It used to be that neighbors would gather to raise a new barn.   Our neighbors are very nice and may have agreed to this, but we did not ask.  The raising of the new barn, remodeling the cold and dark (yet romantically scented) middle part of the old barn, and building another greenhouse feel like sign posts of a kind of grit as well as seeds for a new chapter.  Maybe “True Grit,” as in the tradition of a mythical John Wayne-type character, except the character might be a woman.  This true grit woman could notice the feel of the early morning breeze, the pinks and oranges of the sunrise over the rolling fields in the distance, and the ebb and flow of seasons and daylight hours.

Barn raising is making room for what flows next, in this case.  The farm has a quaint charm to it.  The new barn, though modestly sized, reminds me of the farm I loved as a child in Yorkville, Illinois, the home of Aunt Sue and Uncle Jerry. Can it be there is something mystical about tools waiting in their places to be worked by human hands?  Something intriguing about last season’s tomato stakes waiting for next year’s crop?  Bee boxes stacked high with expectancy of Spring? If noticed, late Summer/early Fall breezes are soothing and contemplative, flowing around with reminders of those who have gone before and what is yet to come.

Somehow the spirit of my dad is in these farm projects; a friendly, steady presence in the air.  I brought some things that were his, to be displayed in the remodeled workshop when it is done.  Nearby will be my Grandfather’s garden tools, handed down and well-used, in need of oiling at present.  The continuity of generations and seasons, remembered.

While http://www.soulesolsticefarm.com was being written at the dining room table, the middle of the old barn was being insulated and readied for a concrete floor and upgraded workshop.   Wood that once formed the horse stalls, reportedly cut from Oaks in the neighborhood and milled down the road by the father of a neighbor, was removed and put aside in order to be replaced over the newly insulated walls.  I am hoping that the old barn smell will come back inside with those thick oak pieces in their new spots.  The new barn is taller than the old, and is clean, sturdy.  I needed more space to properly hold the tools of a grower and farmer and a clean work area in the old barn, a place without gophers coming in and out and pulverizing the gravel, a place without snow and ice blowing in. These are perfect metaphors – things falling into place, prepared, raising.