Black barns

I hope to get a picture of our completed pumpkins later when the sun goes down. That is if they don't blow away. It is so windy out today! Something big is on it's way and it's threatening RAIN on Halloween. WHAT?!

(click on photo to make it bigger)

I was talking to my sister awhile ago and somehow I started telling her about the black barns. There may be a farm or something with several barns of different colors, but most places seem to always have one black barn. I knew about why most old barns are red.... it was based on using the cheapest material possible to paint them at the time, which was leaded red paint. Personally, I'm glad that now even though there probably is not any lead in the paint... that they are still traditionally red. There is nothing prettier than a bright red barn.

I also learned most dairy barns are white to denote cleanliness and sanitation. Cleanliness...okay. Mucky cow poop. Ew. - But from what I've noticed, this theory in barn colors seems to be true based on the farms near me and on the way to Louisville or Lexington.

(Who knew there was so much to know about barns.)

So the answer to the black barns in Kentucky or any other tobacco growing state: Historically the barns that are black weren't actually "painted" ... they were covered with creosote. The barns are covered with it for two reasons (usually)... to keep the termites and other wood-eating critters away from them -- thereby making them last a lot longer, and (2) ... to make the interior of the barn much hotter to cure tobacco leaves.

Megan and I stopped to get this picture on our way home today. It just makes me so happy that I get to pass stuff like this on my daily drives to do errands. These scenic roads make me happy. I must be a farm girl at heart... except for the fact that I've gotten quite girly and don't like mud, or poop, or chickens, or asthmatic inducing barn dust, harvesting big fields or raising my own food. I like to think that meat comes in rectangular styrofoam from a refrigerated section of the grocery store. - Hey, but I still appreciate a beautiful farm, long fences, rolling hills, patchwork quilts of different crops, hard working farmers who do a job that personally I couldn't do, and cool barns.