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Weather: Continued light snow, some wind, lots of cold

By Howard B. Owens

It's snowing lightly right now, and the light snow is expected to continue into tonight and tomorrow morning.

It should taper off to flurries by Friday, but there's some bit of snow in the forecast through Monday.

And some wind, up to 20 mph at times.

And cold -- below 30 degrees until Saturday, when the temperature might reach a blistering 31 degrees.

Photo: Another barn shot. This one on Route 63 heading out toward Oakfield, but still in the Town of Batavia, I beleive.

Gary Diegelman

Currently owned by My-T-Acres. Formerly was owned and operated by the Harloffs. I remember packing cabbage in these barns and loading cabbage on tractor trailers by hand. I can still see the elder Harloff, Bert, out there supervising. Harley and Greg were good people to work for.It is in the Town of Batavia. It would be interesting to research the different colors of barns. Traditionally they were Red however there is a number of White ones and some Yellows. Was there an advantage to White or Yellow?

Feb 17, 2010, 7:41pm Permalink
Lori Ann Santini

Gary I found this on the website known as HowStuffWorks.

If you've ever driven through a rural area, it's likely that you've seen the red barns that speckle the farming landscape. There are several theories as to why barns are painted red.

Centuries ago, European farmers would seal the wood on their barns with an oil, often linseed oil -- a tawny-colored oil derived from the seed of the flax plant. They would paint their barns with a linseed-oil mixture, often consisting of additions such as milk and lime. The combination produced a long-lasting paint that dried and hardened quickly. (Today, linseed oil is sold in most home-improvement stores as a wood sealant). Now, where does the red come from?

In historically accurate terms, "barn red" is not the bright, fire-engine red that we often see today, but more of a burnt-orange red. As to how the oil mixture became traditionally red, there are two predominant theories:

Wealthy farmers added blood from a recent slaughter to the oil mixture. As the paint dried, it turned from a bright red to a darker, burnt red.
Farmers added ferrous oxide, otherwise known as rust, to the oil mixture. Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns. These fungi would trap moisture in the wood, increasing decay.
Regardless of how the farmer tinted his paint, having a red barn became a fashionable thing. They were a sharp contrast to the traditional white farmhouse.
As European settlers crossed over to America, they brought with them the tradition of red barns. In the mid to late 1800s, as paints began to be produced with chemical pigments, red paint was the most inexpensive to buy. Red was the color of favor until whitewash became cheaper, at which point white barns began to spring up.

Today, the color of barns can vary, often depending on how the barns are used.

The barn on our property is red. I have always been partial to the color. I also think that it helps absorb heat in the winter leaving it a little bit warmer.

Feb 17, 2010, 8:27pm Permalink

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