The soul of an old barn is a mystical universe, it has its own story, sense of time, history, climate and eco-system.

The author Carolyn Jourdan (Heart In The Right Place)  wrote that an old barn is a “shadowy world of swirling dust illuminated in tiger stripes by light shining through the cracks between the boards.”

There, you can find dust, old bales of hey, leather, tack, chain, rope and boards, baling twine hanging from rusty nails, hammers, tools, rakes, pocket knives, layers of mold and detritus and life lost in the layers of history.

Maria and I and our friend Susan went to Vermont this morning to have our favorite Sunday brunch at Chauncey’s in Arlington. On the way back, I stopped to photograph one of my favorite old barns.

One of these days, it will have collapsed or been taken down, old barns are disappearing every day across rural America, they cannot really be replaced. Everything does change. I savor my time with them.