Changing Times for the Red Barn

When  Dana and Jim  moved from Chicago to Santa Rosa seventeen years ago they bought a house in Skyhawk, a large development across an open field* from our house. Will was six months old, and from his bedroom window we could see  the red barn on the hill some distance away. I always liked it on its perch up there. It stood for the sort of rural living that was non-existent in Berkeley.

Fifteen years later OilMan and I moved to Santa Rosa and our house is just two blocks away from the red barn. We can't see it from our house, but as soon as we walk through the field of dreams above our house to the road, there it is, visible on its hill just a stone's throw away. Reminiscent of an earlier  time, I like what it has come to stand for in my mind…timelessness, and a simpler, more rural way of life.

The pace of development toward our home has picked up, especially in the form of the graders, earth movers and orange outhouses which are currently scattered around our former dog walking field. Yesterday when we were walking by, we noticed an orange outhouse next to the red barn. Does it have to clash so badly? Couldn't they get a red one? Today's picture shows the outhouse and the earth mover which has been toiling up and down in front of the barn all day, its piercing beeping designed at just the right decibel level so that it can't be ignored.  Since it is presumably to warn nearby workers that it is backing up does it really need to be clearly and unavoidably audible for miles?

We're hoping they are just widening the existing road as a fire road....



*This is the field, also known as "the valley" and "the canyon" by people around here who use(ed) it all the time to walk their dogs where we walk(ed) Ozzie, sometimes all the way to Dana's house.