I'd say the barn was about sixty to sixty-five feet wide and not quite that long. The working area of the ground level was about the outside twenty feet on the front and two sides. The haymow was the area above the ceiling of that 'U' shaped ground floor and from the roof peak right down to the ground for that back central area of about twenty-five by thirty feet.
But it was that long slanted roof, and the 10 inch beams that were the rafters, that meant there were always long empty 'tunnels' hidden in the hay! It was inevitable that the very outside wedge of mow space and at least some of the spaces between the rafters would not get filled with hay, even when in the beginning we were using loose (unbaled) hay to fill the mow.
A veritable maze of 'hay forts'! What more could a kid ask? Tunnels you could barely squeeze through that led to completely hidden places big enough for two or three to sit up in. Hidden from parents with chores to assign, or nosy siblings, or bullying cousins. Fine places, where being little was actually an advantage. Places that rewarded you for testing your courage in the face of incipient claustrophobia. Places that scared the bejesus out of you till you learned the tricks like backing into the really tight spaces and always making sure your shoulders fit even when they are a little more expanded than they need to be.
And the nice part was that as my brother and I got older, and bigger, we were actually the ones doing most of the haymow packing, which meant that we could make deliberate openings and tunnels useable even for our increased stature. By then we were baling the hay so it was easy enough to leave out a bale or two (or three or four) in strategic places. We actually made some pretty elaborate ones one year but when Dad discovered them during the winter he ordered us not to do that again because we were wasting to much storage space.
That haymow was a sanctuary, now and then, till I left home after highschool. Seems kind of a shame that every kid can't have one.
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