On Being Sixty-Two + Day Fifty-Seven + Thanksgiving

The Cows Have Left The Barn

 Cows have not been in the Groningen Barn for at least twenty-five years.  It still smells a bit like cows and miscellaneous  equipment lays where left.  Perhaps next year we'll have a couple of steers that can eat from the pasture.  It's time for livestock to return.

I use the main floor for storage and I'm starting to store too much.  Now when I walk it it appears that something is actually happening, that all this 'stuff' is of some value.  The corn hanging upside down is broom corn.  It's ornamental.  These stalks are drying and I'll retrieve the kernels for seed...or the various inhabitants of the barn will eat it.

The hay loft reminds me of some many things.  I go up there and listen to the wind and once in a while take a swing on the ropes.  It's not clear why a farmer would not have a stairway to the hay loft.  This requires climbing up a ladder and entering the loft through a trap door.  Often we do things the way they have always been done, not the easier way.  

Obviously the hay loft serves no purpose now that hay is put into 1500 pound round bales rather than 90 pound rectangular bales.  I've thought about producing small bales which are half the size of the rectangular bales.  Hobbyists and gardeners like the small size of seedless straw for, well, hobby things and garden cover.  This seems like an obvious small business opportunity.  I'm moving that to the list for 2014.

Space and Time
I'm work structuring my space and my time.  It's a wonderful blank palette to have after all these years.