in the area. While doing so we were able to find the local historic district. As we drove through, we almost felt like we had stepped back in time. Chaplin Street's historical character has been incredibly maintained! This was one of my favorite parts of the day!
One of the great things about this project is being able to explore the state I live in and, being from Fairfield, I had never spent time in the northeastern part before. This is a great time of year to hunt for barns too! For lunch we picnicked on the river beneath one of Chaplin's many bridges. The foliage was beautiful and many animals were out and about. By the end of our day, Charlotte and I photographed over 50 barns and had seen a lot of Chaplin. It was an overall ideal day for a barn hunter!

Travels of a Barn Hunter

I’m Charlotte Hitchcock writing today's post. I began working for the Historic Barns project as a volunteer barn-hunter in 2007. I “adopted” several towns and went out looking for the barns. It was a great way to learn more about the back roads of the state I’ve lived in for 35 years.

Many of my favorite barns are on the working farms.

Some of them are beautifully maintained – an impressive accomplishment considering their size! This New England dairy barn at Hayland Farm in Orange was built in 1910 with fire-proof brick and stone to replace an earlier barn that had burned. The farm delivered milk to New Haven and brought back garbage to feed the pigs.

Other barns show the wear and tear of their long history, with repairs and adaptations that are made with materials at hand. Here’s a bank barn in Coventry – the open fields run down to the banks of the Willimantic River.

Photographs:
Orange, Charlotte Hitchcock; Coventry, Julie Rosen