Now snug in his mother’s arms at the table with three generations of his family, baby Derek attended his first anti-quarry rally when he was just three weeks old.
He is the latest addition to a family that first tilled soil in the area in 1853, and he represents the hope for the future as his grandfather Ralph Armstrong and other activists turn their attention beyond Melancthon to secure permanent protection for prime farmland and source water for Derek and generations to follow.
On a cold February evening in Honeywood, at the Taters Not Craters party held to celebrate the demise of the mega quarry, a cheer erupts when three-week-old Derek Martin is held aloft like a newborn king. As the grandson of Redickville farmers Ralph and Mary Lynne Armstrong, tiny Derek represents the seventh generation of the family who took up farming here in 1853."
Read the entire article: http://www.ndact.com/index.php/qfood-a-water-firstq/fwaf-media-stories-magazinesnewspapers/740-the-battle-shifts-gear
Other wonderful articles by Tim on the quarry:
ReplyDeleteBirth of a Protest
http://www.inthehills.ca/2011/06/back/birth-of-a-protest/
Melancthon Quarry by the Numbers
http://www.inthehills.ca/2011/06/back/melancthon-mega-quarry-by-the-numbers/
High Stakes in High Country
http://www.inthehills.ca/2009/09/back/melancthon/
LOVE the sentence: Unlike hotly contested Caledon to the south, there was a scant population in Melancthon to oppose it – and who else had even heard of the place? One can imagine John Lowndes rubbing his palms over a PowerPoint presentation in a Boston boardroom.
ReplyDelete