#209 Harvest Host farm near Ottawa Rideau Pines Farm North Gower, Ontario

This was a nice little stop provided by our membership of harvest hosts. We had called ahead just to ask if everything good to go and they said absolutely come on by and so we did.

It was a pretty big farm operation and they sold a lot of their vegetables directly to the restaurants near where they lived. They were about 10 miles away from Ottawa Canada.

Ottawa was a built-up area and even though I don't know quite how big it was it had all the normal stuff like Home Depot, Walmart, and restaurants.

As I arrived, I spoke to Dad and asked where to park. He pointed to a field down the way. I asked if I could fill my tank with water and he said sure so I started that process.

I'm filling my tank and a lady comes out and just starts talking and she pretty quickly let me know that she was the Mom. She said they lived over there at the house across the way and had been here for many years. We just started chatting it up and the next thing you know I looked over there and water was pouring out of the side of my RV. I had beyond filled the tank and it was pouring out of the overflow. I had to say oh wow I’ll be right back sorry about that. She just said something like don’t worry about honey. These were the friendliest folks you could have asked to meet.

I spent most of my time talking to the father and we hung out a lot for some reason. I guess I just liked him and he liked me. He said he was very proud of his son who had come up with a lot of good ideas. They stopped just sitting there on the side of the road waiting for people to come by and buy vegetables. They began creating relationships with restaurants that wanted vegetables that were picked that day. He gave me the impression that they were making good money by going in that direction. They also had an enormous number of vegetables for sale right there on-site for people driving by.

He also said that the Harvest host thing had worked out quite well. People like me came by pretty regularly and they enjoyed meeting people especially foreigners from America. We had some laughs. He said that his son had also created opportunities for people to have concerts/ outdoor festivals at the farm. You could just that he was proud of his boy for being smart about the future way to run the company instead of just the old farming way.

Almost immediately I mentioned to him that I am an electrician and I would be happy to do anything that I could to help. He scratched his head and said I do have a problem. Let's talk about that maybe tomorrow if you want to.

The next day he showed me where there were some outlets down there at a barn to operate a vending area during summer festivals. They would host music shows and that the electricity did not work down there anymore. They were surviving but off generators and that that wasn't exactly ideal because it makes noise. I took a look and he even pointed to an area where the problem might be. A while back they had dug a ditch with the tractor and he said I think we might have cut it. I fixed it at the ditch and when I was done they had two brand-new circuits that work perfectly. By utilizing a spare wire I was able to double the amount of electricity that they can have. He was pretty dang happily. I was able to get the light going down there and he was pretty dang happy with Randall and I was happy to do it.

On the third day, we were going to head out and he said I'll be more than happy to give you some vegetables and I said thanks.

He loaded us up with probably 50 to 100 worth of tomatoes onions and all kinds of squash varieties. As we walked by one of the greenhouses I saw a that was a weird fuzzy green stuff growing and I asked him what is that. He told me that that was asparagus that only makes early in the spring and then for the rest of the time it's just foliage.

There was one part of the day that we're leaving where I had overstepped my welcome a bit. It was reasonably early and I went out to the tomato patch. I would say it was probably at least as big as a football field.

I took a couple of grocery bags and went out and started picking some tomatoes without any permission. I could see that they were already been picked over and were laying on the ground. I thought I was gleaning because what I saw were tomatoes that had blemishes.

I had picked up about two bags worth that looked like nobody would want to buy at a grocery store.

The problem is at some point halfway through the process farmer Dad kind of walked up and said what you doing buddy. I felt like I might have crossed a line but I said I was picking some tomatoes and I was making a point of only picking the ones that look like they were picked over. He said it's okay that these are the ones that we weren't going to mess with so it's okay.

I think nobody wants strangers to mess when their stuff without permission. Even if the vegetables are going bad, I should have just asked first out of respect. I know better so I’m glad it didn’t go the wrong way. We had got along so great and I almost ruined things

Rideau Pines Farm

Contact: John or Saundra

Address: 5714 Fourth Line Rd, North Gower, Ontario K0A 2T0

Located: 6½ km NW of N. Gower or 3km SW of Hwy 416. Parking is on the grass.

Telephone: (613) 489-3601

Website: www.rideaupinesfarm.com

GPS Coordinates: 45.176619 -75.773013