BurnaBy fire takes on special task
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Why a car can Be Both good and Bad
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cities Want pot decriminalized
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friday
September 28 2012 www.burnabynewsleader.com
is this old wedding snapshot valuable? See page A12
Oral history program recognized Wanda Chow
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
mArIO bArteL/NeWSLeADer
Julia smith visits with the two pigs, Bacon and chop, she keeps on her urban farm in south Burnaby. the pigs are effective guards, keeping predators away from her chickens and vegetable crops.
Big Bend property goes back to its roots Wanda Chow
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
Amidst the semitrailer trucks and traffic whizzing by along a stretch of the mainly industrial Byrne Road in South Burnaby, listen carefully and you might hear a few contented snorts. That would be Chop and Bacon, two Tamworth Berkshire cross pigs that are now making a three-acre patch of long-neglected farmland home. They’re also playing a major role in returning the land back to its farming roots.
Farm manager Julia Smith, 41, and her partner, Ludo Ferrari, started leasing the property from its owners, a local Hindu temple, back in the spring. And already there have been a myriad of changes. The little white farmhouse turned out to be inhabited by “crackhead squatters.” After spending four months evicting them, they entered to find the house’s foundation was pretty well gone, the roof was leaking, and it was infested with rats and black mould. Down came the house. “We had to bring in 14 dump trucks of gravel
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so the equipment could get in,” said Smith. “The ground was so wet everything was sinking.” In the seven years since it was a full-time farm the land has been taken over by weeds, including highly invasive ones such as quackgrass that are extremely difficult to remove. Being an organic farm, herbicides are a no-no. So apart from being raised for food, Chop and Bacon also earn their keep by digging up and eating the quackgrass and other weeds. Indeed, the clearest patch of land
fresh fish daily
here is within the solar-powered electric fence they’re penned inside. Smith certainly shows her appreciation. Along with being fed donated fruit and vegetable waste from a local supermarket and whey from nearby Avalon Dairy (a protein source), the pigs get lots of belly rubs and hugs. They respond in turn with contented grunts and friendly nuzzles. “I think I may have the happiest pigs in the world,” Smith said with a laugh.
Regent
FISH MARKET
4020 Hastings Street, Burnaby • 604-298-9828
please see FArmING, A3
The home of
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fish
Burnaby’s Community Heritage Commission has been recognized with a Heritage BC Award for its oral history project, that resulted in about 100 hours of audio recordings being digitized and made available online. The recordings, interviews conducted in the 1970s and ’80s with Burnaby pioneers such as former Burnaby reeve William Pritchard, Florence Hart Godwin and Blythe and Violet Eagles, were originally done on analogue audio tape, which was deteriorating, making them almost unplayable. Now that they’ve been digitized, they’re up on the city’s Heritage Burnaby website where anyone can listen to them over the Internet. The commission received a Heritage BC Award of Honour for the “effort, care and commitment demonstrated in the completion of this important project,” according to a report from city archivist Arilea Sill. The award will be presented Oct. 19 at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. please see OrAL, A12