Born in a Barn

January 25, 2015

My favorite expression from my city friends is when they tell their kids to close the door and follow it up with “What?  Were you born in a barn?”  I always have a little self-centered, holier-than-thou smirk inside me when I hear it because those of us living our lives in and out of barns, know good and well, that even a child in a barn knows to close that damn door every time!  Now, I’m not trying to say I’m the goddess of country living, but in the 10 years I’ve been in the lifestyle, I’ve BEEN IN THIS LIFESTYLE!

I learned a few quick and hard lessons when I was 21 and experiencing what I thought was full country living.  It was snowing in 2006.  Remember those storms, Coloradans?  They were tough.  It snowed and didn’t melt and snowed again until the piles of snow started to grow outward instead of upward, and we were all thankful to not have neighbors because there wouldn’t be room for the both of us.  On the eve of one of these storms, Wyatt and I were out feeding and blanketing dogs and horses.  We normally held hands going between each chore, but that time the wind was rolling in with the kind of biting cold that only comes with snow at its heels, so we really didn’t want our hands exposed.  (Gloves would have been a good idea which I quickly learned as well.)  As the sun set and the cold gray of a stormy evening took hold, snowflakes began to fly.  In front of those dog pens, we shared some of the most romantic and open-hearted words of our entire relationship. (Yes, romantic words happen in front of a dirty dog pen.)

“Are you sure you want to be doing this?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, when it gets cold like this, do you really want to spend the rest of your life doing this?”
I looked at him with devout sincerity, “Yeah.”

Obviously, you know I’m a woman of MANY words, so my simplicity at the time must have meant something.  He went on to explain that when it snows, we won’t be able to hunker down and watch a movie.  We would be out here.  Out in this.  This life.  We would be out in this life because the animals’ safety and well-being would come first as they would in turn take care of us.  

This life is our livelihood and doing it right determines our income, but living this country life in the right way is so much more than income-- it is a way of being.  Doing what needs to be done regardless of responsibility, is this life.  Afterall, you can’t very well ask a storm to pick up after itself.

Being born in a barn with that innate sense to close what you open, would have helped me that following spring.  After feeding 50 some mama cows in a run down Massy, I’d forgotten to close the gate.  Yep, my worst fear, all of them were out!  Not really knowing what I was doing, I worked calmly (though mentally shitting my pants) with my 75 year-old, soon to be grand-mother-in-law pushing the group back though an empty irrigation pond, across an easement, and in between all the outbuildings and pens and back into their pasture.  Though difficult, I was glad that I was able to right my wrong; even though it was just a mistake, I had to take responsibility and fix it.

Being born or at least raised in a barn would be the best thing for most of the people I meet.  Being born in a barn really means that we are responsible for our actions and do what needs to be done regardless of fault or circumstance.  We close doors if we open them; we close doors that others open, and if we don’t, we deal with the consequences. But we don’t do it out of negative reinforcement, we do it because it is the right thing to do.

Being born in a barn would teach us to take care of what we have.  If we leave doors hanging open, it isn’t long before hinges are crooked and the door won’t close at all.  Then what would have taken five seconds will later take five hours not only getting livestock in, but also getting birds and other critters out, and then fixing the broken gate!  Not to mention having to spend the time and money to drive to town for supplies if you don’t have just the right screw amidst the junk piles we all save.

Finally, being born in a barn would come with its inherent germs.  While I seem to think that country germs are somehow less germy than city germs, we learn to be clean where and when we need to be clean, and it is just not appropriate to bring barn germs into the house.  We prepare our food rather than go out to eat, and we use rags rather than paper towels both of which require a measure of cleanliness that my city friends overlook.  We take off our shoes at the door because the visible mud and dirt or the invisible manure germs don’t need to be on the carpet we all sprawl out on during our much needed lunch-time breaks.

When it comes down to it, “Close the door!  What? Were you born in a barn?” is the biggest oxymoron I can think of because it doesn’t at all show laziness and sloppiness.  Quite the opposite!  For those of us that may as well have been born in a barn, we’d take it as a compliment because it really means we are thoughtful, careful, and responsible for our own actions as well as the outcomes of others’.