Amid fruit trees and gurgling aqua-ponic ponds sprouting celery and lettuce, dozens of gadgets such as water bottle filters and can openers covered tables, displayed for sale.
Thrive, which operates a showroom in Lake Forest, offered a wide variety of dried food, first aid kits, generators and candles, tools necessary to prepare for disasters.
Bluebird Canyon Farm provided the setting this past Saturday, May 30, for a mini disaster-preparedness convention, which included presentations by the Red Cross, Community Emergency Response Team members and Laguna Beach police department personnel.
By design or coincidence, the fair also marks the 10th anniversary of a costly Laguna Beach calamity, a landslide that destroyed a score of homes in Bluebird Canyon.
“We need to begin a dialogue about disaster,” said farm owner Scott Tinney, who hosts a handful of events each year on his property.
The preparedness event dovetails with the community education tenet of Tinney’s philosophy for the farm. Disaster response professionals and vendors encouraged visitors to take the first steps in preparation. Thrive founder and local resident Carrie Woodburn believes that getting started can be overwhelming thus Thrive offers a 72-hour starter kit as a first step.
Attendees listened, asked questions, shared stories about their own life saving experiences and toured the farm.
The second tenet of Tinney’s vision is design and fabrication center visible in the form of a woodshop with carpentry tools. There, Sawdust Festival artist Andrew Soliz, and a Bluebird Canyon resident, builds furniture and will soon host a woodworking class for school aged children. “Farms are labor needy; they’re a good place to learn skills using your hands,” said Tinney.
Guests roamed the vegetable beds, the orchard and hen house and snacked at a food truck offering quesadillas. Tinney’s desire to make Blubird Canyon farm an educational center seems to be coming along nicely.
