My favorite hideaway is the barn loft. It’s always cool on hot summer days with both the north and south loft doors open to let the breeze and the blue skies in. Smelling of oats and alfalfa, it has the echo of a hundred years of hard work and haven.

I like to walk around the tongue and groove board floor and to gaze up at the apex of the roof. It is my writing sanctuary, though it is full of hay right now. Words flow easily in its quiet. There is peace there and rest from daily storms-a place where imagination is as endless as the prairie grasses undulating in the wind alongside the ripening wheat.

Mornings will find me at the south door writing, sometimes in a little camp chair and sometimes with my legs dangling down the side of the barn. When I need a bit of a break, I set my notebook down and play my guitar for a while-singing at the top of my lungs. The livestock doesn’t seem to mind.

Afternoons, I move to the north door to get out of the heat of the sun. Sometimes I find myself thinking about the lives of the people buried in the Lee Cemetery which I can see from the north door. They aren’t lonely there, I think, surrounded by all the life the plains hold and the rich history of family here.

There’ve been days when I couldn’t pry myself out of the loft sunk so deep in my story. It’s too cold, though, in fall and winter for my fingers to be able to write. I’d sure get a lot more done if I could.