Barn Adventures

The barn  offered various options for entertaining me and my cousins as children.  The hayloft filled with hay provided a wonderful place to let our imaginations soar. A ladder on the center partition was the only way to reach the loft from the ground level. With the only light provided by the windows below in the barn, the dimly lit space was secretive.  Protected from the Wyoming wind the hayloft offered a warm space to play on the bales when the weather outside was less than hospitable.  We would rearrange a few bales to make a cozy spot to crawl in and pretend it was a secret hideout.  The stacked bales also made it possible to access to the air vents in the roof which turned with the wind. We were on top of the ranch world from that vantage point.  The hayloft was open on each side to the cattle pens down below so bales could be tossed down as needed throughout the year and giving a bird's eye view of the activities on the ground level. When we had cousins visiting from out of state, one of the cousins did not catch on to the fact that you could not go down off the side at just any point and ended up hanging off the edge yelling for help. He was rescued in time to prevent an injury from falling from that distance.

The hayloft took up two-thirds of the upper level of the barn.  The other partition was a boarded up the sides to make an oats bin to store oats raised on the ranch. This bin had a lever in the ceiling of the ground level in the center of the alley which could be opened over the bed of a truck.  When the bin was fairly full we would jump from the top of the wall into the grain below, which shifted and slid when we hit it.  Depending on how full the bin was, it could be quiet a jump and took some courage to make the leap.  The itchy and dusty oats made a bath before bed a necessity.

The south side of the barn had two rows of pens separated by an alleyway where dad kept his show cattle.  Made of 1 x 6 inch planks, the top board of the pens was ideal for perfecting the balancing act of walking the entire length of the barn without falling off. Each pen had a hay manger next to the gate into the alleyway with a feed box on each end to feed individual animals.  These hay mangers were favorite spots for the cats to have their kittens.  They could tuck the kittens in under the feed box and yet have a safe place for their babies to scamper about without being trampled by the bulls.  In the spring we enjoyed the treasure hunt of finding the new litters of kittens.

The barn was used to store feed in sacks until my dad would need to refill his feed box, a  long wooden bin divided into multiple sections covered with a hinged lid.  Grain draws mice, so in addition to the multitude of cats in the barn there was a mouse trap.   This specialized mouse trap consisted of a metal box with a tunnel through the center.  When a mouse scurried through the trap, it flipped the mouse to one side of the box or the other--alive.  We checked it frequently to see if an unfortunate mouse was imprisoned.  On more than one occasion, we would find a mother mouse who had birthed her babies in confinement.  These hairless babies fascinated us and we even tried raising some with a dripper.

When I had guests from town, I always showed them the barn.  Unfamiliar with the smells associated with animals, they would usually wrinkle their noses at first, but when we began exploring the hayloft, the oats bin and other areas of the barn, they usually forgot their discomfort and reveled in the new experience.  The barn provided a place of adventure, learning, and discovery for me and others.  We did not need to have someone provide entertainment, we just let our imaginations lead us.