With spring just around the corner, with warmer temperatures and longer days, it's time to start thinking about volunteering for the Green County Historical Society's Green County Barn Inventory Project, which is to begin in early March.

The genesis of this worthy project is to make a historical record of the extant barns that dot the Green County countryside. Numerous barns are lost each year to fire, severe weather, and real estate development or to deterioration.

As you drive the countryside and see one of these country cathedrals slowly deteriorating, the question is often asked, "Why are the owners letting this barn fall into disrepair?" The answer to that question most often is once the barn ceases to produce income, that barn once alive with livestock and people can become a very costly memory of days gone past to keep up. A new roof alone can cost up to $20,000.

This inventory is designed to record in both photographs and written documentation the barns that still exist in Green County in early 2016. The last time any documentation of barns in the county was done was in the 1940s through aerial photographs.

Volunteers in each of the 16 townships that make up Green County will soon be doing "windshield" inventories that will document these beautiful icons of an rich agricultural history in the county that in the early 1900s boasted a per farm income of $4,000 higher than any of Wisconsin's 71 other counties.

Volunteers of all types are needed to complete this massive project. We are looking for photographers, artists, drivers, and people with computer skills and management skills to help compile the many pages of documentation and put it into usable, publically accessible form.

If you would like to volunteer for the Barn Inventory Project, please set aside the morning of Saturday, February 27th, at 10:00 a.m. to attend our barn inventory kick-off meeting to be held in the community room at the Monroe Public Library.

If you are seeking more information on this worthy project, please check us out at our website: http://www.greencountywihistoricalsociety.org/barn-project.html, or find us on Facebook under Green County Wisconsin Historical Society. Contact information is posted there.We look forward to seeing you at the Green County Barns Inventory kick-off program.