Barns!

A sort of a barn... A farm storage building and something else that will soon disappear entirely from our countryside.


A corn crib


Along a country road, we spied an enormous corncrib in really great condition!

Never seen One? 

I will explain.

Ontario farmer's have always grown acres and acres of field corn. (That's what we use for animal food, cereal, cornmeal, and now they distill it for gasoline.)  A farmer would pick the ears of corn when they were mature enough, chop up the stalks for more animal food, or bedding and place the ears of corn in one of these open air 'cribs' to dry or to stay dry until he wanted to use them or sell it by the bushel.

 

This corncrib is actually quite high tech and I think those white squares are hatches to load and unload.

 Simple metal roofing and unpainted wood builds the framework.

There would be some sort of lattice or I think in this case chicken wire to hold the ears in and the air can circulate freely, keeping the precious crop from becoming moldy and spoiling.

This particular corncrib would hold the corn from several hundred acres!

(A rich farmer!)

A cagey farmer would watch the markets and ship his crop when the price was high, usually at the end of winter after everyone else who didn't have a crib had already sold theirs.

Corn cribs were also targets for us nasty little farm kids on Halloween. Anyone who we didn't like got their cribs opened up and the corn would pour out!

(OK! So we all did stuff we''re not proud of?)

All photos downloaded straight from my Nikon P90 and posted without alteration of any kind.