Skagit barn...

Washington's Skagit Flats is home to dozens of farms, complete with barns and farmhouses. But the properties are so large, it's sometimes hard to get close enough for detail. We were heading for a trailhead when I spotted this farmstead, and stopped to take a photo. I love the way it's nestled between two small hills, against a backdrop of Whidbey Island and the Olympic Mountains.

Check out Tom's Barn Collective for more barns.

Barn symmetry...

When farmhouses still stand side-by-side with their barns, to me that's perfect symmetry.

Barn quilt...

In Washington, they aren't very common outside of Ellensburg, but occasionally I stumble across a barn quilt. This old farm is protected from the west winds by one of the "humps" of the Enumclaw plateau, a remnant of a long-ago lahar flow from nearby Mount Rainier.



The quilt block is a Friendship Star variation.

Centennial barn...

A week ago, we spent a few days in one of our favorite places: the Walla Walla valley. Home to wheat fields, wineries, and a beautiful old downtown, we love it there. On one of our morning drives, we came up over a ridge of hills to find this stunning red barn surrounded by the bright green of new wheat.





Some research found that this farm is one of Washington's Centennial farms (and one of many in Walla Walla County). A centennial farm is one that is still in the same family that first homesteaded the land.



Linking up today with Tom's Barn Collective.

Tailor made...

Quilting, and getting started pruning the orchard (and rain and snow!), has kept me off the back roads lately. So I thought I'd dredge up some older photos of favorite barns to share for the next few weeks, until I can get back out there.

In the southeast corner of Washington is an amazing place called the Palouse. It's home to rolling hills and blue skies, wheat fields, old farms and homesteads. It's one of the most photogenic places I know. I love driving the winding back roads that snake between the hills and up the creek valleys, and I love the barns and farmhouses.

The Palouse is home to some of the most unique barns I've ever seen, like this one.



It's near the turn to Palouse Falls, a huge pair of barns built as mirror images of each other. As near as I can find out, these were built to house draft horses, back when horses pulled the farm equipment to harvest the wheat fields. They tower over the small original farmhouse (on the other side of the dirt farm road), and the much newer and larger house just behind it.

I would love to walk up the drive and knock on the door, and ask about the history of these barns. Maybe this spring, I will.

Linking up on Tom's Barn Collective this week.

Barns and horses...

A break in the storm took us out on the trails today, and the rain held off until the last hundred feet before we reached the truck. And then it let loose. Still, I took a chance and got a little wet, to snap a few pictures of this beautiful Gothic barn, built of cinder blocks, with fresh paint and a metal roof.

And as we drove into town for breakfast at our favorite little diner, I thought about barns and rain, and being a horse owner. Some of my happiest times were spent in a barn, taking care of my Thoroughbred gelding, who would stand in the barn aisle and nod off to the sound of rain drumming on the roof.

A barn is a cozy place to be on a rainy day. I never minded cleaning stalls or moving bales of hay, sweeping the aisle or filling water buckets. On sunny days, I'd be itching to saddle up and go for a ride on the trails, or head up the road to the ring where I had my lessons.

But on rainy days, I'd linger. Read all the messages on the chalkboard, about who was going out of town, and which horses needed someone to exercise them. Straighten up the tack room. And on my week to feed, stuff hay into hay nets for each stall, and measure out grain and supplements for each horse. I'd check that the hanging blankets had dried overnight, and lay them out ready for the next day. Once the horses were in their stalls at the end of the day, I'd clean my stall, listening to the horses munch their hay, lick the last few grains of oats out of their feeders, and drink deeply from their water buckets.

I'd breathe deep, and inhale the wonderful, special aroma of horses.

Foggy...

Today we took a chilly early morning walk on the Enumclaw rail trail before breakfast at Charlie's. The Mountain didn't make an appearance, but we still had a payoff: this beautiful dairy barn, just beginning to show the light from the rising sun.

January barn...

Last week I ditched my Tuesday sewing group, and drove the back roads with my camera, looking for light, and clouds, and barns. On a country road at the north end of Maple Valley, I found this beautiful old dairy barn for my collection.



Linking up today on Tom's Barn Collective.

Key barn...

A rainy day last March, exploring Key Peninsula
We got wet (really wet)
We found a bunch of geocaches
I found a barn

I don't know the history of this place, just that from the main highway, it looks like a gambrel barn with an old house, and a couple of other outbuildings. But from the side road, which skirts this inlet on Puget Sound, the barn is actually built out over the water, set on pilings.

