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.