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  • From: "Glen Eco Farm" <glenecofarm AT planetcomm.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Trial By Fire
  • Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:37:22 -0500

On Thursday morning, Feb 22 Glen Eco Farm experienced a devastating fire that destroyed our house, our plant starting greenhouse, and shop. Our market van, four wheeler, a car, riding lawn mower, our seed inventory, and all of our shop and garden tools were destroyed. A tractor sitting about 15 feet away from the leanto tool shed adjoining the garage was severely damaged but reparable. Plastic on the hoophouse another 15 feet farthur away melted in the heat. The fire was driven by a 50 mph wind that came up suddenly in the mid morning and gave me only a few minutes from the time I discovered it til I could warn my wife, make one futile attempt to put it out, and dash back to the front of the house to grab a few items. We escaped the house with seconds to spare and sped away from the front of the house in our car with the tail light lenses beginning to melt in the heat.

We were able to salvage some clothing and a few pieces of furniture from the walk out basement which did not experience fire damage. Amazingly enough we were able to salvage much of my work clothing from a severely charred chest of drawers in the otherwise totally gutted master bedroom and most of the appliances, utensils, and some food in the kitchen. We saved about 2/3 of our already germinated plants from the greenhouse before a large piece of flaming debris fell beside it, destroying the structure and frying the remaining plants inside.

We are doing OK considering the circumstances and most of our immediate needs are being well taken care of. We have been blessed by overwhelming response from our local church community, our CSA patrons, and the local Kurdish community who have been giving us good patronage for several years. Five days after the fire we held on schedule our annual signup and kickoff meeting for CSA and signed up once again over 60 CSA shares. On Saturday morning, March 3, nine days after the fire, around 30 guys with varying carpentry skills and a good bevy of women skilled at keeping us fed and watered, converged on our place to raise the packing shed and 1/2 of the pole barn we had begun building a few months earlier and to begin repairing the damaged hoophouse and to convert it to a plant starting greenhouse. Yesterday we got the plastic on the greenhouse. I have reordered and received much of the lost seeds and have been given back significant amounts of heirloom seed which I had been sharing with friends and relatives within our local old order Mennonite community for the past several years. This coming week I hope to get back to gardening only slightly behind schedule. Life will go on. For all of this we are deeply grateful!

Due to all the disruption of our routine and the ensuing physical and emotional stress I have not yet gotten to posting the fire story on my blog. I have written some of the stories and hope to have them completed and posted soon along with pictures. My blog can be accessed by googling "Musings From Glen Eco Farm". www.gleneco.blogspot.com We covet your prayers as we continue our recovery.

Marlin Burkholder
Shenandoah Valley
Virginia.




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