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Our old Miller barn, with its hand-hewn timbers and oak floors, has seen a lot in its 171 years, but this will be a first, for sure. The barn swallows that for generations have attached their mud nests to its massive log floor joists, to which some bark and whitewash still attach, will be very surprised at the goings-on about a month from now.
When Busy Bee first broached the idea of staging the wedding reception for her and Worshrag in our old barn, my instant reaction was: impossible, absolutely impossible.
"Oh, Busy Bee," I said, "the barn's so dirty." In my mind's eye I saw three inches of brown dirt staining the hemline of her white wedding dress.
Honey said, "The barn's so full of junk, even with everything we got rid of in the auction. Where would we put everything?"
"The floors have holes in them and are uneven," I said. Then there's the barn's minimal electric service. We'd have to run a generator for the food warmers and extra lights. I came up with a dozen issues.
"THERE'S NO PLACE for people to change clothes," I added. "No plumbing, no water, no bathrooms. You can't have your wedding guests using a porta-potty."
Disappointed but respectful of our objections, Busy Bee dutifully began looking around the area for old barns that have been converted into wedding venues. The internet showed a couple dozen within a 30-mile radius.
"Would you believe," she reported back, "that the cheapest one costs $5,000, and they're all booked on our date anyway."
No matter how many good, logical reasons we came up with to show that the barn could not possibly host a wedding reception, Busy Bee kept coming back with ways to get around the obstacles.
We finally got the message that she hasd her heart set on not just any barn, but on our barn, the old Miller barn. During the pandemic, Worshrag set up a temporary weightlifting gym in the barn. Busy Bee was the only one among their fellow laid-off gym staffers who responded to his invitation to come work out. She came the next Saturday and the next and the next.
A makeshift gym in an old barn might seem the least likely place for romance to blossom, but for them, it did.
ALL OUR OBJECTIONS faded away as we heard the disappointment in her voice and saw it in her face. The girl is so transparent. It's one of her many wonderful character traits. She has come to love the farm and the barn, as well as our son. We love them, too. We understand.
Besides, it'll save 5,000 bucks.
"Isn't there some way we can do it?" my wife asked.
"Yeah," I said. "We can. Anything for Busy Bee."
My buy-in was essential because I would be taking the lead on the work projects. My big projects have been to figure out where we can put the accumulated clutter, what to keep and what to throw away. I would have to rebuild the one-inch oak floors on the east and west ends (the hay ends), and patch and clean the main central floor, which is the original two-inch tongue-and-groove oak.
Everyone has helped with cleaning and carrying away the clutter. Sons Seed and Worshrag have been essential when there were two-man jobs and heavy lifting, and there have been many.
Everyone in our family is helping with arrangements and decorations, and Busy Bee's parents have offered to pitch in, too. Honey, with her networking abilities, arranged the caterer, ordered rental tables, chairs and linens, and is begging and borrowing decorations to go with the wedding colors of white and teal. Her main coup was finding an electrician to upgrade the barn's service.
Busy Bee is of course the key person, involved in each of the million and one details involved in planning a wedding.
Honey thought she had solved the bathroom problem when she discovered that the rental company in Midland has very nice bathroom trailers for use with tent weddings. However, they cost $1,000 to rent and all were spoken for anyway.
When they heard about our bathroom quandary, my sister Col. Peggy and husband General Doc immediately volunteered their home, the old family farmhouse a short walk across Gas Valley Road, for changing and bathroom duty.
So we won't need that porta-potty after all.
The truth is that my part, cleaning out the barn and rebuilding the floors, came as a welcome challenge, not a burden. I live for work projects like this.
As much as I want to preserve the barn in its original state, this has forced me to make hard decisions so the barn can continue to serve the needs of the farm and the family into the future. It's old and full of antique tools, features and furnishings that show what farm life was like for our great-grandparents, but it should be more than a storage shed and museum.
Thanks to a romance that began within its old walls, the Miller barn is adding a new and wonderful chapter to its long history.