I love a red barn.

Here in Vermont, red barns and black and white cows are so much a part of the landscape, they're practically our brand!

But...why red?

Why not purple or blue or black?

Why are barns red?

These days, you can buy paint in a rainbow of colors.

So you could, in theory, paint your building whatever color floats your boat-- or barn.

But that wasn't always the case.

Early farmers couldn't just go to the paint store and pick out whatever color they wanted.

Still, if they had any money left over after building their barn, they wanted something that could help protect all that wood from harsh weather and make sure the barn would last a long time.

So they often used a protectant called linseed oil, a yellowy brownish oil made from flax.

To make the oil stick better to the wood, the Farmer's Almanac reports that farmers would ad milk and lime.

Not the fruit; the lime I'm talking about is made from rocks that have a lot of calcium carbonate, like chalk.

And then they'd also add ferrous oxide--rust--which helps keep fungus and mildew away.

Some farmers may also have mixed in blood from slaughtered animals.

Those extra additions would make that paint a rusty reddish color, not the bright red color you see today, but definitely not blue or green.

That's most likel how the tradition got started.

And then, when commercial paints became more readily available, there are some reports that suggest red paint was actually cheaper than many other colors.

That's not the case today, but the tradition has stuck.

So you're still much more likely to see a traditional red or white barn than you are pink, purple or turquoise.

But I think this one's pretty cool too.

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