Last Sunday morning, February 7, 2010, despite just finishing working two consecutive 6-day weeks, and staying up late the night before because it was, after all, Saturday night, I haul myself out of bed at 8AM, and haul onto my feet an old pair of hiking boots that had long since been retired to “work boot” status. Stopping at A & L Market on Broadway to buy a bag of apples, I then hop on first the B-Line and then the Millennium Line to Nanaimo Station in East Van.My final destination: the corner of 24th and Vanness Avenue. Once a derelict wedge of undeveloped, much dumped-upon land known to none but a handful of environmentalists with borrowed shovels (present company included) as CROWS Point, it is now widely known throughout the neighbourhood as CROWS Point Community Garden.
CROWS Point began in back winter 2008 as the pet project of my friend/former co-worker Celina to create a habitat/public-use green space that would bring her neighbourhhood together. Located at the end of her street, it is also located a more lengthy but still workable 15 km as the crow flies from a construction site on the west side of the city; conveniently, only 1 km less then when traveled by human means, such as a co-op pickup truck loaded down with rescued native plants, an unauthorized ecological restoration plan, and friends willing to put that plan into action (present company included).
Fast forward two years: past official permission to restore the site from the City of Vancouver’s Green Streets Program that almost ended in a phone call to “Legal” when it turned out Green Streets and Celina were actually referring to two different sites; past Celina’s despair that the efforts of her and her friends would soon quashed by a brand-new house. CROWS Point is now under the stewardship of the EYA, who independently of Celina, submitted a proposal as part of the city’s goal to create 2010 new community garden plots by 2010, and was granted permission to create 30 plots on the site. My too-early morning on February 7 marks the first joint work party between the CROWS Point stewards and the EYA. The shovels still need to be borrowed. Some things never change.
Upon my arrival, in accordance with Celina’s meticulous schedule that she carries about on a clipboard like a foreman, myself and the 14 others present divide ourselves into two teams: one to stay behind on the site to weed invasives and prepare beds for native plants, and the other to man the pickup trucks and go salvage those native plants. For old time’s sake, I joined Team Seek and Save-From-Being-Destroyed. My bag of apples and a few other potluck treats tag along as midmorning snack.
At the construction site, we work under grey drizzling skies that threaten to rain on our parade at any moment, digging up ferns, native Trailing Blackberry (as opposed to the delicious yet highly invasive Himalayan Blackberry, which isn’t even from the Himalayas), and enough native soil to fill an entire truck (literally!) We’re feeling pleased about all the plants we manage to save, and awed by the beauty of our surroundings, however the rare appearance of an Ensatina (Ensatina eschscholtzii) and a Pacific Tree Frog (Hyla regilla) reminds us of all the other animals whose homes would soon be lost….
Which made the work we were doing at CROWS Point that much more important and meaningful.
Back at the Point, Team We-Made-Your-Bed, Now-Go-Grow-In-It’s numbers have swelled from 7 to 14, bringing the total CROWS flock (or murder, for all you ornithologically inclined out there) to 22. In our absence, they have created a terraced bed, excavated garbage, cleared away a massive blackberry bramble from the cherry tree on site, and pruned a sagging oak tree. The place looks great! The salvaged plants are going to love it.
But before the plants are moved into their new home, we first break for lunch. CROWS stands for “Creating Roots of World Stewardship”*, and nowhere than during lunch is the “stewardship” part of the acronym – to say nothing for partnership, companionship, and community – more evident. Twenty-two people cram into Celina’s spacious yet in this case not-quiet-spacious enough living room for a potluck meal of, among other things, potato-chipotle soup, salad, sun-dried tomato corn bread, and marinated Jerusalem Artichokes. I eat until stuffed, converse with other Pointers, eat a bit more to fill in the corners, and am then starting to wish Celina’s schedule had made allowance for a nap. It is at this time Celina is called upon for a speech, to which she says the following:
“In the summer, I used to stand under the cherry tree and get caught on the blackberry, and look at all the invasive plants, and I thought , ‘This is going to take forever’…. But it only took two hours!”Then, she shows everyone the CROWS Point Community Garden concept plan.
After lunch, the plants are put in the ground, the truckload of soil is shoveled and spread by the bucketful, the plants are watered, the garbage is collected, the co-op truck dropped off, and it’s all over. For today. Future plans include continued restoration work on the west side of the site (the west “wing”, as Celina is fond of calling it), while the east wing is developed into the 30 garden plots. Additional plans include installation of water access, importation of soil and wood chips, and, funding permitted, a tool shed. Stay tuned for updates.
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* The CROWS acronym, “Creating Roots of World Stewardship”, was created by Celina and her roommate, and actually pre-dated its own call to action on CROWS Point, instead simply having been chosen in reference to Vancouver’s iconic nightly migration of crows toward Burnaby. Its earliest use out of doors was as the name of a fictitious nonprofit organization to lend legitimacy to plant salvage operations if ever questioned in progress. The rest, as they say, is history in the making.
