A haymow (rhymes with “day cow”) is the upper floor of a barn where farmers store hay. Picture a wooden loft high above the barn's main floor, packed with golden bales of dried grass that will feed horses, cows, and other animals through the winter months.

Farmers fill the haymow during summer harvest, stacking hay bales carefully to maximize space. The hay stays dry up there, away from the animals below and protected from the weather. When winter comes and animals need feeding, farmers climb up to the haymow and toss bales down through openings in the floor.

In older barns, haymows were essential storage spaces that let farmers keep large amounts of hay in a small footprint. Kids growing up on farms often remember the haymow as an exciting (if somewhat forbidden) place to play, where you could jump into piles of loose hay or build forts among the bales.

Today, many farmers store hay in separate buildings or under tarps outside, but traditional barns with haymows remain common on working farms and historic properties.