Barns Around Indiana

I play a lot of Horses Across the USA with Craig whenever we travel. The problem I run into, though, is that we tend to drive the same routes when we head to see our kids in Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, and Florida. It is no challenge when you already know where the horsey things are!

Recently we drove to Illinois to visit an old friend, and instead of going our usual route, we traveled unfamiliar back roads of Indiana for fun. It was then that I decided to watch for those beautiful old barns that are fast disappearing.

There were some really beauties to be seen, some of which had been maintained and cared for.

The doors on this barn are so inviting!

This old bank barn was falling into disrepair and will probably collapse in the near future.

Look at the cupola on the top of this small barn!

As we drove, I expanded my topic to interesting silos, granaries, and grain depots.

An early metal barn. I don't find them nearly as beautiful as the wooden barns.

A much more recent metal barn.

A new grain facility being built in western Indiana.

I wish we had detoured and driven back for a closer look at this three story beauty.

The roof is coming off! This is the kind of barn that I wish were being preserved. I wonder what it was built and used for?

These two silos on a small farm made me smile. Someone had painted Purdue's mascot, Boilermaker Pete, on one and Attica High School's mascot on the other.

Here is another interesting barn. What are those round spots on its side? They are wood, not paint.

This stately barn was so beautiful that I am including two photos of it.

I'd love to spend some time walking through it.

So many of the barns in Indiana are white with green roofs, yet if you Google "barn", you see a preponderance of red barns instead. (Try it! See what I mean?)

A modern metal barn stands next to yet another granary.

I almost missed this modest barn that was tucked off the roadside and surrounded by trees.

This is a wooden barn, but it looks as though it were more recently built.

Harvesting soybeans. I loved how nearly the entire view was taken up by the bean fields.

And that is why there are so many grain storage facilities dotting the state. ( I would NOT walk up those stairs that curve around the outside of the far left silo!)

This farmer was cutting hay in the field in front of his barns.

A red barn! The only one we saw as we traveled to Illinois and back.

Silos surrounded by corn not quite ready to harvest.

As a child, I used to draw pictures of my dream barn and plan out the interior. Everything was modern (well, as modern as things could be back in the late 1960s/early 1970s!) and the barns I drew were always red. 

Now, were I to draw plans for my dream barn again, I would make it an old-style wooden one, painted white with a green roof. And when I opened that barn door, Abby and Amy would both be waiting for me, nickering softly in greeting.

I think I just described heaven.