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The old barns of Bedford County

continued from p. 11
or Shelbyville Creamery. “Everything was in
the county,” Teague says.

Memories
Teague recalls vividly many of the
particulars of his granddaddy’s barn.
“We had a barn that my great
granddaddy built,” he says. “It had a gear
room where he hung the harnesses for the
Belgian mares he had. He had a lot of pride
in those mares. He took them to shows and
pulls and won quite a bit with them.
“The barn had a shed in its west side
and a section that was under the loft,” he
continued. “There were stalls on either side
of what we called the hallway. We put hay
up in the loft and fed down into the stalls.
In the front part, on the opposite side of the
gear room, was a corn crib. It was built with
rough-cut 2 by 4s spaced about 2 inches
apart so the air could circulate and the
eared corn could dry ….”
‘If someone as Teague has no hard feelings about the

blessed as I am corporate farms of today. He does, however,
lament the estrangement of most people
is not willing to from agriculture. The quality of life that was
an integral part of the farming culture has
clean out the virtually disappeared.
“Yeah, it’s gone,” Teague says. “Two
barn, who will?’ percent of the population now feeds the
— Ross Perot other 90 percent.”
Teague participates in a community
education program called Bedford
Leadership. When he does his presentation
to the group he asks them a series of
questions whose answers demonstrate just
how far removed most of us are from where
our food comes from.
My first question is ‘how many of you
are involved in agriculture?’ There might
be, out of the 50 or 60 people, two or three
hands go up.
“Then I ask the question ‘how many of
you eat?’ and every hand goes up.
“Then I ask ‘how many of you can grow
a garden? and I might get a third of the
hands.
“Then I ask how many of you can cure a
ham? Very few hands go up.
“Every year I ask them to name five
dairy products and every year, including
this year, somebody lists eggs.
“We have lost the culture.”
But all is not lost for those who want
to run their own family farm in Bedford
County. There is a growing market of
people who are willing to pay a little more
continued on p. 14
12 Bedford Life l Summer 2018