End of an era...the oats bin comes down. There's an interesting story connected to this building which Dad relayed to me when I went to the farm the other day. The structure was built before he was born and was originally used as a brooder coop, which is a place to raise chickens. As chicks hatched, they were kept in a small part of the building by a portable wall. When they got bigger the wall was taken out. In those days chickens ran freely on the farm, but farmers knew that chickens stayed close to their coop. As a result, the area around the coop became messy after a short time, and disease would set in easily. For that reason the coop was built on a big skid, and when the chickens were big enough to be let out they would hook up the horses to the skid and pull the entire structure out to the pasture. After a few weeks the building was moved to another fresh spot in the pasture. This was done several times during the summer. By the time Dad was born this practice had been discontinued, and the building had been placed on a foundation and used as a place to store oats over the winter. That is the only way I remember it being used. Although we were forbidden to do this, Rach and I would sometime sneak in the building and play in the oats. Dad also clearly remembers the last time he shingled the roof. He guesses it was probably around 1974. While he was working on it a couple men from church came to collect money for the P.R. Seminary Building Fund. He jumped off the roof, gave them some money, and then worked until after dark to finish it. "Yes, those were the days when I could work from before dawn until after dark," he commented with a smile. Dad believes that some of the building was constructed with wood from the great white pine trees that used to populate the farm. Almost 100 years later it is ready to topple back into the earth. Such is the circle of life. So there is a little family history lesson to store in your memory bank. God bless you one and all....