Cherry Lane Farm

I know Richmond isn't far from where we live, but it seems like such a long way away to me because we don't own a car. Public transport to Richmond I can do, but public transport within Richmond, forget it. I ended up taking a cab to Cherry Lane Farm and the cab driver said he's been driving thirty years and hadn't heard of the place. He got out of the cab and took in the lane of cherry trees and the vegetable fields. "Nice place," he said.

The farm is run by Milo and his grandson Miles. There is no sign. There is no store. They might sell to you, or they might just shrug their shoulders and say nothng's ready. Everything's organic. Strawberries are $2 a pound, and if you want me to divulge its secret location you'll have to drive me there so I can show you. Let me just say it is hemmed in by some pretty big box stores, and I'll leave it at that.

Peter says he thinks his mom used to buy strawberries there a long time ago. Yes, when Richmond was truly a garden city. Now it is the city of box stores, Asian malls and supercilious hotel clerks.

In the fall, there will be apples.


Milo planted a mulberry tree and a hazelnut tree for his bees.


After our lessons in beekeeping we headed to the Aberdeen Centre for a bit of mall culture. Going to Aberdeen Centre feels like being a tourist in your own city. Ullie and I putter around Daiso where every single item costs two dollars while the colored fountain in the courtyard plays the greatest hits from The Sound of Music. We have a snack at St. Germaine--a wiener bun for Ullie and a mushroom bacon bun for me. We take the elevator to the third floor where we look at the candy shops--I consider buying a green tea Kit Kat for the novelty of it, but I'm just not that into it. Ullie finds two vending machines he's interested in--the Tranformers screen-wiper thing and miniature transformers containing miniature cars. Then we discover the fake food shop--food and pet shop Ullie corrects me. In this shop called something like "Oh So Real," you can buy everything from fake sushi to phony fried eggs, ice cream, chocolates and fake cats and dogs covered with the hair of real dead pets. It's strange. We bought three cream puffs from the infamous Beard Papa booth which is a factory that pumps out fresh cream puffs all day. Ullie's favorite was the vanilla. I was sad that the green tea ones weren't available that day.

Finally we went to the gelati shop and Ullie had a Nutella (chocolate hedgehog) and Cream Puff gelato. The display case was full of mouthwatering ice cream cakes, but on close inspection I realized they had been purchased at the Oh So Real store, and were oh so fake.


It was a long day. We struggled to find the 98 b-line Bus stop in the Mad Max Rav-line construction zone and over-fed and over-stimulated we headed home in a hot, stuffy, overcrowded bus.