Katherine writes: Old barns make me happy. Being an owner of an old barn myself, when I see them in a state of disrepair I feel for the people who own them. It’s expensive to keep them up and I wonder if there’s not a program to help owners of old barns?
Old barns have been rather a feature of this blog, because I like them as much as Katherine does. I don’t know about any programs for saving them. They tend to be restored when a group forms a nonprofit for that purpose, or they’re kept up when they have a practical use on a working farm. The Samels Farm over on Skegemog Lake comes to mind. Closer to home, Mark White’s barn is repaired. I should take a picture of it for you.
More old barns on TLV:
- Red, red barn
- Centennial barn at Bayview Farm
- Old-fashioned barn-falling and Update on barn-falling
- Katherine’s take and Babs Young’s on the same barn
- Farms of Antrim
- Barn at Sunset by Babs Young
Posted in: Letters from Katherine, Torch Lake memories
Torch Lake Views 
Babs Young
June 3, 2009
The Antrim County Historical Society is documenting all the barns in Antrim County for Michigan State. The project seems to have bogged down lately. I helped do Torch Lake and Banks Townships, but don’t know where the other townships stand. And Katherine, that is a very nice image you made of the barn. Do you have an infrared camera or do you do it in your trusty computer?
p.j. grath
June 3, 2009
One problem with spending money to restore old barns is that one cannot buy insurance on them. When we were over in Door County, Wisconsin, though, I noticed their barns are in much better repair than Leelanau’s. Northport’s Sharon Kalchik (bless her heart!) has photographed every barn in our (Leelanau) township, though, and I do wish she would publish those pictures in book form.
katherine
June 3, 2009
Babs, I do it with my computer and Photoshop.
Thanks!
P.J. I also noticed that when we were in Canada their barns, at least where we were, looked in very good shape.
flandrumhill
June 5, 2009
The barns in these parts do look to be in good shape. Not sure why that is.