The Sad Remains of a Barn in Southern Ontario

by Laura Brown, OBP Member and Our Stellar Volunteer

Hello, my name is Laura Brown. I took these photos of an old barn in ruins, and more of the old farmhouse. I began photographing old buildings more than 20 years ago. Having a digital camera not using film made it much easier and less expensive to photograph anything you like. I started groups for other photographers on Flickr. The first group was Ontario Rural Ruins. I met several others also photographing old places and things around Ontario. The general name for us was/is urban explorers, even if you were rural. The groups on Flickr are much less active now.

Before that I had taken photos of family, family trips, and even more of my half feral cats who didn’t quite have a barn to live in, just a pool shed. I did not grow up as a rural/ country girl. My Father wanted to be a Jersey farmer but never quite got the hang of it. For me it was just as well, I had allergies and asthma and just walking into a barn made me miserable. It still does.

You may have noticed, I tend to wander when I write. If you have emailed to OBP (Ontario Barn Preservation) in the past year and a half, you have emailed me. I volunteer with OBP. Checking, replying or forwarding the emails. Posting to the social media accounts and the newsletter (mostly not on schedule) every other month. That’s what I’ve been doing, along with other administrative things.

Anyway, back to the photos above. We (my Mom is the driver, I’m the navigator) noticed this place somewhere in Southern Ontario last summer. I prefer not to post locations for old, abandoned places. Too many people vandalize, loot, and scavenge them. As an urban explorer, I very much believe in the rule “Take only photographs; leave only footprints”. That means leaving a place as it was when I got there, no littering, no breaking things, etc. Now and then I have rescued plants from the abandoned and forgotten gardens though. I think its different when its a living thing versus a broken this or that. This time there wasn’t much left of the gardens but there were some nice wildflowers. I photographed some of them too.

There isn’t much left of the barn here. If not for the silo (and of course my eagle eyes!) I might have missed the old barn when I photographed the house. I have to admit, I like the old farmhouses even more than the barns. I know… this is the BARNS group. I’m an engineer’s daughter, I do like structure and understanding how things work but… there is something about a house where people lived, people were born, died, etc. Maybe its just the allergies and asthma influencing me. Anyway, my secret is out.

Don’t imagine I don’t care for the barns. I do like the old wood, stone and architecture. The stories and details about how they were made. The little niches and carvings which are sometimes found. The writing from the barn’s construction, or notes the farmer made about his livestock, feed in storage and so on. There is a lot more to a barn than people might think. They have their stories to tell.

This is a sad barn. I don’t know its story, or what kind of barn it was. I photographed the detail of the remaining stone foundation. I could not walk closer (I choose my camera because it has a great zoom feature that gets close up when I can’t walk or fly there myself). On the day I was there it had been rainy and the ground was too wet, the grass was too tall and the danger of stepping on a frog/toad was too great. (I really, really, really don’t recommend the experience of stepping on a frog. Its gross and still gives me that squick feeling – even all these years later!)

I wanted to photograph the stone foundation as close up as I could get. Maybe one of the barn experts could see enough of it to know what kind of barn it had been.

Also, I especially like rocks, stones, pebbles, bricks… all of it. Rocks will live longer than cockroaches. Think about it, that blows the theory about cockroaches being around to the end of time right out of the water. Rocks live longer than trees, but not longer than dirt I’d say. So stop claiming to be as old as dirt. You know who you are… and you just can not be that old.

Well, now that I’ve wandered this far off track I’m going to say “Have a wonderful day and take care of yourself”. #SaveOntarioBarns

Laura