the old red barn

So, we’re back at the ranch.

Last November. Crisp mornings, cool nights, clear sunny days. As soon as you come out of Bryan’s grandmother’s house, you can see the appeal of the place – in the way the trees twist and bend…

As you peek through those trees, you can see across the road to the barn. This was once a working ranch full of horses and cattle, pigs and chickens and guinea hens. This small barn, which according to Bryan was built by the previous landowner as a small house for his daughter, served Bryan’s grandparents as a place to store feed and tack. When I first came to this land, almost 20 years ago, it was also the parking place for the rusted out Volkswagen Beetle that Bryan and his cousins learned to drive on. At approximately age 10.

Once, when Bryan and I were dating, and he was more often to be found with camera in hand, we wandered all around this barn and into the fields beyond, taking pictures. He still carries a picture of me that he shot that day.

So whenever we are here for any length of time, we have to wander over. No longer a place for storing useful things, it has become a warehouse for the old and interesting.  Just walk past the wagon wheel…

…and across the cattle guard…

…down a length of barbed wire fence…

…and you’re there. Which never fails to make us very happy.

Partly because you just never know what you’re going to find.

But you can tell just by the way the sun shines through the trees…

…and the grass grows up through old wood…

…that this is a place where anyone, from a girl to a fully grown boy man, can find a little magic – wild and wonderful and free.