CARSTAIRS - It wasn’t quite an old time gathering of “bringing in the sheaves,” but Jim Van Wert and his wife Lynne hosted a food bank potato harvest that featured several aspects of those old-fashioned efforts: hard labour, hearty appetites, and common goals.
Their Carstairs Saskatoon Berry farm, six kilometres northwest of town, became a hub of activity at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3.
About 30 volunteers, primarily from the Airdrie and Olds food banks, descended upon the 1.5-acre Van Wert potato patch. The workers, aged eight to 82, began to gather the golden spuds in five-gallon pails.
Van Wert had started earlier with his tractor and antique 1940 rusted and faded pull-behind potato digger.
“It’s so old, nobody knows what brand it is,” he mused.
The digger had a mild McCormick-Deering red colour. The still-effective machine dug the potatoes up, shook the soil from them, and laid them down on the bed of their leafy tops. The rest of the harvest was up to the volunteers.
Soon white pails dotted the field while the workers filled and emptied them into large plywood tubs on pallets.
Grant Jacobs, a friend of the Van Werts, had arrived from Olds and brought a new JCB skid-steer loader with forks attached.
Jacobs, who works for Noble Equipment Ltd. in Olds, deftly scurried around with the loader and moved full tubs toward delivery trailers.
“I’ve known Jim for a long time,” he said. “I knew this was the time to help him.”
At noon, the group congregated in Van Wert’s new canvas shed where a harvest lunch awaited.
Thanks to sponsors like the Airdrie Food Bank whose volunteers brought Subway sandwiches, the Carstairs Tim Hortons, and to the diligent efforts like Lynne Van Wert’s, the crowd was soon settled and eating. Her homemade chilli was a hit. Her friend Anna Jacobs (Jacobs’ wife), had made potato soup – yes, potato.
The tired and hungry workers aligned themselves for second helpings.
A Taber friend who grows the russet for Lay’s Potato Chips, had given the Van Werts seed potatoes in spring.
They had an empty plot of land and chose to grow them for a benevolence effort for the local community.
“It was the thing to do during these time,” Lynne commented.
It was a relaunch of a community potato patch, lapsed three years ago due to a decline in volunteers, Van Wert claimed.
“We gathered in 16,000 lbs. a few years ago,” he said.
By 1:30 p.m., the group began to disperse, and the trailer loading began. Van Wert’s 1960s tractor and old digger were parked off the field as if resting for next year.
Later, Jacobs suggested he had loaded about 5600 ponds of spuds.
“I know the people who need the food banks will appreciate this,” he said.
Maxine Abraham, Foothills Lutheran Church in northwest Calgary, gratefully accepted about 250 pounds in an initiative for Care Packages for widows, widowers, and single parents.
“It’s a wonderful gift,” she said.
