Wilbo Drives North to Cadillac @PureMichigan and the Renewal and Decline of Barns Catches His Eye and Imagination

On road to Cadillac, continuously I saw remarkable pictures awaiting a
photographer. For example, an old barn with all its red paint worn off
it, the boards greying and almost black. Recently, the family had
added a square painting, not a double distelfink, but clearly Amish
sign or Pennsylvania Dutch sign. The orange and yellow paint blazed as
a sundown blazes, glowing brightly on the dark wooden background. A
second barn close to the road stood at least ten feet taller than an
ordinary barn. The owner had set about repairing its corner by
replacing the long continuous boards perpindicular to the ground. Now
where he found boards so wide and so long without a custom saw mill is
beyond me, an open question. These fresh pine boards stood in puzzling
contrast against the previous boards red with paint. Not all the barns
I noticed fared so well. A distant barn from the State Road with its
hayloft open, a square missing west and east, permitted motorists to
peer at the woods on the far side.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distelfink

— at Shamrock Bar.