Barnyard

“ And here, for the last fifty years, a kind welcome has awaited all, be they voluntary idlers or sea-wrecked men. Screened by the sand-hills, here is a well-stocked barn and barnyard, filled with its ordinary inhabitants, sleek milch cows and heady bulls, lazy swine, a horse grazing at a tether, with geese and ducks and fowls around. ”

“ Would he not like to return again to help rake up the litter of straw and stalks about the barn, or about the stack on the hill where the grass is starting? Would he not like to help pick the stone from the meadow, or mend the brush fence on the mountain where the sheep roam, or hunt up old Brindle's calf in the woods, or gather oven-wood for his mother to start again the big brick oven with its dozen loaves of rye bread, or see the plow crowding the lingering snow-banks on the side-hill, or help his father break and swingle and hatchel the flax in the barnyard? ”

“ There should be room between the house and barn for a score or more of large trees, which may serve, in part, to screen each building from the other in case of fire, to shade the walk between the two buildings, and, in part, the barn itself. No tree is better adapted for this purpose than the white elm. The open barnyard should, wherever possible, be discarded, for it tends to increase the wasting of manures and the cost of getting them to the field; to the multiplication of fences and flies, and to unnecessary exposure of animals. ”

“ But it will be many years before the open barnyard can be, or will be, entirely abandoned. What may, and should be done immediately, is to place it at the rear, instead of at the front of the barn, and to cease using it for baptizing manures, and as a storage area for miscellaneous odds and ends. If some change is not made, the farm boy may find a chamber window from which a more restful and inspiring view may be secured than from the one through which he now views daily the evidences of thriftlessness and waste.
PLANNING THE BARN
Make a good study of many barns at short range ”

“ Her first birds—the bluebird, the song sparrow, the robin, the red-shouldered starling—are here or soon will be. The crows have a more confident caw, the sap begins to start in the sugar maple, the tiny boom of the first bee is heard, the downy woodpecker begins his resonant tat, tat, tat, on the dry limbs, and the cattle in the barnyard low long and loud with wistful looks toward the fields. ”

“ Thanksgiving must find us ready for winter indoors and out.
The hay-mows were full to the beams where the swallows built; the north and west sides of the barnyard were flanked with a deep wind-break of corn-fodder that ran on down the old worm-fence each side of the lane in yellow zigzag walls; the big wooden pump under the turn-o’-lane tree by the barn [Pg 48] was bundled up and buttoned to the tip of its dripping nose; the bees by the currant bushes were doubled-hived, the strawberries covered with hay, the wood all split and piled, the cellar windows packed, and the storm-doors put on. ”

“ Too often a single idea dominates the location. Some thirty years since I decided to erect a large basement barn. The house, a modest, comfortable structure, was located at a suitable distance from the highway, on a gentle slope. To utilize the highway for driving the animals to and from pasture, and to save the use of the fourth of an acre of land and the building of some twenty rods of fence, the barn was located nearer the highway than the house. This necessitated locating the barnyard between the highway and the barn. ”

“ On page 17 of Volume Two, I read "the farms ... are large solidly built structures, the barns usually being lofty with high eaves. The two storied dwelling houses enclose a barnyard. The Howitzer is the weapon of attack against them and the folds in the ground facilitates its use." ”

“ If you could drive me away to-day, you would try to-morrow to drive the dog away, and in time you would think the master himself ought not to have enough of your earth and air to live in. This barnyard is large enough for birds, chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs. It makes our master happy to have us all here."
The chickens went away ashamed. Talking to each other about it, they said, "The turtle is right. It is foolish to want everything. We barnyard creatures must live at peace with each other until we die. The barnyard is not ours ”

“ The barns in England are usually of stone, and often several buildings are crowded together. A good deal of the hay is preserved in stacks. The barnyard of a thriving English farmer is generally a scene which seems to bespeak wealth and abundance ”

“ When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm.
He bears a sword of flame but not to harm
The wakened life that feels his quickening sway
And barnyard voices shrilling “It is day!”
Take by his grace a new and alien charm. ”

“ In winter, especially, they sweep by me and around me in flocks,—the Canada sparrow, the snow bunting, the shore lark, the pine grosbeak, the redpoll, the cedar-bird,—feeding upon frozen apples in the orchard, upon cedar-berries, upon maple-buds, and the berries of the mountain-ash, and the celtis, and upon the seeds of the weeds that rise above the snow in the field, or upon the hayseed dropped where the cattle have been foddered in the barnyard or about the distant stack; but yet taking no heed of man, in no way changing their habits so as to take advantage of his presence in nature. ”

“ Not all the pumice of the polished town
Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down; ”

“ It will be seen that the system is especially adapted to large grain and hay barns, to cover barnyards, which are becoming so popular in many sections of the country, to tool sheds, tobacco barns, amphitheaters, &c. ”

“ Of the lurking, savage foeman from whose musket it was sped.. Not far off, the barn, plethoric with the autumn's harvest spoils, Holds the farmer's well-earned trophies—the guerdon of his toils; Filled the lofts with hay, sweet-scented, ravished from the meadows green, While beneath are stalled the cattle, with their quiet, drowsy mien. Deep and spacious are the grain-bins, brimming o'er with nature's gold; Here are piles of yellow pumpkins on the barn-floor loosely rolled. Just below in deep recesses, safe from wintry frost chill, There are heaps of ruddy apples from the orchard the hill. ”

