The first truss went up at 7:40 in the morning. I know the time because I looked at my watch. I wanted to remember it. Eleven men on ropes and pike poles, and Pete Hanson standing in the middle of the barnyard with his arm up like a conductor, calling out, “Easy. Easy. Now walk her up.”

And the truss rose. Slow. A big triangle of yellow pine against the gray sky, swinging a little, then settling into place on the top plates with a soft thump you could feel in your feet.

Somebody whistled. Somebody else whooped. Then the whole barnyard was clapping, seventy people in work boots and seed caps, clapping for a piece of wood.

I stood in the wet grass with a roaster of scrambled eggs.

Eighteen-quart Nesco roaster, plugged into an orange extension cord that ran all the way back to the machine shed. Four dozen eggs, a pound of shredded cheddar, a little milk. Another roaster beside it full of sausage. Two coffee urns on a sheet of plywood laid across sawhorses.

I was supposed to be serving. I couldn’t move. I just stood there with a serving spoon in my hand and watched that truss settle.

Our barn had been flat for eleven weeks.

My name is Lorrie Bauer. I’m forty-six years old. I’ve been married to Dwayne Bauer for twenty-two of those years, and I’ve lived on this farm outside Cedar Bluff, Nebraska, for every one of them.

I came here from Omaha. A town girl, my father-in-law called me, the first time Dwayne brought me home. I didn’t know a heifer from a steer. I didn’t know you don’t wear white shoes to a hog sale. I learned.

I learned most things on this place. I learned them in that barn.