Post and Beam by Susan L.

Many an hour has been spent in an elderly barn when I lived on a farm and was performing my duties as midwife, mucker, groom or nurse. The barn's construction fascinates me: how huge trees, each one unique, are shaped into beams according to their nature. They are painstakingly notched so cross beams can nestle securely into the massive uprights: giant mortise and tenon jounts. Smaller logs are trimmed to brace these joints, four or two to a post and are also used as rafters which tower far above the hay loft. The roof becomes shelter for all beneath, domestic creatures and wild life. When a barn is emptied of livestock, the old stone foundations will begin to crumble in the cold. It is their heat and moisture that keeps the walls from succumbing to heavy frosts and bitter nights. Most of the wooden bank barns that we see today are anywhere from eighty to a hundred years old. The wood inside that may have weakened over time has been braced or new has been shaped to step into the place where the old has vanished altogether. Sometimes iron is called in to reinforce the larger joints or cables that stretch side to side, each wall supporting the other. Barns speak to me about community. People supporting people in a thousand different ways be it as a peer or in our churches. What I love the most about old barns is when the wind outside is high and furious, these timbers creak and sway like a sailing ship of old. Flexibility and strength are deep within the very fabric of their bones. "The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand." Deut 28:8