DAY 29 - Cornfields Are Dry Now

The cornfields are brown and dry now, trees are getting bare. . . winter's a'coming.

DAY 28 - Farm Silos

Three farm silos in Amish country

DAY 27 - Trees Don't Look Like This Now

I shot this picture in September, before the trees changed color. The only green now are the pinetrees, the other trees are on their way to their winter bareness.

DAY 26 - 4-Story Barn

This 4-story barn sits in an open field off of Routes 16 and 60, north of Dresden. The day we were there they were having a big farm show with lots of old farm and construction machinery.

DAY 25 - Out House

This old out house off to the side of a newer garage caught my eye on this farm. I love the little tractor and trailor yard decoration on the retaining wall.

DAY 24 - Old Mail Pouch Barn

This is another of the area's aging barns with the Mail Pouch advertising. This is second generation advertising; look closely, and you'll see the older, faded advertising above the new lettering. This barn is on Rt. 40 East, between New Concord and Norwich.

DAY 23 - Why are so many barns red?

Have you ever wondered why so many older barns are painted red. I did a little googling, and here's what I found out:

If you've ever driven through a rural area, it's likely that you've seen the red barns that speckle the farming landscape. There are several theories as to why barns are painted red.

Centuries ago, European farmers would seal the wood on their barns with an oil, often linseed oil -- a tawny-colored oil derived from the seed of the flax plant. They would paint their barns with a linseed-oil mixture, often consisting of additions such as milk and lime. The combination produced a long-lasting paint that dried and hardened quickly. (Today, linseed oil is sold in most home-improvement stores as a wood sealant). Now, where does the red come from?

In historically accurate terms, "barn red" is not the bright, fire-engine red that we often see today, but more of a burnt-orange red. As to how the oil mixture became traditionally red, there are two predominant theories:

Wealthy farmers added blood from a recent slaughter to the oil mixture. As the paint dried, it turned from a bright red to a darker, burnt red.

Farmers added ferrous oxide, otherwise known as rust, to the oil mixture. Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns. These fungi would trap moisture in the wood, increasing decay. Regardless of how the farmer tinted his paint, having a red barn became a fashionable thing. They were a sharp contrast to the traditional white farmhouse.

As European settlers crossed over to America, they brought with them the tradition of red barns. In the mid to late 1800s, as paints began to be produced with chemical pigments, red paint was the most inexpensive to buy. Red was the color of favor until whitewash became cheaper, at which point white barns began to spring up.

Today, the color of barns can vary, often depending on how the barns are used.

Thanks to http://people.howstuffworks.com/question635.htm for the info.