Bartering

From the country...

The goods

Young rhubarb plants

Yesterday, we ventured over to a fellow farmer's place packing shovels, 3 laying hens, some onion starts and a dozen butter tarts.

I was on a mission to dig up some rhubarb plants to add to the new orchard garden that we are putting in this spring. It was a beautiful spring day and while we wrestled with the rhubarb the kids played in the trees, watched the Indian Runner ducks and feed the goats. As it turns out, getting ol' rhubarb plants out of the ground is a tough job. The plant has a large tap root that runs pretty deep. Rhubarb is a tough, hardy perennial that once established will stay there for many years. I often love going to old farmhouses, almost all of them have a rhubarb patch put in many years ago by someones Grandmother. Nothing is prettier than the large crinkly dark green leaves of the plant set upon dozens of ruby red stalks.

Once the job was done we ate butter tarts and drank some tea while we talked farming.

The best part of the day (aside from hanging out with my farmer friend, Les) was there was no money exchanged. I bartered for my 20 or so rhubarb plants, a bale of hay, some sorrel plants and some twine with 3 chickens, onions, and a gooey snack.

What could be better than that?

Today is the fun job of planting my new rhubarb plants.