Thursday, January 18, 2007

My Famous Barn
My barn and house are appearing on national American television in a new Robert’s Dairy commercial. The commercial opens with a woman smiling passionately and talking. They make us think she is accepting a marriage proposal when she says, “I choose you!” and then they pull back and we see that she is talking to a Holstein. At the very end of the commercial, you are treated to a pastoral scene of cows grazing in a pasture with a big red barn, a white farmhouse, and an assortment of outbuildings in the background.
That’s where I live. My sewing room is in the red building to the right of the house. My two horses are hidden in the barn. They weren’t allowed to be out during the filming.
Only cows. Actually only one cow. She is a 4-H cow borrowed from a neighbor and hauled in for the event.
Filming took place on a sunny day last fall. The crew that came to do the filming started pulling in about 7:30 AM – several trucks full of equipment that looked like it came from the USS Enterprise (Beam me up, Scotty!) and a catering vehicle. As I left for work, I drove past a shaded table laden with fruits, cheese, deli meats and bottles and bottles of purified water and sodas. All the exciting stuff must have happened while I was at work. They started to wrap up and leave around 5:30 PM with the last one pulling out around 7:30 that evening. I’ve often wondered where they went to the bathroom during that day. Then again, maybe I don’t want to know. There’s no evidence of it visible in the commercial. Even the cow stays tidy on camera.

The place is now blanketed in snow and the cow has long since gone home, but my gorgeous horses are still there. If I can figure out how to do it, I’ll post some pictures of them here.
For now, American TV watchers will have to be content to see the cute actress and the pretty Holstein.

4 comments:

LaDawn said...

Wow, I know someone with a famous barn. Did they pay you for the use of the barn? Wish I could see the commercial! You should see if you can get a copy of the advert loaded on to You tube! Then I could see it!

stephanie said...

I will look for it and see how to get it on You Tube. Too cool, Janell. Are we famous by proxy?

Janell said...

They paid my Landlord for use of the barn and pasture and, I quote, "They pay real good..."
good luck with the You tube thing - that's a little beyond my surfing, emailing,and blogging capabilities, however, if you get it posted there, i'd say you are definitely famous by proxy!

Mary Connealy said...

Cool! Is this on TV?
Talking about You Tube, I joined it the other day, but I don't know what I'm doing. I haven't done anything but save the confirmation emails.
I created a slide show-ish movie for my book.
It's on my MySpace page.
www.myspace.com/petticoatranch
It's honestly pretty simple to do. How do I know this? Because I was able to do it, that's how. And I am a TECHNO DORK.