When I was in my twenties and early thirties I was crazy about clothes. I was making a good living as a network news producer and, most weeks, I just signed my paychecks over to Anthropologie. I window shopped at Barney’s and learned what it means to covet something.
These days I could care less about clothes. Most days I’m lucky to find a top and pants that aren’t manure stained when I need to go to the grocery store.
Now the objects of my desire are barns. Big, beautiful, wooden barns. Barns with haylofts and room for a dozen kidding pens. Barns with weather vanes and those cool sliding doors for driving in a tractor. Swoon.
So when Sand Creek Post & Beam contacted me about becoming a sponsor of this blog it was like hearing from Yves St. Laurent himself. I squealed, actually squealed, as I read the email. Then I spent hours pouring over the photographs on the Sand Creek site. Then I fainted. Then, in my most dignified tone, I wrote back said that, indeed, we would be most pleased to have Sand Creek Post & Beam as a sponsor. Then I fainted again.
I have used this space in the past to chronicle the grief I feel when I drive by an old barn that has been allowed to fall into disrepair and ruin. Well, looking at Sand Creek’s barns is the exact opposite of that. To me they look like hope. Hope that “family farm” won’t become an anachronism. Hope that people will continue to care about where there food comes from. Hope that one day “Farmer” will rate right up there with “Doctor” and “Policeman” when children dream of what they will become.
A new barn is a powerful thing, my friends.
Welcome Sand Creek Post and Beam. I’m awfully glad you are here.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you, we’re so very happy to be here!
Awesome… now I don’t feel so bad about no longer being a clothes horse and i wash and rewash my favorite jeans and tops… and companies that furnish bee keeping goods seem to get my attention…and birdwatching magazines. Do they make little barns??
Wow, so neat!
Wow. Just, wow. This is so fabulous. Welcome, Sand Creek Post & Beam! Susie, let’s get one!
I wonder if I could fit one on the porch of my 3rd floor walk-up… I barns…
meant to say “I heart barns” (damn HTML formatting)
Very classy ad. If I ever need a barn, I’ll certainly check out Sand Creek Post & Beam. Do they do round barns?
I have always loved old wooden barns and swoon when we go on road trips through Kansas and such places….I saw the NE for the first time last fall and OMG the barns everywhere! I am in lurve with up-state NY and it’s old barns…I’l be checking out their website for sure!
If only I had a good reason to obtain a barn….*sigh*
growing up on an old vermont dairy farm i share your love of barns. When we moved to new hampshire we actually built a post and beam home (which my mom still lives in), guess we couldn’t completely get away from the barn! congrats on having a great sponsor find you!!
i’m so with you. my last drive south here was heart-breaking: most of the barns were empty & falling into disrepair. it was heart-breaking. when i get around to setting up my farm, i hope Sand Creek Barns are still thriving – & willing to ship kits to southern Ontario
I “heart” barns too! Post & Beam barns are gorgeous!
i’ve got chills reading that, susan
totally awesome
congrats
applause
swoon
love
rona
hey…i’ve always liked barns and loved farmers. it makes me sad when we go “walk about” (in a car) and i can’t find the road side farmer stands any more or see the fields as the crops grow. farmers is good peoples
puddle duck
You are not alone! I left a suburban life for my little farm. Amazing how your focus can change!! My most recent confirmation was when I passed up the opportunity to purchase the TAG watch I always wanted and chose to spend the money on a Bobcat loader. I thought I was the only girl that dreams of loaders, tractors, barns, stock trailers and new animals.
Children do start out fascinated with farming and animals welfare but somehow lose the interest. It makes me feel good that my 5-year-old son wants to be a farmer when he grows up, my 7-yer old niece wants to be an animal rescuer and my 9-year-old niece wants to be a veternarian (we all live in NYC metro area).
That is so exciting!! I very rarely admit this, because people look at me like I’m nutty, but I always wanted to live in the middle of nowhere in a refurbished barn. I have ever since I was little. Looking at the homes on the website made me drool a little. This is super wicked awesome!
Ooooooooo. This is exciting. They are beautiful. Let’s have a barn raising! How long will it take us to be able to afford it? All the Aunties can have a sleepover in the loft!
I too an living a second life, totally different from my first.
Am now married to a dairy farmer, but we do not live on the farm. We have a acreage but barn. As we drive through the countryside am always pointing out place that do not appreciate their barns and how sad that is. I dream of having a barn, two levels, lower for all the little critter and upper for a craft workshop. Perfect!
I too an living a second life, totally different from my first.
Am now married to a dairy farmer, but we do not live on the farm. We have a acreage but no barn. As we drive through the countryside am always pointing out place that do not appreciate their barns and how sad that is. I dream of having a barn, two levels, lower for all the little critter and upper for a craft workshop. Perfect!
Love.
This is awesome! Congrats on your new sponsor!
I used to be the same way! Clothes, clothes, clothes in my teens and 20s. Now that I’m 30, couldn’t care less. I’m a city girl, too, and I always wanted to get away to wide open spaces, buy a big piece of land and live in a red barn. Sand Creek has a nice website!
Cute post. I personally covet Anthropolgie and wear paint-stained everything. Congratulations on the new sponsorship and on having such wonderful lofty intention for your life’s work.
My fantasy is to work in a barn everyday in Anthropologie clothes…..
I would love to have one of their garden sheds. I drool over the barns. Reminds me of my grandparents farm but their barn wasn’t near as nice. But I can’t justify a barn for 2 dogs and one cat.
Barns have long held an attraction for me too. I also cry when I see one in a sad state of disrepair and abandonment and at the same time I see the beauty in the structure and wood. If I was a younger woman, I so would join you on the farm, mucking out stalls and cleaning up and smiling as each new baby is born. I also like you, hope that one day we hear youngsters answer Farmer, when asked what do you want to grow up to be?
About 4 or 5 years ago my focus changed and what excited me was no longer the trappings of Nordstroms or Macys. Simplicity has been my call of late, and working towards a much more simple existance in my home and life. Simple however is no less busy…