Dear Blog Reader
I hope this finds you doing well. I am stuck indoors. The
snow is too deep on the roads for bike riding. The Indiana
So faced with the choice between doing taxes or writing you,
I chose you. Taxes can wait until next week. It truly is a disagreeable task. I
know that there are those of you who have done the right thing and kept up with
the paperwork. All of your receipts are categorized by deduction type. You’re
just waiting for your w2's. You'll hit the return button on your spreadsheet
and viola you are done. Congratulations! I know that you are the better human
being and I want to ridicule you.
I have been haunted by visions the past week. Bev and I
decided to have one of the old barns on the farm tore down. The hurricane
shingles had given up after 30 years. They had served valiantly, but in the
end, it was time and the weather that was always going to win. So faced with a
$6,000 roofing bill and the continued property rent (tax) bill, it was time to
give up the ghost and let the walls come tumbling down.
The trigger was pulled about two months ago. The contractor
was hired. He said that he would get to it sometime this winter which was fine
with us. My ambivalence regarding tearing down the barn has been palpable. The cold
harsh reality is that the barn was useless. It had been empty for four years.
The roof could no longer shed water. It was doomed. However, being a farmer's
son and an ex-farmer, the building of barns and their maintenance is the gauge
by which farm wealth and health is measured. The demolishing of that barn was
another clear signal that Sharritt 's Dairy Farm and Sharritt Market Gardens
had come to an end. The Sharritt clans has become landowners and are no longer
farmers.
The farm has always had two homesteads, and the barn was
located at the other homestead, a quarter mile down the road from our house. As
a result, we did not see it come down. Rather, Bev saw the evidence and
reported its demise sometime later after an alternative route home while testing
out the new all wheel drive excitement of our new Subaru on a snowy day. For
days after, I had visions of its posts and beams sticking up at odd angles out
of the rubble of the red siding skin. I could not bring myself to go the
quarter mile to see it. Even though I hadn't seen its destruction, the
knowledge of it collapse released memories much like confetti exploding out of
the stands at the end of the big game.
Once released, they can never be put back into the confines
that my mind had constructed. Confines constructed of 90 year old post and
beams and covered in half inch barn siding painted a traditional red. Confines
that were somehow protected by an old foot square placard proclaiming that
smoking was prohibited by order of the Madison
My family lived at that homestead, during my childhood. It
held hay, and livestock and was an integral part of the business and success of
the farm. Growing up, I was expected to complete several chores before walking
the quarter mile up the road to the main farm and the rest of the chores.
Consequently, many of the memories are singular in their nexus. However, not
all, Sharritt's Dairy Farm was a small family farm and so many of those
memories are of families and lessons learned in the crucible of family
relations.
I have since gone down the road several times and looked at
the rubble. I haven't gone up to the pile. The several sideways glances have
shown the pile is really pretty flat. No posts or beams making a defiant stand
against gravity. Like rings around roses and pockets of poesies the big
Sharritt barn has all fallen down.
Take Care
Roger
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