Up and under

The Loft

Up a narrow stair, flat and steeply pitched against a loft above goat stalls below, the dusty floor opens broadly. The empty space, scattered now with just the few remaining bits of clean straw left from winter’s stacked bales, glowing warmly--the barn board walls, ages old and built around heavy beams of hand hewn oak, lit softly by the first morning rays.




Through one of the pair of small, east-facing windows looking out over the pasture, I have watched a Phoebe perch on the sill above, then, seconds later, disappear into the dimly lit interior. This expansive old barn, no longer housing the dairy cows it was raised to shelter a hundred years ago, but a collection of tractors, plows, mowing decks, garden tools, items to be recycled—and, apparently, one phoebe nest.


I wait and watch quietly, eyes struggling between the bright spikes of light and the shadow just beyond their reach, and see her fly from her silhouetted form, across the loft to the highest point within the gambrel roof. Beside the round vent, 30 feet above the barn floor, she has built her nest—held steady on the old track where pulleys ran back and forth, lifting to the lofts, heavy hay.


Safe, it would seem from most anything.
Up and under.

The Old Barn

Phoebe in the East Window

View more ABC Wednesdays here!