The Big Red Barn

The view of the barn from the house in 2000

"Anyway, now to go back to Kjettestorp, let’s go to the barn. Up in the barn, on the north end of the barn was what we called logen. That’s where they put the grain when it was harvested and dried until the threshing machine came. Then on the other side, there was storage for straw and chaff. If we go outside now and go in the main door to the barn, there to the left when we come in there were the cow stalls. They had a round sort of dish for water. When the cows pushed their noses in to drink, there was a sort of button or lid and more water came in, so we didn’t have to go around with buckets to give them water. We just pumped up water into the barrel. That was part of the chores in the barn was to pump that barrel full of water. We had room for 10 or 12 cows.

Mom labeled this photo "Kisa kor" or Kisa cows.

Then at the end there, there was a place for chickens. There were, of course, nests for chickens and large dowels where they roosted at night and there was a little door out to the yard and a little landing going down for them to walk on when they went out. We used to have a big resting yard for the chicken where they could go out in the open but we very seldom had them run loose. My dad was real firm about that. He didn’t want to step on chicken droppings. That little chicken yard was surrounded by wire; I guess that’s why they call it chicken wire. That wire was high enough so the chickens could not fly over. One on end of the father table for the cows there was a stepladder up to the hayloft. You had to go up there with the hayfork and pitch down some hay when you were feeding them. Sometimes we fed them straw. Then we had some kind of slag product from a sugar factory that resembled molasses. We would put that in a watering can and stir it up with water and mix that with the straw. Oh how the cows loved that.

On the inside of the barn, there was also a place for pigs. We always had one or two pigs, one to sell and one for our own use, for butchering. Then there were a couple of boxes for calves. On the south end of the barn there was a box where we had the chopping machine. We grew a certain kind of turnips that we chopped up for the cows in wintertime. They were stored out in the field, packed in with straw and dirt on top so they didn’t freeze. Then they could go there and get so much at a time.

This is Lennart, Binga, and Sara. I believe they're in the field next to the main house at
Kjettestorp because you can see Lake Föllingen in the background and I'm guessing it's
about 1938 because Lennart looks like he's about 10. :)

Then there was a room for another staircase up to the hayloft where we got hay down for the horses. We had room for four horses, I believe. There was a chest there where we picked up the crushed oats that they got. Each horse had its own place to eat. The horses didn’t have a watering system, so we had to take buckets and give each of them water. Then there was a big stall where we kept a brooding mare. She was in there when she was going to have a foal. Then at the end of the barn, there was something that, well, I don’t know what it’s called here. In Swedish, it’s a selekammare. That’s where all the bridles and such was kept, all the straps for the horses when they were going to pull a wagon and such. Then there was rather big place called vagnsboden, where the wagons were kept and sleds and all those sorts of things.

Then at the end of that was where the bridge went up to the hayloft when they hauled in the hay. The horse went all the way up on top and then when we unloaded the hay, we’d put out a layer and then salt and then another layer and then more salt. That helped preserve the hay from getting moldy. Up on the north end of the barn was the new woodshed. When they cut the wood, there was no such a thing as just throwing it in. It was lined up along the wall all neat and different wood was in different sections."

The Kjettestorp barn in 1978 with photographer Magnus Boberg in front of it :)