In My Own Backyard

You would think that, living in Arizona, there would be a lot of barns around. And maybe there are out in the country, but here in the big city barns are few and far between. So in order to write something about barns as well as have some barn photos to accompany what I write, I decided to go to my old friend Google and see what I could find.

I Googled "barns in the Phoenix area" and, as you can imagine, I did  not get a lot of results. The one I did get was for a restaurant called the House at Secret Garden. I clicked on that and was greeted by a beautiful photo of a white barn next to a restaurant patio. It said:

"The House at Secret Garden is set in the historical South Mountain

mansion built in 1929 and the original barn still stands."

Great, a barn!  I still didn't know exactly where it was or if it was even feasible to plan to go there to take photos of the barn.  When I read further, I found this:

"Surrounded by beautiful gardens, shady tall trees and nestled against

Phoenix's South Mountain, this spot is a romantic delight. Our patio

is properly shaded with large umbrellas and an abundance of

flowering orchid trees. Patio tables are bordered by a

showcase of blooming pots of flowers and a small brook

filled with fish and tropical water plants."

Now I knew I wanted to visit this place! It sounded like a fun place to shoot even if I wasn't looking for a barn. As I continued to read, I discovered that the House at Secret Garden is a restaurant:

"The new casual, American eatery is just minutes from Central Phoenix."

Okay!  Minutes from Central Phoenix! I called a photography friend to see if she wanted to meet me there to shoot and  have some lunch and off we went. It was wonderful!  A place I probably never would  have discovered if I hadn't been looking for a barn to shoot, but a place I will definitely want to go again.

I have to admit that when I read that Carol's theme for this month was "barns", I had no idea what I was going to shoot and what I was going to write about. My immediate reaction was, "Well, where in the world am I going to find a barn?" As it turned out, right in my own backyard. This exercise reminded me that there are so many wonderful discoveries to be made if we keep our eyes and minds open. And so often we don't need to go far. We just need to be open to discovery.

So whether you have barns in your own backyard or have to go looking for them, please share your photos in our Flickr gallery for us all to enjoy.  Don't forget to tag them with "barns" so they can be considered for In Focus selection. Can't wait to see them!