Ladies and Gentlemen
I have to tell you this has been quite a journey and we haven't even left the county, the valley, never mind the country yet.
The latest hubbub on our journey was the venture of getting a suitable crate built - we thought from the papers that we read that....
we needed certified wood and that was it. So a good supporter used to building houses had offered to built the crate for us to our specifications and within the rules and regulations as we had understood them.
The builder had a hard time getting through to the powers that be who were in control of the certified woods we were allowed to use.
And now it was Monday, July 5th and still nothing - phew, this gave even my husband a slightly sweaty brow and he had gone on an early morning internet search while I was still far away in dreamland.
He found a certified company near Bridgewater and later that day started a flurry of phone conversations with the company boss. It turned out that the builder also had to be certified and .... our builder was certified but not for this.
We were so fortunate that
Tecbox was able to quote us a price and also.... build us the crate in two days. They got our measurements 4' x 4'x 4.5' (well, sort of anyways) and they put it together. We were so pleased that this could happen on such short notice.
This afternoon Soren and I drove down to get the box, first though we went sailing with the dog in the Lunenburg Backharbour, where his boat is moored for the summer and we had a little sail about in the warm sun with slight wind on our faces keeping us pleasantly cool.
And then...... we drove to Tecbox to pick up the creature - (the photo is Soren and Marshall unloading) and I had meant to take photos as the box was being loaded but..... I chatted with the owners and Soren took care of all this outside in the heat with one of the men from the building room while I was inside an air-conditioned office with the dog. It was pleasant, fun, excellent service and if anyone ever needs a special crate for something try out this place.
I haven't looked into the box yet, the lid was screwed on (
note to self bring the right kind of screwdriver in the suitcase, screwdrivers are not the same all over the world ) but I was told that there are styro-foam lined sides + 5 sheets of 1 inch styrofoam for us to cut and divide to the size of our works so everything can arrive safely in Copenhagen.
More unloading with Soren and Marshall
Dear Reader, are you aware that we are only 3 weeks away from being there now, actually, at this moment in time three weeks ahead we will be having a cool drink and relaxing our bones on the roof top terrace at my sister's appartement. I guess that really this is a rhetorical question, I had to ask it since I am wildly eager to tell you that I am aware, very aware and the good anticipation for the whole adventure is growing wildly and fabulously by the minute.
Will our artwork get motion sickness once we get it all packed and it has to move around with a forklift again?
We drove home from Bridgewater with the box on the truck, stopped to secure it with some of our sailing rope before we hit the highway and then..... I fell asleep as did the dog and we didn't open our eyes again until we were at almost the other end of highway 12, which means we were almost home.
A slightly forlorn looking box, funny how the size changes when you have nothing to measure it against with your eyes, this is surely a small box - well, no, not really!
Now it was time to take the box to the
Randsland Farm - a magnificent broccoli farm employing lots of people. Marilyn's husband is one of the brothers in that big family and also their consultant, keeping the whole fleet of needed machinery running smoothly at all times.
This was very fortunate for us, for as this aforementioned box is not a small box and as we are not exactly is sharp training for the Olympic competition of weight lifting, getting said box off the truck and into an appropriate spot might have been an interesting experience for the three of us.
However, Marshall has access to ..... forklifts ...... hurray!
I don't think we saw the words 'forklift knowledge and driver required' when we were reading our to-do list in the fall of 2009, that was when we really got into the swing of our preparations.
So the box got forklifted into place and I had the fortunate experience of looking at one of the 10 or 20 greenhouses on the property. Each greenhouse holding close to a thousand trays of broccoli - each tray holds 270 broccoli plants 270.000 broccoli plants in the photo. They are about one thumb high and they are 'three weeks old'. They will cover approximately 10-11 acres of land.
When they are 6 weeks old they are big enough to be harvested and then they go .... to many different places - we saw an enormous truck being loaded with broccoli headed for Newfoundland.
And here are the workers who labour hard in the fields for us all summer, cutting, sorting and packaging the broccoli available for us in our supermarket, near and far from here.
This of course was a little detour from what we are doing but...... people say never forget where you come from, and I don't, and on top of that I would like to add 'never forget where your food comes from, and if you don't know, then please start to ask questions at the place you get your groceries.
Going back to where I come from for the first time in 5 years in a few weeks is truly amazing and ...... when we open the box and share with the audience across the atlantic in a not very local spot for the rest of the group I will be looking at surroundings which I grew up in, lived life in and ......... I am so looking forward to go back for a visit.
See you soon, Pia
Wonderous Woolerie and super SEVEN
