The Seacrest barn

Today was a celebration of the Seacrest barn's 125th year. This is an octagonal barn about 15 miles east of Iowa City. We have enjoyed visiting old barns, and this celebration also included a demonstration of Belgian work horses loading hay in the barn. So we went out and enjoyed the afternoon quite a bit.

The barn is quite complex, with a lower level having stables and milking stations, a "main floor" (where the ramp shown in the first picture leads) with workshops and various equipment, and an upper level that would have stored hay for the winter. The upper level was gorgeous, with an amazing domed ceiling that almost looked church-like.

The Belgian horses are beautiful, massive animals that are clearly capable of an amazing amount of work, but they are also very well mannered and take directions readily from their owner. It was beautiful to see how they worked, and it was amazing to see just how difficult it was to move hay from the main floor of the barn to the upper level. It seemed to take at least two different pulls on different ropes to get the hay lifted up and then moved over to the right storage area.

Perhaps the most surprising event of this aftenoon was seeing a graduate school friend at the barn. Kent Fuller worked for the same advisor I did, Frank Anderson, and I knew that he was in the Iowa City area, but we hadn't looked him up after I moved here. He and Gretchen were at the barn, though, and it was nice to say hello. I'm sure we'll get in touch with them when we can have time to catch up. A very nice treat for the day!