He told us that Iowa loses 1,000 barns every year. I don't know how many we had to start with or how many might be left, but it is a very visible sign of change. Michael P. Harker, a well-known photographer who has been shooting barns for many years and has published a unique collection of those pictures in Harker's Barns, did some research on why these magnificent structures are disappearing. It was obvious that he was not a farmer, nor did he claim to have any knowledge in that area, but he did some research and has been presenting it for the last eight years.
    I have a barn. I wasn't born in one, but I've spent a lot of time there. My sisters and I played in my parents' barn from a very young age.  We were introduced to the big building before we could even remember being there, carried on the arm of an adult checking on the animals. I don't recall the transition, but somewhere along the way, we began to work in the barn. It was a slick transition that went unnoticed until one day Mom and Dad were busy with other farm chores and we found ourselves pitching manure out of the north calf pen by ourselves. I think they used the same tactics that became useful to me when I became a parent. Kids love a bucket and a pail and big pile of feed. Then they need a place to dump the pail, which in our barn, just happened to be a metal receptacle in front of hungry sows. The other really tempting attraction that keeps children wanting to return to the barn is the kittens. They were usually located up in the haymow, so why not throw down a few bales of hay while you are up there?  It was logical and necessary, a way of life, the epicenter of the farm and most likely the income for survival.
    My barn, the barn where I grew up, and nearly every useful barn that I know of, have endured interior and exterior metamorphosis to adapt to the changing agricultural scene. Some have been remodeled into restaurants and hostels. Others have been opened up to store big round bales or house machinery. We transformed the big wood-frame building on our farm from a horse and dairy barn into a hog facility with areas for farrowing crates and nursery pens. We spent a lot of time in there. Salesmen and other visitors had better luck finding us in the barn than in the house.
    Many farmers have found that a profitable livestock enterprise cannot be contained in one central building any more. As Mr. Harker discovered and reported to a group of us assembled in a meeting room; the old barns are expensive to maintain and difficult to insure. It is hard to justify keeping them as mere monuments to the past. A few will be preserved, but many more will be counted among the lost as the years go by. There is a certain fascination with the rich heritage hidden within and often with the decaying exterior of these majestic containers of farm life. I am glad he is photographing them. It is time to be curious, to work to restore and refurbish. As a farmer trying to adjust to the drastic changes in agriculture, I know that we must move forward with structures that are viable. With fewer barns to block our view of the countryside, we'll have to adapt our inquisitive minds to wonder what is going on out behind the hoop buildings and the grain bins.