The Old Red Barn

See this beautiful old dairy barn? 

Here's another point of view...

 

This barn and granary were made by Cliff's Dad for Cliff when he was a little boy and now they've been passed on to Gavin, who LOVES them and cherishes them and plays with them all the time. We have them out on our front porch, so they're mostly protected from the elements, but we'll most likely move them into the basement for the winter.  

 

Never mind the sidewalk chalk on the roof and side of the barn. Gavin likes to color on the barn and then wash it off. We discourage it, but it IS his barn now.

 

 

I loved the way he lined up all of the cattle. I especially like the "cow" sign he posted at the end of the line-up! What this doesn't show is that he also had a plastic horse and the horse was jumping over all the cows! It was like Hey Diddle Diddle, only it was "the horse jumped over the cows"

 

 

This also came with a lesson in identifying the difference between cows or heifers and bulls or steers. Hey, a boy's gotta know the difference! He was calling all the stocky cows bulls, but some of them were actually cows, so I had to explain how I knew.  

 

 

I just love how much Gavin plays with this barn and granary and love that his Grandpa built it and his Daddy played with it when he was a little boy. Cliff's parents also gave us the animals that Cliff had when he was a little boy, but most of them had seen better days. Like many of them had only one or no legs left... it seems a dog may have also played with them at some point. :(  So, we're glad that Gavin already had this awesome set of farm animals. There are actually cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, etc in the set and they're pretty cool. Of course, there is no shortage of tractors, wagons, planters, plows, and other implements to play with in and around the "farm" on our front porch. And in case there ever IS a shortage of those, that doesn't mean Gavin won't play with the barn. He has had Stripes in the barn, he's had several of his stuffed animals in the barn and even his baby doll. This barn is going to get a lot of use over the next few years I think!