A good workout

It's been a while since I've had a reason to use a sledgehammer, my body is reminding me of that fact today. The occasion was the start of my volunteer time for the Shelter Valley Folk Festival that I mentioned in the previous blog entry. The grass has all been cut so the field looks like a large empty canvas waiting for something to happen.

The Henkel Family Lavender Farm

One of the early steps in the setup is to get the big-top tent setup. This is where the volunteer kitchen and dining area goes and next to it is the dish-washing station (another tent but much simpler to set up).  There are hundreds of volunteers so this is an important part of the overall setup.

At about 80 feet long, it's no small task. The tent is made up of 5 large sections, about 30 side poles (each with a 3 foot anchor stake and tie-down) and three huge poles in the middle. Measuring it all out was a challenge and it took the team a few tries to get it right. This led to stakes being hammered in only to be pulled out and moved and hammered back in. Definitely hard work. Erecting the large center poles is also a challenge as they need to lift the heavy tent and get the poles centered correctly based on the sides and ends. All in all it was about 5 hours from start to finish. I didn't have much time to photograph the process but here's an early photo and the end result.

Twenty more hours of volunteer time to go :-)

An abandoned truck