Blustery is one word for the weather on Good Friday, much of which I spent at Haliburton Farm. While we were inside potting a few tomatoes, there was a noise, and this turned out to be what it was: the newly built farm stand upending itself on the newly donated greenhouse, which we were to have finished assembling on Saturday.
Friday night’s reader at Planet Earth Poetry was, therefore, most appropriate: Brian Brett read from his poetry and also from his latest memoir, Trauma Farm, about his 20+ years farming on Salt Spring Island.
Saturday arrived and it was time to survey the damage at Haliburton and marshal the many volunteers who answered the call for help. Ray’s beautiful hoop house, recently filled with over 200 hanging baskets of strawberries, was, shall we say, hooped.
The row covers needed to be replaced.
The Terralicious hoop house was put back together.
And many hands helped to dismantle the farmstand, ready to start putting it back together at upcoming work parties.
The children were put to work panning for gold to fund further repairs.
We had lunch – crowded but convivial.
And after shovelling and wheeling a few hundred loads of wood chips, to keep the weeds down between the rows, we called it a day.
