What is an Abandoned Barn Versus Inactive?

I looked at the photos of barns in this post. To me, most of them are inactive, not actually abandoned. They are still maintained, enough to not be falling down, don’t look salvaged for barn boards, etc. So, they didn’t really seem abandoned or derelict. Probably someone else would consider any barn not actively used to be abandoned. I guess it is all perspective. Are you someone using a barn or someone photographing it, looking at it for history, art, or industry/ agriculture or architecture?

I have not (so far) found a link to the photographer, John H. Busch or his fellow explorer, Mary Lynn Busch. There are good points in the post about exploring, history and photographing old places in Ontario. I’ve copied and pasted parts of the post, not in order so I can keep topics, like photographing the barns together.

Tips for Photographing Abandoned Barns

It’s interesting how you can photograph the same subject several times in one day and capture a different result each time, depending on the location of the sun, cloud cover, and location of the point of view. I learned through experience that my best colour photos are taken on cloudy days, but it is hard to exclude sunny-day shadows for good contrast.

I have shot and compiled a selection of these abandoned barns. For various reasons, it’s sometimes difficult to get the proper perspective while photographing these structures. Some are set far back from the road; there is often the presence of trees and foliage; and sometimes the time of day isn’t ideal. I believe some of my best photos of these barns were taken during the winter months, due to the absence of foliage, but ironically some of the best colours were during the summer months. Most of the barns are plain and unpainted, but a few are painted “barn red” while the odd one is white or green.

The Beginning of the End

The barns with missing boards or ones that have had part of their metal roofs blown off are the ones I refer to as doomed. Once this process begins, the barn will collapse relatively quickly. A year or two of rain on the dry hardwood beams, coupled with an entry for the wind to blow through, often speeds up the process. Gravity always seems to win in the end.

Another factor that contributes to the disappearance of these old barns is economics, including property taxes. Once the landowner realizes that the barn, which is often completely empty, is costing extra money in tax assessment, an excavator is brought in and the barn is dismantled quickly, often leaving the original farmhouse as the only building on the property.

To this day, terms such as “top plate, girt, corner post, brace, bent, mortise and tenon” still come to mind whenever I see different barns.

Source: Abandoned Barns of Southwestern Ontario | Our Canada

Have You Ever Been in a Hotel Which Caught on Fire?

The Oban Inn is still operating as a spa and hotel/ resort. But, you won’t see the old building. It was destroyed in a fire, as reported below.

I was staying at a hotel (not this one) which caught on fire. We had just fallen asleep and I don’t remember how late it was. We woke up because there was a lot of traffic in the hallways and I could hear people knocking on the doors. Firemen were telling people to get out. When I opened our door we were all ready packed up and mostly dressed.

It was pretty chaotic outside, fire trucks with a lot of lights in the dark. It was even raining which makes everything look so much brighter and darker. We could see smoke but not much fire. They said it was the restaurant attached to the hotel which had caught fire.

We waited around for awhile. The hotel manager talked to us, and mostly everyone I think. He said we would have our money refunded, but, though we tried several times, it never was. Still, no one died, including us. There was a print in our hotel room which I had noticed and really liked. I wish I had thought to grab that on our way out. Not that it was worth a lot, I just liked it and it would have been something to go along with the whole story.

It took us a lot of driving to find another hotel, in another town. We had no luck in the near by hotels. We ended up staying in Ottawa and asked if we could have a little extra time to sleep in. But, as it turned out, we were up fairly early.

This historic property not only has its fair share of ghost tales but also experienced a catastrophic event that some blame on paranormal activity. The property was built as a single-family home for a wealthy captain in 1824 and passed to his son upon his death. The son went on to turn the large home into a bread and breakfast in 1895 and for nearly 100 years it was one of the most popular hotels in the area. On a fateful Christmas Eve in 1992 that all changed. With 12 of the 16 guestrooms filled and nearly 200 people eating a Christmas feast in the dining room a fire broke out on the third floor. Everyone was safely escorted out of the building but due to the wind and severe cold, the property couldn’t be saved. Firefighters tried unsuccessfully to extinguish the flames but they quickly spread throughout the property as hundreds of guests watched as the hotel burned down.

