Virtual Season #3: Cobble Hill, May 30-31.
CANCELLED
These pandemic shut-downs are starting to hit close to home. Literally. Cobble Hill is one of our “back yard sales” – where we can commute back and forth from Chemainus every day. This beautiful corner of the Cowichan Valley, just south of Duncan, has had a community hall since 1893, when the Temperance Hall was built to promote “godliness and abstinence”. Unsurprisingly, that fell into disrepair, and was completely abandonned when the current Agricultural Society Hall was finished in 1921.
We also have a long history with Cobble Hill, dating back to 2006, when we discovered that doing pop-ups in community halls was a crazy idea, but it just might work. The big 1921 structure is another in the long tradition of grand Vancouver Island Halls, but in the early days it was out of our range financially. Fortunately over the years several more buildings have been built on the Agricultural Society land, including the Youth (or Pixie) Hall, the Stu Armour Hall, and various barns and compounds, including the “donkey shed”.
It took some shoe-horning to fit into the Youth Hall, but the price was right. We had many great sales there, surrounded by the huge Douglas Firs, with a view out over the big hall and its grounds, to the Cobble Stone Pub (built, I like to think, on the ruins of the Temperance Hall). In 2014, the last time we did a full four day sale in Cobble Hill, we booked the big hall, and enjoyed soaking up its history. Last year we were back in the Youth Hall with a two day, rugs only sale, and, like Errington, the space proved challenging; this year we have rented, for the first time, the “other” Cobble Hill hall, the Stu Armour.
The full title of our new hall is the Stu Armour Memorial 4-H Barn. True to its name, when we went to size it up last November we were treated to the judging and crowning of the “best in class” poultry show at the Cowichan Valley Feather Fanciers marquee event. We were, alas, already on a flight bound for Bangkok a couple of weeks later when “Pigeon Fest 2019” presented by the Vancouver Island Fancy Pigeon Society lit up the venue.
Alas, many times over, the much-anticipated March plant sale, Seedy Saturday, was this year’s first covid casualty for Stu Armour. The biggest blow, however, is the cancelling of the annual Cobble Hill Fall Fair, an unbroken tradition for 103 years. We had the pleasure of having one of our events overlap with the Fall Fair, and that, perhaps, was when we really fell in love with Cobble Hill.
Thank you, once again, for coming to Kebe and Fast’s virtual Persian and Tribal Rug Sale at the Stu Armour Hall. Turn-out has been impressive – over half of our mailing list has clicked open to join us! And you have to say, the venue was great; there wasn’t even a trace of a silver-laced Wyandotte hackle feather in sight! Also many thanks to our friends and customers like Barbara, who last week “fell in love with a Hamidan” – if things work out, they will soon be moving in together! If you too need a colourful character to spice up your shelter-in-place, visit our rug gallery here:
Or drop us an email here, or a comment below.
Don’t forget: our virtual sale next week is the first full-sized event of the year, in the Kootenays at Warfield, between Trail and Rossland. It’s one you won’t want to miss, especially since we stop in Okanagan wine country on the way through. See you there!
