Out plein air painting last evening and found me a historic barn in the back forty. This is the Deacon Barn and I am not sure what year it was built but it has been around a while. I am always amazed by old photos and how this barn and fields use to take up the whole valley right down to the water. Now the trees have encroached along with subdivided parcels of land with houses. But the barn is still there on a knoll up past the blackberry brambles. I was reading on the Mayne Island History FaceBook page how Mr. Deacon planted tulips and poppies on the hillside so that visitors would have something pretty to look at when they arrived. Our current over population of deer, both nature and fallow, wouldn’t leave a nub of a tulip or poppy that wasn’t behind a fence these days. Mane Island, British Columbia, Canada.