Old Farm

Old Farm

Oil on canvas, 10x30

On the road from Bathurst, New Brunswick, to Miscou Island , Heather and I drove by this grouping of farm buildings. It was a sight to take your breath away, and we were lucky enough to find a convenient driveway to pull into, so that we could set up to paint.

Someone lives in one of the houses - you can barely see it in my painting, way in the back - and I think that one or two of the other buildings might still be in use, but mostly, the farm is abandoned, and being beaten and whipped by the weather and the wind. In another 10 years, some of the little buildings will have fallen down. In another 20 years, most of them will have crumbled.

Time and again today, we saw this same thing - once-proud farms slowly eroding. No one is standing by, checkbook in hand, to buy these pieces of land and develop them, though the land is rich and the views spectacular. They are just farms, on a wind-swept narrows, reminders of a life that's just too hard to continue.