All Barns Are Not Created Equal

Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown is one of our kids’ favorite books. (A fan has posted each page here Big Red Barn if you’d like to give it a quick look) In it, the author relates a typical day on a farm, where families of animals of all varieties peacefully play, mingle, and sleep. It’s charming and idyllic, and ultimately aspirational.

The barn at Hummingbird Ranch is none of these things. Our barn has seen some things.

When we first explored its musty gloom, we found evidence of uses past - a weird eye wash station; a spooky loft with a gallery of subversive graffiti; and a saloon-era piano left to crumble in a side room.

One thing for sure, it was uninhabitable. It did have a scintilla of charm however, a rustic counterpoint to the majestic pepper tree adjacent. It’s become a useful space to store outdoor furniture, a small bbq, and our ever growing arsenal of saws, weed whippers, clippers, ladders, and more. The outside of the barn has served as a home base of sorts, a place to sit around the fire pit, eat at the picnic table, or loll back and forth on the tree swing.

My goal for the barn is to eventually create a living and gathering space. But until then, it’s left on its own to be equal parts creepy and practical. I have found many inspiration barns to fuel my dreaming, however. Here are some of my favorites.

My friend Melissa’s take on modern ranching in the lovely Santa Ynez Valley has also been a huge influence. Check out Ranchy McRanch and Domino Magazine to see how she transformed five plus acres into a sublime oasis thriving with rescue animals of every stripe.

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Without a livable structure on the property, we stayed in hotels and motels, and a nearby guesthouse. Our trips to the Ranch during this time always felt disjointed, like we were visitors on our own land. So in October 2021, we decided to rent a travel trailer and stay onsite. It couldn’t have been an easier process - they delivered and set it up, and then hauled it away when we were finished. We were so enamored with the trailer life that we stopped on the drive back to Laguna and bought one!

Feeling the earth under our feet at every time of day has given us important insight into how the land lives and breathes, and how we want to exist on it.

Beyond the barn and the trailer, I have enormous plans for a dwelling that will one day perch atop our highest hill. My schemes are so massive, they deserve their own post.

In the meantime, enjoy this image of Charles relaxing fireside in the “coach.”