The area was settled in the late 1890s, and a community called Home was settled nearby. Beach homes mainly, except for a utopian community of anarchists who made it their home around the turn of the 20th century. Working together, early Home families built a community of homes, stores, social halls, hotels, and schools, plus a telephone exchange, a post office, and a baseball grandstand.

Favorite barns...

There are a lot of places I like to go to photograph barns, but one of my favorites is the Enumclaw Plateau. There are dairy farms and horse farms, 100-year-old barns and modern barns, and plenty of old farmhouses.



On the east side of the county is a short road that begins and ends at the main county road that travels from north to south. At one end is one of my favorite farmhouses, painted in rich green with white trim, with a wonderful addition at one side.  It is smaller than my own old farmhouse, but this one has all the original trim and interior millwork and built-in cabinetry of a Craftsman house. And it has a barn.

At the other end of the road is one of my favorite barns, a small gable style with a side addition. It's rustic and charming, and has a new metal roof to protect it from the elements.

Both structures are equally well tended, and both are best photographed in winter, when the leaves are off the trees.

I never tire of taking this side road, or picturing myself living in the beautiful green farmhouse.

Sharing today on Tom's Barn Collective.

Kittitas Valley homestead...

A couple of decades ago, my best friends moved from the wet side to central Washington, to enjoy retirement on the dry side. They traded the rain for nearly constant wind, lots of sunshine, and almost no traffic... which sounds like a pretty good trade-off.



A few years ago, they finally convinced an aging parent to join them, and found the perfect house for her. It's close (making those daily chores easier for my friends), and it's on an old homestead.



The original house is long gone, but the property has two aging barns (a broken gable-style barn, and a smaller saltbox-style barn), and a collection of other small buildings, including a cold room near the house, and a long shed with windows that became the chicken coop.





Before they started repairs on the larger barn, I spent a few hours photographing it. The timbers are sound, but the roof needs work. Half is protected by metal roofing, the other half has missing shakes.

The inside (like many old barns) was full of stuff abandoned by the former owner: stacks of lumber, moldy hay, broken bits of harness and equipment, lots of bits of rusted metal, a tangle of hot wire, and even a broken bamboo fly rod.



I loved spotting things that showed that draft horses once lived here... one side of the barn has huge stalls, complete with hay racks and mangers. The other side has a long manger for the cows, each with their own spot labeled with their name.



They spent weeks clearing it out, digging down to the bones of the barn. During the process, several people stopped by to see if they'd sell the barn wood siding.

Thankfully, they said no.

. . . . .

Linking up today on Tom's Barn Collective.

A barn in winter...

My camera and I haven't traveled the backroads lately, looking for barns and fall color. The other things in my life, like quilting, have kind of taken over.



So instead of a new barn photo, I will instead share some photographs of one of my favorite barns. It belongs to my brother-in-law and sister, on the land that his family homesteaded. It's an interesting hybrid style, with a milking room built on one side.



I took these on a misty, cold December day when the clouds were low, and I could see my breath. I love how the clouds turned the photograph into a watercolor painting. It was quiet, and nothing else was stirring, not even the birds.



Linking up today with Tom's Barn Collective.

Red...

A couple of weeks ago we spent the weekend on Whidbey Island, then another day or so exploring the back roads of Skagit County. Along the way we found a fun string of geocaches, and this beautiful barn. So while DW looked for the cache, I walked across the road with my camera and took a few photographs. I never could resist a beautiful barn, especially one that's freshly painted.



This barn reminds me of the one behind Parkdale, with Mount Hood in the background. Same color, same shape. Just the mountain is missing.

Linking with Tom's Barn Collective today. Check out the link for a tour of this week's barn photos.

Whidbey Island barns...

A couple of weeks ago, DW and I spent the weekend on Whidbey Island, camping out with the family on our niece's wooded 5 acres. I heard the wind blow during the night, and raindrops fall on our tent, so I didn't have much hope for an early morning photo tour of the island. But when I got up and dressed and zipped the tent behind me, it was dewey but not wet. So I grabbed my camera and keys and quietly slipped off to explore as the sun came up.



Just around the corner from my niece's little cabin in the woods, I found this old farmstead with red barn, chicken coop, tractor shed, and farmhouse, all with white trim. And a perfect view east toward the rising sun, with clouds reflecting in the pond.



