The Barn Graveyard

Since Thursdays now have now been titled on certain media sites as Throw Back Thursday or #TBT I figured I could also join in that club and go back and post some of the fun stuff I’ve done before this Blog even started or was even entertained.  With my first post I will dedicate this one to the barn graveyard.

My mom always gives my daughter’s an experience for their birthdays instead of a tangible gift. She believes that sometimes those tangible gifts fall by the way side and are quickly forgotten or thrown away. So instead, she had decided that the money might be better spent actually taking my daughters somewhere and doing something entertaining and fun. On this particular day we, Mom, Roo and myself, were on our way to a horse ranch to take Roo to her first ever riding lesson. My daughter wants to be a lot of things when she grows up and on the great big list of awesomeness is to be a veterinarian. She also got the horse loving gene from my mom that obviously skipped a generation. It’s not that I don’t like horses, but they really aren’t my thing. I’d be just as happy with a cat that will ignore me and take minimal work on my part.

On the way to Catawissa

As we tootled down the back roads of Missouri, aka taking the back way to Catawissa, I was driving and saw a broken down building on the side of the road. I’m big on just stopping the car and wanting to explore whenever I see something that catches my eye. Yes, we could also chalk this up as trespassing too, but I’d rather just call it “exploring” and figure if I don’t see a sign, it’s really not trespassing. On this particular day, since we were ahead of schedule, I saw this old building on the side of an off ramp and I did just that. What I didn’t expect was the find a barn graveyard! In all seriousness I was in heaven.

This was the first building I saw from the road

I jumped out of the car after it was barely in park and shouted as the door closed, “I’ll be back in like two minutes.” What I didn’t realize was what I was going to run into. Yes, as a mother of three minions, I should probably be more careful about going exploring in an area I’ve never been before, but my inner 5 year old just couldn’t help it. I don’t get to do it often, so any chance I get, I take FULL advantage of this precious gift.  So like any person who finds a gold mine, my “two minutes” probably turned into more like eight to ten. I know, you’re probably shaking your head and judging. That’s okay once you see the pictures maybe, just maybe you’ll change your mind.

This was a hollowed out homestead

So after Roo started to freak out a bit and my mom had blown the horn a couple of times I finally found my way back to the off ramp and invited them into this awesome world that I had stumbled upon. Needless to say it was more than we could have imagined. Everywhere we looked there were old barns! The longer we were in the woods the more we started to see. The more we started to see the more we wanted to explore. I’m quite sure at this point our “ahead of schedule” turned into a, “we better leave before we are late,” experience. We could have stayed in the woods another hour or so and NOT been late because the horse lady was SUPER late and not the greatest experience we have ever had. In the end it didn’t matter because Roo got her riding lesson and loved just being in the world of horses and barns.

This was the lift that went to the top of the barn that looked just like my parents barn

Good 'ol stuff

You could tell that these had been here A LONG TIME

This was a gorgeous barn at one time

You couldn't beat the view

I wish I could transplant this into my yard for the girls to have a hide out

Grammie and Roo on their way out of a little slice of heaven on earth

I understand that some of you might not get it, and that's okay by me. If I ever get back to that space again I will sit in the silence with my head tilted up to the sky, my face bathed in sunlight, and breathe in the peace that comes with the stillness of old barns long gone from their hay day. Pun intended.