The Woodshed

This was part of my grandparents' barn, which in itself was a combination garage/chicken coop/outhouse/hayloft/cowbarn and, added on to the south side, this woodshed. The cows were long gone, the chickens were gone by the time I turned 8 or 9, but the barn remained an endless source of fascination for this city-boy. When I got older, I would spend a good deal of time there, splitting wood to be used in the cookstove. To be among those rough, hand hewn timbers, with the smell of the freshly split wood filling my nostrils, and having my grandfather's time-worn tools hanging about me- it was as if I had entered into a different world, far away from the "modern" life I lived at home.