#0496 "Mid-Summer Barn"

This is a group of perennial flowers in front of the northeast corner of the Watershed Farm bank barn in early August 2000. A heavy thunderstorm had just passed through and everything was clean. Lots of leaves were even washed off the huge black willow tree which was just to the right and out of the view of the painting. This is plein air view was looking southwest toward the barn across the parking area from the old entry.

We bought the farm (so to speak as we did not die) in March 1993. What an adventure. The farm house had been empty for a few years. Vandals had broken windows and doors. Antique hardware was stolen. Frogs and snakes lived in the mud-floored basement and crawled through cracks in the stone foundation. The heat exchanger on the furnace was cracked. Cluster flies swarmed everywhere. The balloon framing of wood-house used long, vertical 2" x 4"s for the exterior walls. These long "studs" extended uninterrupted from the sill on top of the foundation, all the way up to the roof. There was no insulation in those walls. The home needed some attention.

The barn was in slightly better shape although the raccoons called it home. The stone and cement foundation was cracked. We believe the barn was built around 1860 perhaps by Thomas McAfee who owned Lot 24 then. The barn originally sat on the ground. Joe Duggan jacked the barn up, completing the job on November 19th, 1919. John James Coulter (the first) died in 1919 at the age of 87 years old - the year the barn was jacked up and that is how Roy Coulter, one of his grandsons, remembers the date.

There were one room homes on both Lot 23 and Lot 24 back in the middle 1800's. On Lot 24 of "Watershed Farm", the house had been built at least 300 yards from the farm because of the fear of fire as was a common practice in those times. The houses were also built in the center of the land so that they didn't have to travel as far to reach the fields. It was just east of the corner where the old lane turned up to the barn. All that remains of this house is some stone/cement foundation in the ditch. This explains why there is a thick grove of lilacs in that location. It also explains the placement of the well just to the southeast of the home site. There are probably many artifacts buried on the site. At this time little else is known about the families which grew up on Lot 24.

We loved Watershed Farm (I named it) and the adventure. We raised our family there on the 12th Concession of King Township.

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