“ Upon the beams in the top of the barn the brown-breasted, fork-tailed barn-swallows have made their mud nests for years. These birds are wholly domesticated. We cannot think of them as wild. And what a place in our affections they have won! If it is the bluebirds that bring the spring, the barn-swallows fetch the summer. They take us back to the farm. We smell the hay, we see the cracks and knot-holes of light cutting through the fragrant [76] gloom of the mows, we hear the munching horses and the summer rain upon the shingles, every time a barn-swallow slips past us. ”

“ I can think of no finer picture of rural peace than such a barn as this, the cool wind sighing gently through the wide doors, the beams stretching across the cavernous space above dotted with the gray nests, the air full of the friendly, homey twittering of the birds, some resting and preening their feathers on the beams, others swinging in amazing flight down and out through the doors to skim the grass of the neighboring fields and marshes for food, then flashing back again to the hungry nestlings. ”

“ Sometimes I think the beasts have the best of it. The barns here are as large as churches. Built against the side of the mountain, they have two entrances, each on the level of the ground: the higher story forms the barn, the lower the byre. I have sometimes counted as many as twenty windows, set some two metres apart, along one side of those huge stone structures. Here from mid-November till mid-May the cattle live under cover, chew the cud and see in memory, no doubt, the meadows hard by with their delicious grass and the aromatic pastures on the mountain-top. ”

“ The farm-barn is a most important aid to economy of labor, if rightly planned, and we give on this page the plans of a small barn, for a farm where eight or ten cows are kept, such as is quite common in New England and the Middle States, and which gives excellent satisfaction everywhere. On the farm where this plan was studied the pair of horses were housed in a small horse barn nearer the dwelling house, the Democrat wagon, canopy top carriage and sleigh, etc., being under the same roof. ”

“ Midway of the field and near the water-course arose McKinstry's barn—the solitary human structure whose rude, misshapen, bulging sides and swallow-haunted eaves bursting with hay from the neighboring pasture, seemed however only an extravagant growth of the prolific soil. ”

“ The tall green grass is waving in the fields as the wind goes over, and there is a fragrance of whiteweed and ripe strawberries and clover blowing through the sunshiny barns, with their lean sides and their festoons of brown, dusty cobwebs; dull, comfortable creatures they appear to imaginative eyes, waiting hungrily for their yearly meal. The eave-swallows are teasing their sleepy shapes, like the birds which flit about great beasts; gay, movable, irreverent, almost derisive, those barn swallows fly to and fro in the still, clear air. ”

“ The happiness of many people depends upon us. We'll stroll back to that big farm we passed awhile ago. It's starred in the official guide books of the dusty ramblers and the milk and bread and butter there will be excellent. And the barn is red, Archie! A red barn is the best of all for sleeping purposes. An unpainted barn advertises the unthrift of the owner, and the roof is always leaky. The scent of moldy hay is extremely offensive to me—suggests rheumatism and pneumonia. And a white barn stares at you insolently. Whenever I see a white barn I prepare for bad luck. ”

“ The old barn creaked dismally as each gust of wind racked it, and loose boards rattled and banged. No created place can be more dreary than an old and empty barn.
After our exertions we soon felt very chilly. We should not have dared build a fire in the barn, even if we had had matches. Willis groped about in the old hay bay and gathered a few handfuls of musty hay, which we spread on the barn floor, and then lay down as snugly together as we could nestle, but nothing that we could do sufficed to warm us, and we lay shivering for what seemed hours. ”

“ But the smart-painted, natty barn that follows the humbler structure, with its glazed windows, its ornamented ventilator and gilded weather vane,—who cares to contemplate it? The wise human eye loves modesty and humility; loves plain, simple structures; loves the unpainted barn that took no thought of itself, or the dwelling that looks inward and not outward; is offended when the farm-buildings get above their business and aspire to be something on their own account, suggesting, not cattle and crops and plain living, but the vanities of the town and the pride of dress and equipage. ”

“ A stone-walled inclosure of half a dozen acres sloping down to a pretty brook that flows under the lower wall just below the barn—a comfortable red barn; a barn that isn’t red is only half a barn. A kitchen-garden and an orchard, and the rest pasture that is neat enough for a lawn. What romps we shall have, Galatea, with the colt and the bull-calf! ”

“ We find it a great saving of labor; four men in the barn will take better care of the hay and keep ahead of the gang in the field easier than seven men and a horse could put it into the top of the barn with a fork.” A second drive-way leads out of the ground floor of this barn to the high road, practically on a level, and a third out of the west end of the basement, whence an easy grade rises to the farm roads. ”

“ AT the end of the yard of the Muets farm, among the outbuildings, the barn gapes like a cavern. It is always caverns for us, even in houses! When you have crossed the yard, where the manure yields underfoot with a spongy sound or have gone round it instead on the narrow paved path of difficult equilibrium, and when you have arrived at the entrance to the barn, you can see nothing at all.
Then, if you persist, you make out a misty hollow where equally misty and dark lumps are asquat or prone or wandering from one corner to another. ”

“ Dashing into the barn I went to lean against the feedbox of a stall, where an old farm-horse was eating hay. The warm day outside had suddenly seemed cold and chill but in the barn it was warm again. Oh, what a lovely thing to a boy is a barn, with the rich warm comforting smell of the cured hay and the animal life, lying like a soft bed over it all. ”

“ A little farther on stands a great barn with huge mows and the big hay doors front and rear always hospitably open to the scores of barn swallows that build on the beams up next the roof. In no barn have I found quite so many swallows at home. At every vantage point on a beam, wherever a corner of a timber or a locking pin protrudes to give a support, nests have been built, generation following generation till some of the structures are curious, deep, inverted mud pyramids, topped with straw and grass and lined with feathers, downy beds for the clamorous young. ”