Saturday, April 19, 2014

April 19, 2014 - An Old Barn

Someone built this old barn a long time ago.  It now stands just off the River Road (Route 128) in Woolwich, but I'm quite certain that the barn was built long before the road was since it's far too close to the road and no one would put a barn that close.  The wood is all hand hewn, and the fieldstone foundation is crumbling and falling into ruin.  I don't know how old this barn is, and no one uses it anyway.  It just sits there year after year on the road.  I often wonder about who built it, though.  Was it one person or a group of people?  Was there a barn-raising party and a celebration afterward?  How proud the new owner must have been to own such a large and fine barn.  He must have felt very secure knowing that his animals were safe in his well-built barn.  It's all gone now, though:  the owner, the builders, the animals.  Yet the barn sits on the side of the road, a silent sentinel of times gone by, of people who lived and died in Maine.  I know it will be there long after I'm gone, and this makes me happy.