Do you have a favorite spot you don’t share?

When I was a child my favorite spot “just to be” was beside the silo in our dairy barn.

Our barn was actually two barns joined together with a large double barn door. One was the three-story dairy barn connected to the older two-story barn which we used for a team of horses, my pony, and baby calves.

The silo was just inside the horse barn. The sliding door nearest the cow barn was the one Dad used to access the corn silage (think salad) he fed the cows in the winter.

I loved to slip behind the second silo door, usually left partially open. It was always cool there even on hot days. When our team, Mage and Flo, wasn’t working a pair of leather harnesses hung from the hooks. A salty dried sweat from the leather infused the still air. The box of Dad’s tools for shoeing the horses smelled of the earth they tromped day after day. Mixed with these was the sweetness of the fresh chopped corn or the sourness of the leftover silage in the summer.

There was no artificial light, but only the natural light from the barn. It was quiet with only an occasional stomp of a hoof if the horses were in their stalls.

It was a wonderful spot to let my mind wander, to dream the possible and the impossible.

I hope you have a special space not for sharing. Everyone needs a place “just to be.”