A Barn Reborn

For all of Alex’s city credentials, he is only a few generations removed from farm life. His family still has a farmhouse in Skagit County, Washington, and the farmhouse still has a big red barn. And the big red barn has been reborn.

A few years ago it looked like this.

Alex’s uncle made it his project to restore the structure over the last few years. We both can’t wait to see the new barn in person! (By the way, Alex says he learned to drive in the Cadillac on the right—that lucky son of a gun!)

Here it is just before it got a brand new concrete floor (do I hear dance floor!?) where the black tarp is. Although you can't tell from this view, the local Historic Barns registry notes that the posts holding up the roof are tree trunks, and you can still see where the branches were.

For many years, the barn was a dairy, although Alex’s mom says, “It wasn’t known for its milk.” Apparently most of what was made there became powdered milk.

Here is Alex's great-great grandmother (I think) planting a poplar tree. 

Here's the same tree many years later.

 

This is the barn, by the way, that hosted the weekend flower workshop put on by Amy Merrick and Erin Benzakein last August. I expect that it will play host to a few more events like that, now that it looks even better.

 

Alex has promised to take me soon. But, to shore up his city credentials, he also says that all barns look the same to him, so maybe we’ll never find it.