Saturday, May 9, 2015

Last visit

I started keeping track of this abandoned barn late in 2013,






I may have mentioned it once or twice after that,




But stopping by became too sad.








I remember showing you these; 
the barn lost all color, except a few red shingles.





And it fell. I knew I should go back, but didn't.
I mentioned my reluctance to Barbara Judge at Folkway's Notebook.
She's a serious recorder.


She sent me back.


31 comments:

  1. So sad, it could have been someones home if caught early enough but now more or less gone completely.
    Merle........

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  2. I think I know just how that barn feels.

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  3. It's like watching someone die.
    Jane x

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  4. I find those buildings saddest *during* the process, but not after it's over. It's as if their very nature changes once they fall down - no longer a building, but back to the raw materials. And then the plant life takes over again.

    Thanks for putting all the pictures in the series in this one post.

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  5. Very sad to see the deterioration, Joanne.

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  6. I can see farm buildings in varying stages of decay all over the place. It truly hurts to see.

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  7. It's too bad that barn is no more. You recorded it well.

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  8. Oh that is sad! I bet it was so gorgeous when it was first built! The stories it could have told.

    betty

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  9. That is sad, but it was interesting to see the gradual deterioration. Nature seemed to be reclaiming its territory.

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  10. so sad to see the barn die, a shame no one wanted to restore it for future use.
    The flowers are lovely.

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  11. Hari Om
    Artistic decline... faithfully noted. Memory honoured. YAM xx

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  12. It is beautiful in a strange sort of way. A metaphor for life itself.

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  13. The end of buildings like this is alwaus sad isn't it - it would have been built with such love and care to house something and to be a building of importance. Our stone barns around the Dales are falling into disrepair, often as folk raid them for roofing materials, or stone. Such a sad thing.

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  14. nature is in the process of reclaiming her own

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  15. Like so many "things" once the aging process started in earnest it went fast. Everything has its own time.

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  16. a sad waste but beauty in the decline

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  17. very sad, we had an old barn in Arkansas and the people who bought the farm from us put a new roof on it, it's still standing we can see it by satellite it was made of white oak milled right on that property.

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  18. there were two old abandoned structures in the cotton field here at the end of the road. a small storage shed and a barn perhaps. One day I finally trekked through the field and explored them them, and by that I mean I took pictures. they were heavily overgrown with vines and collapsing. two days later, the farmer burned both to the ground.

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  19. Sad to see beautiful old buildings go. Makes you wish you had the money to restore them.

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  20. Once the roof goes, the life span is limited. A pity to see it go.

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  21. The history is still contained within the ground. Someday, it will speak. We need to listen.

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  22. The history is still contained within the ground. Someday, it will speak. We need to listen.

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  23. Sad that a beautiful barn resulted in this.

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  24. We have a lot of falling down barns (and houses) on the prairie. Especially on the outskirts of our small towns. When we drive past them, I tell myself that once there was a whole crew of men working to build to these homes, these barns. And that at one time someone loved them. Once, I made Bing drive up to a dilapidated old house and after carefully navigating the floor boards on the front porch, we peeked in. An old fashioned metallic red table stood rusting in the kitchen, old flour tins in the cabinet. A space in the wall where ice would have been delivered for the icebox. We couldn't go upstairs because over half of the steps were gone, but the banister was bright red cherry wood. Just beautiful. Someone loved that house and although I was dying to know their story, I never will.

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    1. This barn was in a farming township. But the township was annexed to the city and civilization creeps out. Sidewalks and bus stops are to within two miles of the barn. I understand the property will become senior housing. How ironic. I wonder how many of the seniors, by chance, would have grown up in that rural township.

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  25. I don't find the pictures sad, just natural. Maybe because I, too, and getting older and starting to fall apart!

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  26. That is so sad! It was a beauty. But the pictures of its demise are amazing! Thank you for sharing them

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  27. Joanne -- Thank you for going back. I know it was extremely sad to record this but it tells a story of our disappearing farm culture. A story that needs to be told -- again and again. From reading the many blogs online I am convinced that people out there in blog land have a concern for old barns and their plight. Thanks for the mention but it was really you that deserves the applause. -- barbara

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  28. Every time I visited my parents in Illinois, it was sadly too clear that the era of wood barns was disappearing. Your documentation shows this in startling detail.

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  29. I really hate seeing old bars collapse like that. I'm so glad we still have ours, and it's in good shape. So many around here are collapsing. My friend is having hers taken down this very week.

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