Seeing the barn in the previous post sheds some light on the "silo garden" that mom created and painted so often. With the barn gone, the foundation provided a protected area for a garden. The barn had housed dairy cattle at one time, so the soil may have been enriched by that. The silo, once dwarfed by the barn became a focal point for the garden and a fun place for children to play. My parents installed a spiral staircase which many of us remember climbing and peering out the two windows, one to the garden and one to the lake. Creating a garden on an exposed hilltop in southern Quebec with a short growing season had it's challenges, but what did mom like better than a challenge? I recall gooseberries, blueberries, flowers and an abundance of vegetables. I also recall tenacious burdock roots; weeds that I was contracted to pull up for a small hourly fee.
The middle painting shows two year old Sarah McLean in the garden. This painting now lives in Hong Kong with Sarah and her family.
2 comments:
So many stories.
Wasn't there a Henrietta Banting, friend of AustinFoster, who was also an investor in Potten w/ the McLeans? I recall Mom telling stories about Henrietta's "dream" of a studio in the silo. Don't think she anticipated that the barn would gain "those liftin' qualities" credited to someone leaving the lower door of the barn open during a bad wind storm. What a studio and "pied a terre" that would have been.
Thanks to Mom and her "biographer"...all is presented to be digested by the generations. Amen
Maurice had just nailed the banging back door in the barn shut before the storm hit. The wind came in and had nowhere to go. It got that "liftin' quality" and off went the roof!
Yes, Dad had to "buy out" Henrietta and eventually Austin Foster's son who started having "ideas" on how to use the place!
The story unfolds, prompted by the paintings (and recent barn photo sent to me by John)
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