Sunny Winter Day on the Farm

I love the lines of my barn. My farm was founded in 1803 by Puritans from Rhode Island. There is water everywhere including a cistern in the field behind the barn that never goes dry. The original barn burned down. The oldest part of this barn dates from 1826, I believe, and then added on to in the 1930's when the Kupris family, Lithuanian emigrants from the Bronx, bought it. Sister Grace and Sister Bernadette, along with their brother, built the addition I am living in. The girls got up on the roof to nail the sheet metal on - three nails in every sheet they tell me. It never leaks. I love the silos and the big barn door. I can imagine the Kupris parents backing the hay wagon and team of horses up the ramp to unload the bales with the giant hook that's still hanging in the mow. So much work. It should have stayed in their family forever. The valley is loaded with Kupris relatives, but none of them could save this farm for the family. Hard times, I guess. Now I am here, but most of the land was sold off to a wealthy investor from New Jersey before I got here.