red barns Archives • Into the Light Adventures

Memories of the Farm, We went for a drive the other day. The sun was out and the chickadees were singing on this beautiful February Morning. I grew up on a farm and raised horses for many years. One of the things I like to see in the country is the old red barns.

We came across this one covered in snow. I can just picture, back in the day when this old barn was new. Painted a beautiful red, oh how it must have stood out when the snow blanketed the roof top.

I had a barn just like this one. The same shape and red, mine faced the sun just as this one is. I used to open up the big hay loft door that you see in this photo above the ground, I would open it up on a sunny day in winter and sit on the edge and enjoy the warmth of the sun caressing my skin.

These are the days I remember the most, living the simple life, enjoying the little things. I still enjoy doing the same thing, except now I sit on my porch, still facing the sun and just listening to the sounds of nature.

Living each day in the moment, for our days go by so fast. My photos remind me of wonderful days gone by and also remind me that the best moments in life are now, for tomorrow we do not know.

by Sandra J

See What’s Round the Bend

By Sandra | November 19, 2020

See What’s Round the Bend, Ryan’s Round Barn is what’s round the bend. Because you have to bend the wood to make it round. 🙂 Get it? bend, round.

Well, we went camping at this beautiful state park a couple weeks ago. Where it is home to Ryan’s Round Barn, one of the nation’s largest round barns, measuring eighty feet high and eighty-five feet in diameter, and one of forty-two remaining in the State of Illinois, is an architectural marvel.

This barn was on the farm of Dr. Laurence Ryan, built as a retreat from his work as surgeon and chief of the medical staff at St. Anthony Hospital in Chicago. Ryan developed plans for the round barn to house 50 purebred Black Angus cattle.

And it is a true round barn, the idea of making a round barn was discovered by a man who was looking at a cow from above, the cow is a wedge-shaped animal, like a piece of pie. So they figured they could get more cows in the barn and have the silo/feed in the middle. More efficient they figured.

Below is what the barn looks like on the inside today.

Photo below is looking up at the ceiling from the inside.

I do love finding historical places like this. They did not build many barns like this for a couple reasons, one it was a nightmare for the construction worker who had to figure out how to build it and second, the neighbors would give you a hard time for building something so strange looking back in the day.