The owner at the time quickly rebuilt the property in the same fashion and it operates as a hotel to this day. For that reason, it’s believed that the same ghosts that haunted the last property have decided to stick around as they are comfortable in their familiar surroundings. Guests of the hotel have complained about loud footsteps coming from the second floor believed to be the captain that originally built the place. The ghost of an old woman has been spotted on the property since the 1930s, aimlessly walking the halls. For this reason, the inn has become a regular stop on ghost walks within Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Mad Science with Robots

Have you ever seen fights of engineering with remote controlled robots? There are TV shows like Robot Wars and Battle Bots. Robot Wars talks more about the engineering and construction of the robots.

Understanding how the height, or complete flatness being low to the ground works. Figuring out whether a swinging blade of some kind works to fend off other bots. Or, something to help reset it when it gets tipped over in the fight. How to keep it mobile when other bots slash at its tires.

There is a lot of science in building a robot, especially one designed to fight other robots.

People who build and battle robots in Ontario.

Bot Brawl – Ontario robot fighting league. Planning to have events in 2021.(Old site, Bot Brawl and a Facebook link).

Robot Riots – Toronto based robot fight club, but the site seems abandoned since 2005.

I found this image on a free wallpaper site but I don’t know who the original artist is. Of course, this is not practical for actual robot fighting. This looks fabulous as an image but would not work well against remote controlled robots so carefully and cleverly engineered for combat. Cosmetic, not so well with function.

The Oldest Store in Town


This is not open now, as so many small and local businesses are shut down. But, they were selling coffee. The building needs some TLC but it isn’t abandoned. I like the old stops along main streets in small (very small in this case) towns. One thing I noticed here were the birdhouses nailed up on the roof (I’m sure there is a correct word for that part of the building, I just don’t know it). Who made the birdhouses, who put them up there, and did birds ever live in them?

Kevin McElheran’s Abandoned Church Photo

I tried to find the photographer, Kevin McElheran online. No luck, just more abandoned or broken links. I did find a description which was posted with another copy of the same photo, on two other sites. So, some background information about how the photo was taken. But, I still don’t know what happened to Kevin McElheran from Calgary, Alberta.

“This abandoned 100 year old church is what’s left from what was the rail town of Sorrento, British Columbia. I was driving through this area late one night when I noticed a train in the distance approaching which outlined this structure in it’s glow.”

I think the church is Notch Hill Church, not Saint Mary’s as the description says with the photo above. Notch Hill Church is in Sorrento, BC and it is located right at the train tracks. One sites says it is Tappen, BC.

One way or another, this seems to the the church photographed. It was being restored but the site stopped posting in 2014. In 2016 I read a report about building materials being stolen from the site. The project is on hold due to lack of funds to replace them. The photo below was taken before the renovations began.

DanOCan – STST2017: Notch Hill Church

Rube Goldberg Machines

Did you ever play the Mousetrap game? It’s based on the idea of making a convoluted contraption to catch a mouse. The part of the game I most remember is watching all the parts of the machine work one after the other (like all those rows of dominoes people construct) to end up catching the mouse. In the game all the parts were plastic and fit together well, there wasn’t so much engineering and rebuilding involved. But, building a Rube Goldberg machine is a lot of engineering, planning and rebuilding because things don’t all work out just right the first time around. No matter how well planned.

mousetrap game

There is a Rube Goldberg Machine category at the Curlie web directory. I found it today after my sister told me she and her children are building a Rube Goldberg Machine. I didn’t know what it is. If I had ever heard of the name I had forgotten it. So I looked it up and found sites and a lot of videos. I posted most of them to the Curlie category so people can find them there.

The best links I found were the site about contests for people who build the machines, Rube Goldberg. Also, a kinetic artist who builds them as art and fun, Joseph Herscher and his site, Joseph’s Machines. He has video posts of his machines on YouTube.

Ethan shows how to make the machines, ideas for steps and parts along the way. He also shows how the best plans don’t always work out. Which not everyone does and I think it is really important to know. Anyone building these contraptions will need a lot of patience and rebuilding. Ethan’s video was my favourite.

Sprice Machines also makes them, house wide and going outside even. Extreme patience, creativity and engineering. Fun to watch.