Historic Dinner Plate Found Under Barn Plate

I was repairing an 1880 era timber frame barn near Tara, about 20 kilometers from Owen Sound. In front of the earthen and stone ramp the rock elm bottom plate was rotten in places and I was cutting out portions of it with a chain saw. This rock elm is incredible, for even though there was over 120 years of moisture and rot in it, the parts that were not rotted were still fresh and holding.
Anyway, as I pulled out some of the rock elm, it exposed the top of the stone foundation. The foundation is about 2 feet thick, and I had it repaired by a good stonemason that summer. In the middle of this foundation, where it is mainly just loose rocks, was a circular object. I picked it up, dusted it off and it was a dinner plate! Even though it had decades of ingrained dirt on it, it was still in good condition. I found out the plate was made between 1840 to 1865 in England and probably brought over by boat by the immigrant pioneers who settled this land.
I believe it was a gesture of good luck for the barn, put there by the owners when the barn was constructed over 120 years ago. I mean, it was perfect, a beautiful cream coloured plate, with wheat grain relief on the outside perimeter, placed under the bottom plate—a plate under a plate-- --never crushed by the tides of time, wagons full of hay, horses tromping over it on top of the floor, tractors later running up and down into the barn. And maybe it was good luck, for the barn had never burned down, been swept away by a tornado, or collapsed under heavy snows.

Third Reprint and Photo Show

Spring in Grey County and so far it’s been a cool one. Every time it rains, which we need as it has been dry, it gets cold, and our shiitake mushrooms stay in the logs, waiting for warmth. Lillian is planting the last of our dry beans today, and even though it’s sunny it’s only 7 degrees Celsius now!
Last week my Brucedale Press publisher, Anne Judd, came out with the third reprint of my first book, “Barns of the Queen’s Bush.” There was a re-launch at an author’s get-together in Port Elgin and I have to thank Anne so much as it was she who took a chance on a first time author.
As well, my photo show from my second book, Barn Building, can be seen all summer at the Wellington Museum and Art Gallery, between Fergus and Elora. The museum building is a remarkable three story stone building that used to be the House of Refuge for the poor and disadvantaged people during the 19th century. There was a barn built there in the 1870’s where the people who lived there could also raise livestock and grow food. The barn is featured in my second book.
The photo show is of 12 colour prints, one of the rural landscape in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, some of round barns (such as the photo above in Ohio), and another of our friends farm in Vermont and their sunflower field, wind tower and timber frame barn built in the 1980’s. The photos can be seen in a room upstairs until the end of September. There are many other interesting art and historic shows to be seen there also and Elora is a great one day get-away, although the week-ends are getting a little too crowded for me.