Rural areas have a special place in my heart, probably because my mother was from a farming family. As children, we used to spend our school vacations on one of my uncle's farms and we often helped out in the old fashioned way of harvesting using the big workhorses.

Now. as I travel around North America, I can't resist looking into old barns. Most farmers don't understand why old farm buildings are so interesting to me. For them, a barn is only an old utilitarian structure, but for me, they are a world full of life and color. There are always things to see in barns that remind me of my childhood. Many times I will find an unexpected visitor...one time it happened to be a bluebird. I thought its colors fit very well with the colors of the wood construction of the barn. - CB