38 SPRING • 2011
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Old Barns By Ken Farmer Barnyard Management One of the givens about living on a farm is that you always had a barn. We had a wide range of farm buildings on our small tobacco and cattle farm. We had over eight different buildings including a stable, four tobacco barns, a corn shed,
a hay shed, a tobacco pack house and a tractor shed! As a result I have lots of memories and warm thoughts about the farm barns. I remember many fun childhood memories of playing in the stable with cousins and
friends, helping the cat chase mice at the corn shed, climbing on the tractors to act like I was driving them, climbing in the hay barn to the highest bales and looking down at the rest of the world, going to the tobacco barns during the curing season,
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and sit around all night and keep feeding the wood to keep the fires going that cured the tobacco until it turned into the beautiful golden leaf. Of course with time and my growth, all those same places became places of hard work, sweat and sometimes a little pain! The stable became a place to milk our solitary milk cow at five in the morning and watch her kick over the full bucket of fresh milk as well as herding young calves into the stalls so they could be changed from young bulls into a steer. The stable was the place of change. It was where I raised two 4-H calves to their full weight by stall feeding them for about three months and then they shipped off to slaughter for their beef. It was the place we brought all the cows as we selected several to be carried to market to be able to purchase new blood for the herd. It was the place where we brought the mules in to be fed and watered after a long day of hauling or plowing tobacco.
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The tobacco barns each held special memories. I will never forget my first exposure to the local volunteer fire department. We were cooking dinner on the grill in the yard when all of a sudden I heard a loud boom and saw a dark column of smoke. Dad realized that our largest tobacco barn was on fire. I remember the noise, the smell, and the pain of the long night as we suffered the total loss of the barn and its contents, no matter how hard our neighbors fought the fire. We built the barn back stronger and even better. We even changed from using wood to oil fed burners for safety and efficiency! Obviously each structure held memories of work, play, and good times in life. Sadly, when I return back home to visit the farm each of those buildings have grown quiet and passive as the farm has changed with time and progress.The old stable has fallen in and been removed. Most of the tobacco barns still exist but tobacco
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