I lingered for half an hour, hoping for the sunrise to bring color to the sky, but it never happened. Just the bright morning light behind the clouds, as the night brightened into day.

Linking up today on the Barn Collective.

Spring in the valley..

The Kittitas Valley in central Washington has a rich farming heritage, and the broad open valley is home to more than a hundred barns. Many are on the Washington Heritage Barn registry, and many sport brightly colored quilt blocks. Because Kittitas Valley is also home to Washington's only barn quilt trail.

It's one of my favorite places to photograph historic barns. The light is beautiful and the views are wide open. Best of all, most of the valley is still being farmed. Some farms are managed today by the third generation of the original families.



Adding this barn to Tom's Barn Collective today. Check out his page for more beautiful barns.

Kittitas Valley barn...

This lovely farm has a killer backdrop: the Stuart Range of the Cascade Mountains. It's impeccably maintained, a truly beautiful old farm in the Kittitas Valley.



Linked today with the Barn Collective.

Red barns...

Jacob Rego settled in the Kittitas valley in 1912 with his wife and parents, and raised Durham cattle and hay. He built the barn that first year to shelter his cattle and store hay. Hand-hewn timbers, round pegs, and square nails form the foundation of this beautiful red barn, which today shelters miniature donkeys on the ground floor. The upper floor is a recreation room for the Gibson family, the current owners of the farm.



The patriotic barn quilt was painted by the women of the Gibson family.

Shared today on The Barn Collective.

American barn...

It was a beautiful (and early) morning drive over the mountains to Ellensburg. On Tuesday, a five-day quilting retreat starts. Until then, relaxing with my oldest friends, photographing barns and barn quilts, hunting for Ellensburg Blues, and catching up over good food and wine.



The sun was just starting to peek over Umptanum Ridge to light up this Gothic-style barn. It's one of my favorites in the Kittitas Valley.



This barn has a blue metal roof, and it's in great condition despite its faded white paint and weatherbeaten doors. The American flag is the perfect decoration.



Linked on The Barn Collective.

The best barns are horse barns...

We're thinking of another visit to one of our favorite towns in SE Washington, Walla Walla. It's home to a thriving wine industry, is on the edge of the Palouse wheat country, and has some of my favorite houses and barns. It also has hundreds of geocaches, if you're into that (like DW and I are). There are twisty back roads for the sports car, mountains and rushing rivers, snow in the winter and heat in the summer. It's one of our favorite places.

A few years ago we discovered the Kibler barns, a barn unlike any I'd ever seen. So when we got home, I did a bit of research.



The Kibler family left an enduring legacy in the Walla Walla Valley, through the agricultural structures they built. Four barns were built from similar plans, each constructed for members of the extended family, and two of the Kibler Barns remain in the family to this day. The white barn on the original farmstead, built in 1918, was accepted in the first round of nominations to the Washington Heritage Barn register (along with my brother-in-law's family barn on Vashon Island).





As much as I love barns, I also love farmhouses. It's great that this wonderful farm has an equally wonderful farmhouse.



My favorite of the four Kibler barns is across the green wheat fields from the 1870 Kibler Farm. It's the biggest of the Kibler barns, painted red with white trim, and was built to stable 48 draft horses. Can't you just imagine this barn full of huge horses at the end of the day? The grooms rubbing each horse down after the day's work, tossing hay down from the loft into each manger, bedding each stall with fresh straw, the horses munching their evening hay.



Some might disagree, but I think the best barns are horse barns.

Linking up today with Tom's Barn Collective.

Winter barns...

It's snowed a half dozen times this winter (so far)... but the timing hasn't worked out at all for photographing my favorite barns with snow on the ground. To compensate for that lack (which I really feel), I've gone back to other years and other snowy landscapes, to remember some of my favorite winter scenes.

We weren't able to get to Ellensburg this winter, but in 2016 we spent a weekend with good friends, and before we drove back to the west side, I spent a few hours in a blizzard, photographing some of the farms south of town. I was the only one out on the roads, an experience I won't ever forget.











The falling snow blurs the edges, making photographs look like paintings.



Among the several hundred barns in the Kittitas Valley, many are decorated with painted quilt blocks. Kittitas County has the only designated barn quilt trail in the state of Washington.





The valley also has several intact historic homesteads, like this one west of town. I love barns, but exploring a place where old farmhouses still stand proud with their barns is so special.

Sharing my winter barns on The Barn Collective today.