Earth Day, Earth

Heirloom Harvest celebrated Earthday 2006 from 1 to 4 pm on Sunday, April 23. The rain forced a change in our plans to walk the farm and pick up trash. Instead, those present filled peat pots and seeded in the barn in between education events that included a discussion of Oxfam's campaign to reform farm policy in the US, and a demonstration of how pollution affects groundwater.

Volunteer Chris Wright and Oxfam representative Stephanie Demmons work to fill peat pots and plant summer squash seeds.

Barb Harrington (left) from the Crystal Spring Center for Earth Learning gives a demonstration of how pollution from various sources—including a golf course, a factory, a housing development, a clearcut hillside, and a conventional farm—affects ground water.

Audience members participated in the pollution demonstration by playing the roles of the various facility owners on the model. Here, the "factory owner" is pouring effluent into his factory which flows out into a stream, which leads to a river and eventually to a lake and the wetlands where the water changes color from the pollution.
[We are indebted to Mark Fisette for the next three photos.]