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    Our Barn in Summer: Remembering Portersville
    Our Barn in Summer: Remembering Portersville
    Our Barn in Summer: Remembering Portersville
    Ebook151 pages58 minutes

    Our Barn in Summer: Remembering Portersville

    By Robert Oliver

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    About this ebook

    Author's note: I'm in my mid-eighties, and I've just finished writing this collection of poems drawn from my boyhood years. They're not poems about my early life-they're poems from my early life.

    Each poem arose from a separate journey. I went back, became the boy I once was, then took a snapshot of something happening in that place and time.

    The place is a small farming and coal mining community in Western Pennsylvania. The time is my boyhood years, 1929-1937 or thereabouts.

    I'm sending these snapshots to my children and grandchildren. I'm also offering them to you, hoping you'll enjoy them.

    Robert Oliver
    August 2008

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateDec 2, 2008
    ISBN9780595622245
    Our Barn in Summer: Remembering Portersville
    Author

    Robert Oliver

    Robert W. Oliver II is a senior developer and DevOps consultant with over two decades of experience in the field. A truly full-stack programmer, Robert has architected both front-end and back-end systems and designed algorithms used in technologies operating at scales ranging from small to enterprise. With decades of experience working in Python, PHP, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, C/C++, Rust, and C#, he is fluent in the languages of programming and system design. 

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      Book preview

      Our Barn in Summer - Robert Oliver

      Our Barn In Summer

      When it rains, and our chores are done,

      Jane and I like to play in the barn.

      We don’t go to the lower level where

      the horses and sheep and pigs live,

      we go to the upper level where the haymow is.

      We go in through the little door

      that’s set into the big door. The big door

      opens the whole front of the barn

      so a team of horses can haul a load

      of hay inside. The little door’s for people.

      The first thing you see when you walk in

      is the haymow, because it’s so big.

      There’s a ladder, so it’s easy

      to climb up on top of the haymow.

      The hay is soft and springy––you can

      jump on it and listen to the rain beating

      on the wood shingles right over your head.

      After that, you can jump from the haymow

      onto one of the big beams

      that hold the barn together.

      There’re two main beams, and they run

      the whole length of the barn.

      They have funny dents on all four sides.

      Dad says that’s because each beam

      was a tree that somebody chopped down,

      then used hand tools to cut off all the bark

      and make it into a beam 12" square.

      The beams sit on strong poles,

      no nails, everything’s held together

      by big hand carved wooden pins.

      Jane and I like to walk on the beams

      all the way to the other end of the barn.

      Once you get past the haymow

      there’s nothing but wood floor

      ‘way below us.

      Mother probably wouldn’t like that.

      Across from the haymow is the granary.

      On top of the granary is a big pile

      of wheat sheaves and oat sheaves

      waiting for the thrasher to come.

      The sheaves are lumpy,

      harder to walk on than hay.

      After we climb back down on the floor

      we look at what’s stored there.

      In the back corner is our binder.

      When it’s time to harvest wheat or oats

      the binder cuts the grain stalks

      and ties them into sheaves.

      Sitting up high at the back end

      of the binder is a seat for the grownup

      who drives the three horses

      that pull it through the grain field.

      The seat has cutout letters that spell

      DEERING.

      All the other stuff is very old.

      There’s a buggy––cracked black roof

      covered with lots of dust and pigeon droppings,

      gray padded seat with some stains

      and worn places, a rusty iron step, and

      a whip socket but no whip.

      The wooden wheels are skinny

      ‘cause they don’t have to carry a big load

      like wagons do.

      There’s a sleigh,

      the sides painted brown and green

      with fancy curlicue markings.

      Mother says that before

      she married Dad

      (she was a school teacher

      boarding with Dad’s folks)

      he took her out for a sleigh ride

      when there was a late snow in May.

      There’s a windmill, but it’s not

      like windmills the Dutch Twins

      have in Holland. Our windmill

      is a big faded red box that we don’t

      use anymore. There’s an open place

      at the top where you could pour

      in grain and husks, then turn a wheel

      that makes a big breeze. The breeze blows

      the husks out one way, and the grain

      goes another way.

      Also, stacked in different places,

      lots of old scythes, sickles,

      wooden rakes, corn knives, hay forks,

      manure forks. And a heavy broom

      to clean dirt or hay or grain

      off the barn floor.

      The best part is the granary. It’s

      built into the front corner of the barn

      with separate wooden bins for

      wheat and oats. On the granary wall

      there’re tally marks

      in pencil, five to a group.

      Grandfather RH says

      that’s the way he used to count every

      bushel of grain he carried into the granary

      right after the wheat was thrashed.

      The new thrashing machines

      count the bushels by themselves

      so we don’t need tally marks anymore.

      It’s fun to climb into the grain bins.

      Oat grains are thin and spiky,

      no good to eat raw, but wheat grains

      are like brown berries, you can

      take a big handful, scoop it into your mouth

      and chew for a long time.

      It’s tough, but it tastes good.

      Bloomfield School

      Every August, the School Board

      hires my mother to clean Bloomfield

      for the new year. They pay her $5.

      The building is kind of squat and white

      and the only way to get in is through

      the big front door with a padlock on it.

      When you walk in, the first thing you see is

      a little cloakroom. That’s where

      we hang our coats and put our galoshes

      when it’s cold and snowy.

      Beyond the cloakroom door, Bloomfield is

      just one big room with windows.

      Mother sweeps the dust and cobwebs

      out of every corner, washes the windows,

      oils

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