Point Verde School

Keeping with the Point Verde theme of late: Jeananne Ralph (Mott) has kindly sent us this photograph of the old Point Verde School House. It was taken by her mother Ruth Mott (Young) in the late 1930s or early 1940s. As always, click to see a larger version.

It's interesting to see how Point Verde has changed. With much fewer people farming, the open fields and meadows are all growing in.

Farming Placentia Bay

When I moved back to Placentia in August of this year, after two years largely spent outside Newfoundland, I noticed something along the Argentia Access Road that I'd never noticed before.

Farms.

I know some (or maybe all?) of them have been there for years, but now you can see furrowed fields and emerald green meadows from the highway, if you risk a pause from the eternal vigilance potholes and moose require.

It's a beautiful sight, the rich earth, the grazing sheep. I don't know if farming is on the up-and-up in our area, or if it simply took 'fresh eyes' to notice it, but we've got some of the most fertile parts of Newfoundland in our neck of the woods, and it's nice to see them made use of.

Then, I opened this week's Charter, and this story about agriculture in the Southwest Avalon piqued my interest further. See the photos attached to the story. They do the heart good, don't they?

There's an Agricultural Development Session on November 1 and 2 at the Bird Island Resort out in St. Bride's. It's hosted by Avalon Gateway Regional Development Inc. It sounds fascinating and more than a little exciting.

So: how many commercial farms do we have in our area? What do they grow? I'm interested to know. Pop an email to placentiablog@gmail.com if you would like to share a farming success story with us.

We'd love to hear from you!