Red barn~Sunday Stills Challenge 042510

This is the barn from my childhood. My parents bought this 10 acre ranch when I was about 8 years old and kept it for about 8 years. They bought it as an investment and never had horses there. Instead, it was their weekend getaway from the chaos of Los Angeles. We went down there almost every weekend. I remember the barn roof when they bought it. It was full of holes. There were owls in the barn! My father decided to install an aluminum roof on it (I guess that was his project). I'll always remember when he and my uncle were on top of that barn, pounding in the nails to hold the aluminum panels, perched up there with a rope tied around their waists in case they fell. Yes, my dad and uncle reroofed that entire barn!!! I would go off exploring the 10 acres and sometimes more. At that time, during the 1960's, there were only a couple other ranches on the road. There was a ranch right across the street and I became friends with the young man who lived there with his parents. His grandfather also lived on his own house on their spread. I used to hike in the hills and my dad would find rattlesnakes all the time (there was a reservoir at the top of the hill), and I heard many of them in the bushes. Finally, when my parents sold the ranch, but kept the second trust deed, I would go riding in those hills bareback, borrowing a horse, and hear the rattlesnakes, or the horses would! The hills were crawling with them at that time. Now, those same hills are developed (or over-developed.) This ranch is in Vista, California, not too far from Camp Pendleton and on some afternoons, we could hear the goings-on at the Marine base. Because it is close to the ocean, the fog would roll in sometimes and I remember how the clouds would hug the hills until about 10:00 a.m. During the summers, however, it could be quite warm (not HOT, like our desert, but "warm") and on those lazy days, sometimes I would just read a book. There was another white barn higher up on the property, but it was pretty run down and I didn't like to poke around in it alone. This red barn has been refurnished. The original tack room is gone and the inside has been redone. But, the aluminum roof that my father put on it so many years ago remains intact. I used to roam around this barn, as a kid, and smell the tack room smells, sniff the odor of long-gone hay, and try to imagine that someday I would have my own horse. Now, as an adult, I have 5 horses of my own, but no barn to put them in! Ahhhh.....someday! Of course, I would love to have a barn modeled after this one, the barn of my youth, but I don't think that will ever be possible! I hope you have enjoyed this tour of the red barn! Sunday Stills Challenge for April 25, 2010. By the way, there aren't many barns left like this one in Southern California, especially this size! It is indeed a unique barn! My quest, in this blog, has been to discover those barns. If anyone can point me in the direction of another one, please let me know! If you wish to know where this barn is, please email me. And yes, it is now a working equestrian training center.